Dad told me: 'The only time I went abroad, they tried to kill me... So I stayed at home instead'

Call The Midwife star Stephen McGann and his brother Paul reveal their father Joe's incredible D-Day service as a Royal Naval 'beach commando' as part of a thrilling new podcast series for the 80th anniversary of the Normandy Landings

- Matt Nixson

CALL The Midwife star Stephen McGann has movingly revealed how his father was one of the first men ashore on D-Day and never fully recovered after being critically injured by a German grenade while assaulting an enemy strong point.

Having volunteered for special training, Joe McGann joined a team of Royal Navy "Beachhead Commandos" who were warned their mission as part of the 'firstwave' of attacks on June 6, 1944, was "tantamount to suicide".

The young Liverpudlian subsequently car ried a radio ashore to direct naval fire onto German strongholds along the five miles of Gold Beach, in Normandy.

His story has now been detailed by two of his famous sons, Stephen, 61, and his older brother, Doctor Who star Paul McGann, 64, as part of a new podcast series around this week's commemorations of the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

"Their commanding officer said to them, 'It's a suicide mission. You have to get your heads around it, but you're going to die, you're dispensable'," Stephen tells the Daily Express.

"The main army was going to come in after them. They were the guys who would run up the empty beach - the first wave over which the next wave would step, and the one after that, until the battle could be won.

"They were the forlorn hope of ages gone by - the first guys going into that little gap in the castle wall."

Incredibly, McGann's 20-year-old father made it ashore from his landing craft uninjured despite heavy fire from the German defenders, before zig-zagging up the beach with his kit towards the relative safety of the sea wall while taking pot shots with his rifle.

But having checked his radio, he realised it was shot to bits.

"It was useless. So his primary function of setting up a beach signal station was spent." So Joe joined a group of British soldiers clearing a defensive position to fight their way off the beach.