"Bryan Samain, who has died aged 99, was a Royal Marines officer who chronicled the deeds of 45 (Royal Marines) Commando from its landings on the beaches of Normandy in June 1944 to the Baltic coast and Germany’s surrender in May 1945. On D-Day, June 6 1944, Samain was the intelligence officer of his commando when it landed on “Queen Red”, the sector of Sword beach opposite Hermanville-sur-Mer and the most easterly of the allied landings on Normandy. Bryan Charles William Samain was born in Chelmsford on January 14 1925. His father died when Bryan was five and he was brought up by his stepfather, 2nd Lt Archie Sprangle, RFC, DFC. He was educated at the Royal Masonic School, Bushey, where he was recruited into the Admiralty’s Y scheme for attracting suitable schoolboys, and he volunteered for service with the Royal Marines, joining 45 Commando as a second lieutenant on November 5 1943. Postwar, he was a journalist with the Daily Sketch and Sydney Daily Mirror before becoming a PR man in the 1950s, holding senior roles in communications with the steel company Richard Thomas & Baldwins, the construction firms Cementation and Costain, Ford, and EMI." Bryan Samain, Royal Marines officer who left a vivid account of the D-Day landings – obituary (msn.com)