John Hughes wonders why Bushy Park is usually cited as the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force's (SHAEF) planning base in the run-up to D-Day.

He said: "In fact, the SHAEF top brass were at St Paul's School, Hammersmith. Perhaps that was kept so secret that many people still don't know about it."

He was an 18-year-old Royal Army Service Corps driver when he was ordered to take one of three lorries to the school from his army base near Winchester, and bring back items awaiting collection there.

He said: "There were six of us three drivers, two corporals and a sergeant in charge. We collected the stuff from an area on the lower ground floor.

"Much of it was in egg boxes, which were large and wooden in those days. The rest was in mail bags. They were open at the top, and we could see they were filled with photographs.

"Apparently the Government had put out an appeal for pre-war holiday snaps of the Normandy beaches to help them get the lie of the land.

"As we hauled the stuff out I looked into a room and saw the top brass sitting at a long table. There was Churchill, Montgomery, Eisenhower, Air Marshal Tedder, and other key figures."

The men took their cargo to Southwick House near Portmouth, which forms part of HMS Dryad. They later discovered the egg boxes contained sections of a huge relief map, with details of the Normandy beaches and the south coast ports from Kent to Dorset.

Mr Hughes said: "The map was in pieces about two-foot square, and two civilian employees from a toy-making firm were drafted in to put them together. They were there for two months and not allowed home for security reasons."

In the cellars of Southwick House he saw a team of Wrens, all telephonists, attached to SHAEF.

Mr Hughes said: "It was so hot down there that they had stripped down to their knickers."

He is still bitter at the way the Government tore away iron railings and gates from all over the UK, and persuaded people to sacrifice their saucepans and other metal utensils as a contribution to the war effort. He said: "It was a lie, designed to make people feel involved. In fact, those railings and saucepans were dumped in the North Sea. I saw the barges laden with them go from Lowestoft and come back empty."

jsampson@london.newsquest.co.uk