Episode 2 Tankies: Tank Heroes of World War II


Episode 2

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The Second World War was the ultimate conflict of the machine age.

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And this machine was an iconic symbol,

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the decisive weapon of the war on land.

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From North Africa to the Russian front,

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the tank ruled the battlefield

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and if you didn't master armoured warfare, you faced annihilation.

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GUNFIRE

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It's quite terrifying, really, because

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you can see these flashes from the enemy's guns

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in the distance and you think,

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any minute, one of them is going to hit me.

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'Tanks were at the beginning of the war and the end,

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'giving their crews a unique view of the entire conflict,

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'from the fall of France to North Africa, D-Day

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'and final victory in Germany.'

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As a trainee officer in the Royal Tank Regiment,

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I was indoctrinated in their exploits.

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And who could fail to have been awe-inspired

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by the way those men faced death, time and time again,

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in these iron-clad monsters?

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When I first went in,

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I thought it was going to be great fun and all that,

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'but I realised it wasn't.

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'This tank near me, I saw it just blown to bits...

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'A couple of my mates were in that.'

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It was terrible.

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'This is the story of six remarkable men

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'from one armoured unit,

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'The 5th Royal Tank Regiment, 5RTR,

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'or to those who really knew them really well,

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'The Filthy 5th.

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'Their war is brought to life,

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'not only by the last surviving veterans,

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'but also by previously unseen letters and diaries,

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'that give us a real insight into the visceral reality

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'of tank warfare.'

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Each man had his own story.

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Some were wounded, some captured, and some were killed.

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A few, very few, made it all the way through.

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Taken together, those accounts form a unique picture of the war.

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EXPLOSIONS

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'For three long years,

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'the men of the 5th Tanks had been fighting

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'in the deserts of North Africa,

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'as part of 7th Armoured Division, The Desert Rats.

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'Inside their tanks, facing a sudden, fiery death,

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'the crews formed close friendships,

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'like the one between Bill Chorley and Bob Lay.

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'They'd joined the 5th at the same time in 1942.

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'The bond you established,

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'was not the normal relationships of friends.'

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You were a partnership,

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it was closer than friendship. And, er...

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..that crew, um...

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..were friends for life.

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'The Allied victory at Alamein in November 1942,

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'was a turning point in the war.

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'The Desert Rats became celebrated heroes

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'and the 5th Tanks returned home to Britain

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'expecting a well-earned rest.'

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'Instead, Montgomery, architect of that desert victory,

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'sent them in secret to a run-down camp in Norfolk

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'called Shakers Wood to prepare for a new fight,

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'one that would require very different skills

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'to the ones they'd learned in North Africa.'

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'The 5th Tanks were now going to spearhead

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'the invasion of Europe, D-Day.

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'Sergeant Gerry Solomon, a former greengrocer,

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'had survived the last three years of combat in the desert.

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'He didn't relish the prospect

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'of a murderous, close-quarters fight in Normandy.'

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We thought we'd had enough. Let somebody else have a go.

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But you see, they wanted seasoned troops

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and there weren't many seasoned troops.

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'What I find extraordinary is that even by this stage in 1944,

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'after nearly five years of war,'

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less than half of the British army had seen active combat.

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They were people in support units, garrisons and training bases.

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The 5th Tanks on the other hand,

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had fought all the way through North Africa and Italy.

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They felt they'd done their bit and who can blame them?

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But the army had other ideas.

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They were tried and tested

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and Monty knew he could rely on them to deliver.

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'Before D-Day, the 5th Tanks received hundreds of new recruits.

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'The first was 19-year-old Roy Dixon,

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'a 2nd Lieutenant fresh from officer training,

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'making him the only man without the Africa Star campaign medal,

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'yet expected to lead veterans.'

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'Fitting into 5RTR was a little bit of a problem,

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'because they had had so much more experience

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'and they all knew each other well'

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and it didn't help that they spoke

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in a sort of special language of their own, partly Arabic.

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And so one did feel a bit of an outsider,

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but they were all extremely friendly.

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'The battalion didn't just get new men as it was re-built for D-Day.

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'The 5th Tanks and their fellow Desert Rats

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'also took delivery of a brand new fighting machine.'

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When the soldiers saw their new British made Cromwell tanks,

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they were aghast. There was so much wrong with it.

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The first thing, obvious to the eye, is that so much of the armour,

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unlike many other tanks around by that time,

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is flat on towards the enemy.

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And that meant that a shell striking it

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was much less likely to glance off.

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There was a serious problem with the gun too.

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The 75mm gun performed well enough against Mark IIIs

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and Mark IVs in the desert,

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but it simply lacked the punch

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to defeat the latest German heavy Tiger tanks.

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'29-year-old Scotsman, Sergeant Jake Wardrop,

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'one of The Fifth's hardened Tank Commanders,

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'was all too aware of the differences

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'between the new British and German tanks.

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'In a remarkably candid diary he kept throughout the war,

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'he was scathing...'

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"The big difference between the Cromwell and the Tiger

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"made it possible for the Boche to stand back at 2000 metres

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"and pick the Cromwells off like a rifle range.

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"At that distance, the 75 on the Cromwell

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"would not look at the four inch armour of a Tiger,

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"while the long barrelled 88

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"tore through the Cromwell, like a knife through butter."

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Getting into the Cromwell, typical British tank, is a tight fit.

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But of course, for the men, it was getting out

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that was more important, because many had escaped

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with seconds to spare from burning tanks in the desert.

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And more generally, they'd got used to the bigger American tanks,

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they were roomier inside,

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and coming back to this was like coming back to a tiny flat.

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'Hadn't they listened to our experiences in the desert?

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'Hadn't they learned anything?'

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I expressed my views very forcefully

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and eventually I was told that if I said any more

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I'd be court marshalled.

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GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS

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'1944, on June 6th,

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'136,000 US, British and Canadian troops

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'land on the beaches of Normandy.'

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'It's the biggest amphibious landing ever attempted.

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'D-Day has dawned at last.

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'On Gold Beach,

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'the 50th Northumbrian Division, led the assault

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'and captured it after a fierce fight

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'during which over 400 were killed, wounded or missing.'

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'The 5th tanks were still out at sea.

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'They had been delayed by bad weather.'

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And it wasn't until 3pm the next day, June 7th,

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that they came thundering across these sands.

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'80 tanks and 730 men, all keyed-up...

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'only to find the battle for the beach was already over.'

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'It wasn't what I expected at all.'

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I imagined fighting my way up the beach, but it didn't happen to me.

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'The invasion had taken the Germans completely by surprise.

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'In command was the 5th Tank's old foe, Erwin Rommel.

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'In 1940, he'd chased them out of France. They, in turn,

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'had beaten the so-called Desert Fox in North Africa.

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'Rushing back from his wife's birthday in Germany,

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'Rommel was now to meet with Montgomery and the 5th Tanks

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'for the decisive battle.'

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Rommel knew he had to contain the British

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and other landing forces, before throwing them back into the sea.

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He feared that unless he managed that quickly,

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Allied air superiority would be so overwhelming

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that his own armoured forces would be destroyed

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before they could come into action

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and that would make Germany's defeat inevitable.

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'Both Montgomery and Rommel knew the city of Caen

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'was central to the battle for Normandy.

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'The Allies had to capture this important road hub.

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'Doing so would mean breaking out of the bridgehead

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'and through the German defences.'

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'Montgomery had nurtured some hope of capturing Caen on D-Day.

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'But it proved much tougher than that,

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'and the city's fate became central to the Normandy campaign.

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'Three days on,

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'the Allies only had a toe-hold a few miles deep,

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'having failed to break out through German lines containing them,

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'or advance inland as far as planned.'

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'New boy, Roy Dixon, was one of the first in 5th Tanks to see action.'

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'The first encounter we had was about a mile,'

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a mile and a half away from the beach, where a party of Germans,

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or a group of Germans had been, sort of bypassed

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by the initial infantry and they were holding out for themselves.

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And we had to attack them.

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DISTANT GUNFIRE

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'We came to this great big chateaux, there were Germans in there

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'and they were rattling away with them machine guns.'

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Well, I...I badly wanted to fire a shot into the...

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into the chateaux, but no, they wouldn't let me do that.

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They said, "Oh, no, you can't do that."

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-HE LAUGHS

-Not cricket, I suppose!

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DISTANT GUNFIRE

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'They put up, actually, quite a good fight,

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'including climbing onto one of the tanks.'

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So, a little fear, not very bad,

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but a nice little action just to get us used to it really,

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so we knew what was going on.

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'The Normandy terrain came as a real shock

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'to desert veterans in the 5th.'

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Out in North Africa, if the enemy got within 500 metres of you,

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that was getting too near.

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Whereas with these hedges, there could be Germans on the other side

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'and you wouldn't even know about it.'

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GUNFIRE

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'This close terrain was a frightening new experience

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'for many of the 5th Tank's old sweats,

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'and some were simply unable to cope.'

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'Corporal Bridges, he was a desert veteran...'

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he came to me and said, "I'm terribly sorry about this,

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"but I really can't go on, I've had it in a big way.

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"I was shaking like a leaf and I can't face doing another day."

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So I said -

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this is one o'clock in the morning of course by this time -

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so I said, "Well, OK,

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"but there's obviously nothing I can do about it at this time of night.

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"We're going to have to go off in the morning.

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"But I will do my best to see if we can get you replaced the next day."

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'The next day we moved off

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'and the first shot that was fired hit at the turret, ring level...

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'and took half of him off, killed instantly.

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'And so I then ran across to see what had happened,'

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climbed up onto this tank and looked down

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and not a very good sight to see, as you can imagine.

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The whole place pouring in blood and a headless body at the bottom...

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Very nasty indeed. That was my first initiation,

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that's when I realised that this war wasn't going to be so much fun.

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Inside you are safer, but there is a distinct limit to what you can see

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through these vision blocks, so most of the commanders kept their heads

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out of the turret.

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Now, that was more dangerous, of course,

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but it gave them a much better idea of what was going on around them.

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GUNFIRE

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'And that was vital in these narrow lanes and high hedgerows,

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'called "bocage", because it was ideal country to ambush tanks.'

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EXPLOSIONS

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Any hedgerow could be concealing a Panzer or an infantryman,

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armed with one of these, the Panzerfaust.

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It's a handheld anti-tank weapon.

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Germany produced more than six million of these during the war.

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This variant has a range of 60 metres.

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Now, that would be pathetically inadequate in the desert.

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You'd be killed before you could get that near.

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But in the close country of Europe,

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'it allowed the humble infantryman the chance

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'to take out any Allied armoured vehicle.

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'And for many in the 5th tanks, it proved to be their undoing.'

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EXPLOSIONS

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The Panzefaust imploded into the tank, blew it up.

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You were all finished if that hit.

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'So, you were virtually with the infantry all the time,

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'you needed infantry to protect you.'

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Breaking out of the bocage to the open countryside beyond was vital

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if the pent-up Allied armour was to flow as an unstoppable torrent.

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The alternative was unthinkable.

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German containment of the Allied bridgehead,

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a war of attrition in the hedgerows

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and in the worst-case scenario, failure.

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'One week after D-Day,

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the Americans forced a gap in the German front line

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'and an opportunity appeared to break out towards the city of Caen.

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'Montgomery seized his chance to open up the battle

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'and rout the Germans.

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'The 7th Armoured Division, including 5th Tanks,

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'was ordered to push through the gap as fast as possible.'

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They advanced six miles through the Norman countryside

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and arrived along this high street in Villers-Bocage.

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The people of the town came to their balconies and open windows

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to cheer the British tanks and throw flowers on them.

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The Commander of that leading battle group felt they'd done it

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and ordered everybody to stop while the men made tea.

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The 5th Tanks meanwhile, the second battle group

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were on a nearby hillside,

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oblivious to the fact that a disaster was about to unfold.

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'So far, the dreaded German Tiger tank

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'had failed to make an appearance in Normandy,

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'but now it was to make its spectacular debut,

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'confirming the worst fears about the Cromwell tank's vulnerability

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'and lack of fire power.'

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'You knew very well that if you came up against a Tiger,

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'you weren't going to be able to penetrate it.'

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So you've got to blooming well avoid it. That's all there was to it.

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EXPLOSIONS

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'A Tiger tank appeared, commanded by Michael Wittmann,

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'a Panzer ace with 137 kills to his credit.

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'With this talent for mayhem, he was quick to seize his chance.'

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It was along this road that Wittmann sowed a trail of destruction.

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Appearing here with a couple of other Tigers,

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he first engaged the rear-most tanks of the leading British group,

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who were up on that hill.

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That was to stop them taking any further part in what was to follow.

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He then set off down this road,

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engaging half-tracks and Cromwells as he went.

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Within minutes, 25 British vehicles were ablaze.

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EXPLOSIONS

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In this particular spot,

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one of the British tanks managed to stalk the German vehicle.

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They came up to within 100 metres of the back of Wittmann's tank

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and fired twice at it.

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They watched their own shells bounce off,

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and then in horror,

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as the German tank traversed its turret to the rear,

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pointed its 88mm gun at them and opened up,

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destroying the Cromwell instantly.

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EXPLOSION

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'Almost single-handedly, Wittmann had brought

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'the British Army's advance in Normandy to a halt.'

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JAKE WARDROP: "I hold the design of the Cromwell tank

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"and the men who ordered its production personally responsible

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"for the death of hundreds of men

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"who fought in those tanks and had a lot more guts than common sense."

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'British and German reinforcements, including more Tiger tanks,

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'now poured in to the village, feeding the fierce fight there.

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'The British decided to pull back.

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'The 5th Tanks on the hillside

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'waited nervously, as the sounds of battle came closer.'

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DISTANT GUNFIRE

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'We just didn't quite know what was going on.

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'We knew there were Tiger tanks there.

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'That was all we knew about it.'

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And we were unaware of what really a serious situation it was.

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We didn't realise that they were being massacred in the town

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and a whole regiment had gone. We didn't realise that at all.

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'Now it was the turn of 5th Tanks to face the formidable Tiger.

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'But, as well as Cromwells,

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'they were equipped with another new tank, the British Sherman Firefly.'

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Now, this is an American copy,

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but the Firefly combined the proven Sherman hull

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with a powerful 17 pounder anti-tank gun.

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It was such a beast of a weapon,

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that it fired its anti-tank projectile

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at three times the speed of sound.

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And it could punch a hole in any German tank of the time.

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GUNFIRE

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'The Sherman Firefly, yes, very good tank...'

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The 17 pounder, yeah.

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That's...that was an entirely new gun.

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Muzzle velocity, 2,000 feet per second.

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That's going some.

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'That weapon produced such a flash and bang'

0:20:590:21:03

that it could easily give away the position of the tank.

0:21:030:21:07

And for the crew inside the turret,

0:21:070:21:09

they could be temporarily blinded by that blast,

0:21:090:21:12

or even have their hair singed. It all made it vital

0:21:120:21:16

to get that first round on target accurately.

0:21:160:21:20

'When we received these new Sherman 17-pounders, the Firefly,'

0:21:230:21:28

the decision was made

0:21:280:21:30

that troops would consist of three Cromwells and one Sherman.

0:21:300:21:34

So that gave one a really good hitting power within the troop.

0:21:340:21:39

'But of course, that's all very well,'

0:21:430:21:45

but when tanks get spread out in battle,

0:21:450:21:49

the Firefly's not where you want it when you need it.

0:21:490:21:53

But it was a vast improvement and it did knock out Tigers.

0:21:530:21:56

'And using the Sherman itself also was a mixed blessing.

0:21:580:22:02

'The British Army knew the tank very well,'

0:22:020:22:05

but it was in Normandy that it was discovered just how easily

0:22:050:22:09

it set fire when it was hit or brewed up,

0:22:090:22:12

leaving the British crews to nickname them Ronsons

0:22:120:22:15

after the popular lighter

0:22:150:22:17

and the Germans to dub them Tommy Cookers.

0:22:170:22:19

'The one dozen Sherman Fireflies in the 5th Tanks

0:22:210:22:24

'were commanded by its most experienced sergeants and corporals,

0:22:240:22:28

'all of them desert veterans,

0:22:280:22:30

'including Gerry Solomon and Jake Wardrop.'

0:22:300:22:34

OK, movement spotted. Use the AP rounds.

0:22:340:22:37

JAKE WARDROP: "Back on our front, somebody had seen a couple of Tigers

0:22:370:22:40

"and we got ready to engage them.

0:22:400:22:43

"By sitting on top of the turret and looking through the trees,

0:22:430:22:47

"I could see the thing about 150 yards away.

0:22:470:22:50

"It was closer now so I said, 'Well, fire anyhow,

0:22:510:22:55

"'or the bloody thing will be alongside.'

0:22:550:22:57

"Like the stout lad he is,

0:22:570:23:00

"no sooner had the empty case rattled on the floor,

0:23:000:23:03

"than Woody had slammed another one up."

0:23:030:23:05

"The Tiger halted now,

0:23:050:23:07

"so I gave the gunner aim little left and fire again.

0:23:070:23:11

"They had the wind up on the Tiger by now

0:23:110:23:14

"and it was reversing as fast as it could go.

0:23:140:23:17

"I was kicking myself for not brewing it up,

0:23:170:23:20

"but we had twisted the tail of the big brave Tiger

0:23:200:23:23

"and he had run away and my morale was way up."

0:23:230:23:27

Well, whether or not 5th Tanks hit any of the Tigers

0:23:270:23:30

moving up that valley, German records show 16 of them

0:23:300:23:34

were put out of action during the three days

0:23:340:23:37

of the Villers-Bocage battle. Nine of those Tigers destroyed.

0:23:370:23:42

A couple of dozen other types of German tanks were also knocked out.

0:23:420:23:46

'But it wasn't just Panzers that the 5th Tanks had to face.

0:23:500:23:54

'The Germans also threw their infantry into the battle.'

0:23:540:23:57

'I got out of the tank to water the grass,'

0:23:590:24:03

Jock got out...

0:24:030:24:04

..and did the same,

0:24:060:24:08

and when he got back in and was adjusting his overcoat,

0:24:080:24:11

he got a dum-dum bullet to his head.

0:24:110:24:13

There were snipers about.

0:24:140:24:17

So I count myself lucky.

0:24:170:24:18

'The battle raged for two days

0:24:210:24:24

'and as the death of Bob's commander demonstrated,

0:24:240:24:27

'it was far too risky to leave the protection of the tank.'

0:24:270:24:32

When you're closed down inside for long periods,

0:24:330:24:36

it can be very tough mentally as well as physically.

0:24:360:24:40

I remember doing it for 20 hours on a Cold War exercise in Germany

0:24:400:24:45

and pretty soon, because I couldn't stand up or stretch,

0:24:450:24:49

I was very uncomfortable.

0:24:490:24:51

My legs and the knee were singing with pain

0:24:510:24:54

and there was a voice in my head, pleading with me to get out.

0:24:540:24:58

In Normandy, because of the threat of artillery and snipers,

0:24:580:25:02

they had to do it for long periods

0:25:020:25:05

and of course the smell must have been pretty terrible,

0:25:050:25:08

people were getting on one another's nerves

0:25:080:25:10

and having to urinate into shell cases.

0:25:100:25:13

Must have been a nightmare.

0:25:130:25:14

'Bill Chorley had abandoned his tank when it broke down.

0:25:170:25:20

'He'd seen Cromwell crews, including his own commander,

0:25:200:25:24

'abandon their vehicles in panic when the Tigers appeared.

0:25:240:25:28

'Now Bill, just 23 years old that day,

0:25:280:25:31

'tried to sneak back to his own lines with two other crew members.'

0:25:310:25:36

BILL: "We crept through the hedgerows, which took a long time,

0:25:360:25:39

"until we came to the main road.

0:25:390:25:41

"It seemed all quiet, so I got up and suddenly heard,

0:25:410:25:45

"Hande hoch, Englander!

0:25:450:25:47

"Followed by a burst of machine gun fire.

0:25:470:25:50

"We had no weapons, so had to surrender.

0:25:500:25:52

I heard a burst of mauser fire and I thought, God, they've got him

0:25:530:26:00

and I firmly believed that he'd been killed.

0:26:000:26:03

'Devastated, absolutely, he was...'

0:26:090:26:12

He was my best friend... Marvellous chap as well.

0:26:120:26:16

Er, but...

0:26:160:26:18

..by the time we'd reached the Seine,

0:26:200:26:22

I'd lost all my friends.

0:26:220:26:25

When that happens, you're on your own.

0:26:250:26:28

'Allied aircraft dominated the skies over Normandy,

0:26:300:26:33

'striking fear into the Germans.

0:26:330:26:36

'5th Tanks now witnessed a massive air attack on Villers-Bocage,

0:26:360:26:40

'where earlier that day,

0:26:400:26:42

'French civilians had greeted the triumphant British.'

0:26:420:26:45

EXPLOSIONS

0:26:450:26:47

'They just stonked the place, flattened it altogether.

0:26:530:26:56

'You couldn't mess about with things like that,

0:26:560:26:59

'you had to get on with it. It was desperate times...'

0:26:590:27:03

We were in a bridgehead and wanted to get out...

0:27:030:27:07

and, you know, you couldn't worry about details like that.

0:27:070:27:12

'If the RAF came and hit the target, well,

0:27:120:27:15

'so be it. As far as we were concerned, it was a good thing.'

0:27:150:27:19

Because war is war and there's no half measures.

0:27:190:27:23

'Allied air power was a blunt instrument.

0:27:290:27:32

'Its bombs killed about 70,000 French people.

0:27:320:27:36

'A third more killed by accident than the British suffered

0:27:360:27:40

'from the Luftwaffe's deliberate bombing during the blitz.'

0:27:400:27:43

'British Infantry divisions had failed to link up

0:27:510:27:55

'with the 5th Tanks and 7th Armoured Division.

0:27:550:27:58

'So on June 14th, the order came to retreat,

0:27:580:28:01

'giving up all the ground they'd captured over the past days.

0:28:010:28:06

'They'd inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans,

0:28:060:28:08

'but they were isolated six miles forward of Allied lines.

0:28:080:28:13

'It was feared only a matter of time

0:28:130:28:15

'before they'd run out of supplies.

0:28:150:28:17

'5th Tanks, acting as rearguard, was the last to leave.'

0:28:190:28:22

'Captain Arthur Crickmay was the 5th Tank's Adjutant,

0:28:260:28:30

'right-hand man of the battalion's Commanding Officer.

0:28:300:28:34

'He'd been fighting since 1939

0:28:340:28:36

'and had won the military cross for bravery.'

0:28:360:28:39

ARTHUR: "We moved off in pitch dark and clouds of choking dust,

0:28:390:28:43

"to the steady clanking of tracks

0:28:430:28:46

"and the dull roar of Rolls Royce engines.

0:28:460:28:49

"It seemed too much to expect of the enemy to let us go unmolested.

0:28:490:28:53

"But they did. They'd had enough."

0:28:530:28:55

The true vision of Arthur

0:29:010:29:03

was somebody who was absolutely immaculate.

0:29:030:29:05

We hadn't had any sleep for about five nights,

0:29:070:29:09

we had tablets to keep ourselves awake

0:29:090:29:12

and when we pulled out, most people flopped out and went to sleep

0:29:120:29:16

and I was still on my feet.

0:29:160:29:17

So I was required to go to Arthur's tank,

0:29:170:29:22

and Arthur was shaving.

0:29:220:29:24

And so there he goes, Americans arrived.

0:29:240:29:28

And one wanted to know what the position was.

0:29:280:29:32

And Arthur finished his shaving

0:29:320:29:35

and slowly told them,

0:29:350:29:39

quite quietly and slowly, what was happening.

0:29:390:29:42

But he wasn't going to be rushed by any Americans while he was shaving.

0:29:420:29:47

HE CHUCKLES

0:29:470:29:49

So what actually happened here?

0:29:530:29:55

Well, on the morning of the 13th, no doubt about it,

0:29:550:29:58

the 7th Armoured Division took a beating.

0:29:580:30:00

But later that day, and on the 14th of June,

0:30:000:30:04

it was the Germans who got the drubbing.

0:30:040:30:07

So in my view, Villers-Bocage was a score draw.

0:30:070:30:11

The Germans quite understandably made great propaganda play

0:30:110:30:15

out of Wittmann's actions,

0:30:150:30:17

and painted it as a great British defeat.

0:30:170:30:20

Far less understandable or forgivable was the fact that

0:30:200:30:24

certain British armchair critics took the same line.

0:30:240:30:28

The commanders of the 7th Armoured Division were sacked,

0:30:280:30:31

despite the fact that it was the infantry who failed to follow up

0:30:310:30:36

on their gains.

0:30:360:30:37

And some historians also unforgivably have bought the line

0:30:370:30:42

that, after this battle, the 7th Armoured Division was traumatised,

0:30:420:30:46

sticky, afraid to get into a fight.

0:30:460:30:48

There are criticisms of the 5th Tanks for being over-cautious.

0:30:510:30:56

But when you had the experience that we had,

0:30:570:31:01

you know when to go and when not to go.

0:31:010:31:05

And, er...

0:31:050:31:07

..that experience saved many lives.

0:31:090:31:11

We'd moved from a different type of terrain for warfare.

0:31:120:31:16

It was open desert, but here we were close country.

0:31:160:31:20

That was why we were cautious.

0:31:200:31:22

Stalking their enemies through the Normandy countryside,

0:31:240:31:28

many of the tank soldiers were struggling with inner demons.

0:31:280:31:32

Today we would call it post-traumatic stress.

0:31:320:31:35

Jake Wardrop, in his diary, mentions more than once

0:31:350:31:38

attacks of the jitters.

0:31:380:31:40

Mastering those feelings of fear and panic

0:31:400:31:44

was one of the biggest challenges facing the veteran tank commanders.

0:31:440:31:48

I think the general feeling amongst most fighting men was

0:31:490:31:53

that people only have a certain amount of stamina,

0:31:530:31:55

and when it's run out, that's it.

0:31:550:31:58

And you're lucky if you've got the stamina to keep going.

0:31:580:32:01

So we didn't blame them, really, when their nerves went.

0:32:010:32:06

Scared? Oh, yes. Everybody was scared.

0:32:070:32:10

Eventually I got to the stage where I was saying to myself,

0:32:100:32:16

"You keep getting away with it.

0:32:160:32:17

"God, you must have a charmed life."

0:32:170:32:20

And then I thought...

0:32:200:32:23

then later I thought to myself,

0:32:230:32:25

"Yeah, but my odds are getting shorter, surely."

0:32:250:32:28

Having failed to surround the city of Caen,

0:32:290:32:32

the 5th Tanks were pulled out of the front line for rest and to resupply.

0:32:320:32:37

"There was a cinema and baths in Bayeux which we visited,

0:32:380:32:42

"and in the improving weather we lay around and started to get tanned.

0:32:420:32:46

"At night we just simply sat around and read, wrote letters

0:32:460:32:50

"and took things easy."

0:32:500:32:51

GUNFIRE

0:32:570:33:00

Thirteen days after D-day, on the 19th of June,

0:33:010:33:04

a devastating storm hit the Channel.

0:33:040:33:07

Supplies fell to a trickle.

0:33:090:33:11

And since the 5th Tanks alone needed 650 tonnes of fuel, ammunition

0:33:110:33:16

and rations each day in combat, many operations had to be postponed.

0:33:160:33:21

While they rested, in the west, American units,

0:33:220:33:26

some with just three days of ammunition left,

0:33:260:33:28

were painfully grinding their way south against fierce resistance.

0:33:280:33:32

In the east, Monty kept up the war of attrition in the hedgerows,

0:33:350:33:39

trying to capture Caen and break out of the bridgehead.

0:33:390:33:43

With losses continuing day after day,

0:33:480:33:50

British infantry casualty rates were approaching those

0:33:500:33:53

of the First World War.

0:33:530:33:55

After years of fighting and worldwide commitments,

0:33:550:33:59

Britain was running out of foot soldiers.

0:33:590:34:02

Pressure was on Montgomery to get a move on.

0:34:020:34:05

On the 8th and 9th of July, he ordered a massive aerial bombardment

0:34:090:34:14

that devastated Caen and its civilian population.

0:34:140:34:17

After three major offensives

0:34:190:34:22

and 30 days of bloody fighting,

0:34:220:34:24

the city he'd hoped to take on D-day itself finally fell.

0:34:240:34:29

One week later, the Germans suffered another serious blow.

0:34:320:34:37

General Rommel had always feared Allied air superiority

0:34:370:34:41

and now he became one of its victims, seriously wounded

0:34:410:34:45

when his staff car was strafed by British fighters.

0:34:450:34:48

His war was over, but for the 5th Tanks

0:34:480:34:51

and others at the front, it continued.

0:34:510:34:53

General Montgomery called forward the Desert Rats

0:34:530:34:57

to play a key part in a coming offensive.

0:34:570:34:59

Operation Goodwood was to be a tank thrust across

0:35:020:35:06

the open countryside beyond Caen.

0:35:060:35:09

After weeks of suffering by his infantry, Montgomery intended

0:35:090:35:13

to use all three of his armoured divisions

0:35:130:35:16

to punch his way out of the bridgehead.

0:35:160:35:18

Over 1,000 tanks,

0:35:210:35:24

more than 60,000 infantry

0:35:240:35:27

and 700 pieces of artillery

0:35:270:35:31

guided into position, and then the rumble of thunder.

0:35:310:35:35

In the distance, 2,000 Allied bombers,

0:35:360:35:39

the largest number ever launched in support of ground forces,

0:35:390:35:43

pummelled the Norman fields.

0:35:430:35:45

BOMBS WHIR

0:35:450:35:47

We saw the bombing raid which preceded the Goodwood.

0:35:520:35:57

And that was enormous.

0:35:570:35:59

And you would have thought nobody could have lived through it.

0:35:590:36:04

In places, 56-tonne Tigers were hurled upside down.

0:36:040:36:09

German infantry went mad.

0:36:090:36:11

Some even committed suicide.

0:36:110:36:13

So began Operation Goodwood,

0:36:150:36:17

the biggest tank attack in the history of the British Army.

0:36:170:36:21

SOUND OF EXPLOSIONS

0:36:230:36:26

Today, the ground over which Goodwood was fought

0:36:290:36:32

is pretty much unchanged.

0:36:320:36:33

From this higher ground, the Germans had a grandstand view

0:36:330:36:37

as all three British armoured divisions in Normandy advanced,

0:36:370:36:42

from behind me, along an axis in line with these rows of crops.

0:36:420:36:47

The Germans had prepared defences, the villages had been fortified.

0:36:480:36:53

And the woods concealed scores of the feared 88mm anti-tank guns.

0:36:560:37:02

An 88 can knock out a Cromwell at 2,000 yards.

0:37:080:37:13

One 88 covers 4,000 yards.

0:37:130:37:15

They had lots of them together with Panthers and Tigers.

0:37:150:37:19

We were really up against it.

0:37:190:37:21

EXPLOSIONS

0:37:210:37:23

You know it's a 88 because you hear a tearing of paper.

0:37:250:37:28

And you move.

0:37:300:37:32

If you didn't hear it...

0:37:320:37:34

that was the end of you.

0:37:340:37:36

Despite the huge aerial bombardment, the Germans had hardly been harmed.

0:37:390:37:44

They had been expecting an attack for days

0:37:440:37:47

and had dug in five lines of defence,

0:37:470:37:50

stretching nine miles deep.

0:37:500:37:52

When Goodwood started, it's been likened to the French cavalry attack

0:37:520:37:57

at Agincourt or the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava.

0:37:570:38:01

The British advanced down a narrow corridor of death.

0:38:010:38:05

On the first day of Goodwood, nearly 200 Allied tanks were knocked out.

0:38:080:38:14

But 5th Tanks, along with the rest of 7th Armoured Division,

0:38:140:38:17

the most experienced of the three armoured divisions taking part,

0:38:170:38:21

was late getting to the fight.

0:38:210:38:23

They were stuck in a huge traffic jam near the Orne River.

0:38:230:38:28

But on day two of the battle, it was their turn to run the gauntlet

0:38:280:38:32

with 5th Tanks leading the way.

0:38:320:38:35

Going up a slope and looking down the other side,

0:38:350:38:38

my main thing was horror,

0:38:380:38:41

seeing a whole squadron of Shermans, in squadron formation, knocked out.

0:38:410:38:47

The place was littered with burning tanks everywhere

0:38:510:38:54

and there were bodies everywhere as well.

0:38:540:38:57

It was all very unpleasant indeed.

0:38:570:38:59

There were sort of half bodies around the place,

0:38:590:39:01

where people had been blown up. It was all very, very nasty.

0:39:010:39:05

As Jake Wardrop's troop approached a village across open fields,

0:39:070:39:12

an anti-tank gun concealed in woods opened fire.

0:39:120:39:15

"Then it happened.

0:39:170:39:19

"There was a loud thud behind, the tank slowed and stopped

0:39:190:39:23

"and the turret was full of flames,

0:39:230:39:25

"so I yelled, 'Jump!' and bailed for it.

0:39:250:39:28

"Poor Woody had been burned on the face and hands,

0:39:280:39:32

"they were starting to blister.

0:39:320:39:34

"We had lost all our kit."

0:39:340:39:36

For its crew, a tank is also a mobile home.

0:39:410:39:45

And when Jake Wardrop's Firefly went up in flames in this field,

0:39:450:39:50

they lost all their possessions. He was particularly upset

0:39:500:39:54

about losing a blue sweater he'd had since the desert battles,

0:39:540:39:58

and some chapters from his diary.

0:39:580:40:01

And they weren't the only people to get burnt out

0:40:010:40:04

of their vehicle that day.

0:40:040:40:06

The 5th lost three other tanks too,

0:40:060:40:09

and Roy Dixon had a close escape.

0:40:090:40:12

I had got out of my seat and was sitting on the turret ring,

0:40:120:40:15

so that I was higher up, so that I could see a bit better.

0:40:150:40:18

And an airburst went off above me.

0:40:180:40:22

And a bit of the shrapnel came down straight between my legs

0:40:220:40:26

and straight into the gunner.

0:40:260:40:27

I was incredibly lucky, it missed by about that much.

0:40:270:40:31

And the poor old gunner, we had to get him out of the tank

0:40:310:40:33

and getting a wounded man out of a tank is extremely difficult.

0:40:330:40:37

He subsequently died, regrettably.

0:40:370:40:39

You just had to accept it.

0:40:390:40:41

Everybody said, "Too bad, but, you know, make way for the new man."

0:40:410:40:46

You had to do that.

0:40:460:40:48

You couldn't go round...

0:40:480:40:51

weeping about it all, really.

0:40:510:40:53

When the operation ended on the 20th of July,

0:40:530:40:56

the British had advanced seven miles and taken this high ground.

0:40:560:41:01

But the cost of Goodwood had been high.

0:41:010:41:04

Critics made much of the fact the British had 400 tanks knocked out,

0:41:040:41:09

never mind that only half of them had actually been destroyed,

0:41:090:41:13

the rest could be repaired.

0:41:130:41:16

5th Tanks got off relatively lightly.

0:41:160:41:18

Sergeant Wardrop had survived being knocked out,

0:41:180:41:21

Gerry Solomon and Bob Lay had come through unscathed.

0:41:210:41:26

But the fact was, it wasn't the breakthrough that many had hoped for.

0:41:260:41:30

Goodwood was seen by many as a disaster

0:41:340:41:37

and Montgomery was nearly sacked.

0:41:370:41:39

But the Germans lost thousands of troops here,

0:41:390:41:42

scores of anti-tank guns and around 80 tanks and self-propelled guns.

0:41:420:41:48

And whereas the Allies were able to top up their tanks

0:41:480:41:52

to the original level within 36 hours of Goodwood,

0:41:520:41:56

the Germans had only succeeded, in all the weeks since D-day,

0:41:560:42:00

in replacing 17 out of 1,700 lost Panzers.

0:42:000:42:05

Two-thirds of the German Army was tied up fighting the Soviets

0:42:110:42:15

on the Eastern Front.

0:42:150:42:17

In France, Allied airpower strafed almost anything that moved.

0:42:170:42:21

As Rommel had feared, even though German tank production

0:42:240:42:27

was at its height, most were sent east,

0:42:270:42:30

while in France the resupply system had broken down

0:42:300:42:33

under pressure of air attack.

0:42:330:42:35

The Germans were being ground down and, bound by Hitler's orders

0:42:370:42:41

not to yield an inch of Normandy,

0:42:410:42:44

were becoming vulnerable to break-out and encirclement.

0:42:440:42:47

Just five days after Goodwood, on the 25th July,

0:42:530:42:57

the Americans launched Operation Cobra to great success.

0:42:570:43:02

The British had sucked most of Rommel's Panzer divisions

0:43:020:43:06

into the fight for Caen.

0:43:060:43:08

That helped the Americans break into open country.

0:43:080:43:11

The dream of mobile armoured warfare was now a reality.

0:43:120:43:17

In four days, they advanced 30 miles.

0:43:170:43:20

Meanwhile, 5th Tanks found themselves in their fiercest battle

0:43:210:43:25

of the Normandy campaign so far,

0:43:250:43:27

fighting to keep the Germans tied down in their sector.

0:43:270:43:31

So the Americans could exploit their break-out,

0:43:310:43:34

the 5th found themselves surrounded.

0:43:340:43:36

British infantry and tanks had to operate closely together as a team.

0:43:390:43:45

But this time it broke down, and the British infantry bugged out,

0:43:450:43:50

leaving the 5th Tanks to the mercy of SS Panzer grenadiers.

0:43:500:43:54

We were clustered there in a group and we were told we were going

0:43:590:44:02

to wait until the moon got a bit higher, give us a bit more light.

0:44:020:44:07

Then we were going to break out.

0:44:070:44:09

But, unfortunately, the enemy beat us to it.

0:44:090:44:13

I knew the tank had been hit.

0:44:240:44:27

I felt my right-hand side go numb.

0:44:270:44:31

Come on. Stand up.

0:44:340:44:36

Gerry Solomon had got through all the North Africa battles,

0:44:360:44:40

from Crusader to El Alamein,

0:44:400:44:43

and he'd been one of the first men into Tunis.

0:44:430:44:45

He'd been in Italy, in Villers-Bocage and on Operation Goodwood, too.

0:44:450:44:50

He knew he was living on borrowed time.

0:44:500:44:53

But true to the honour code of the 5th's sergeants and corporals,

0:44:530:44:57

the key tank commanders, he refused to put in for a cushier job.

0:44:570:45:02

Being seriously wounded had given him an honourable way out.

0:45:020:45:06

When I was injured, I wasn't sorry to be going home

0:45:060:45:10

because I'd been there for two months and, you know,

0:45:100:45:14

I thought all I'd done in the war, I'd done my bit anyway.

0:45:140:45:18

The British succeeded in holding the German Army in place.

0:45:210:45:25

For Gerry and the 5th, that came at quite a price.

0:45:250:45:29

They lost seven tanks and 25 casualties in one day.

0:45:290:45:33

But the bigger picture was the German Army was now trapped

0:45:330:45:37

and annihilated.

0:45:370:45:39

On the 25th of August, the Battle of Normandy was declared over.

0:45:390:45:44

The cost had been high.

0:45:440:45:46

In 80 days of fighting, the Allies had over 200,000 casualties,

0:45:460:45:51

the Germans around 300,000 out of a smaller force.

0:45:510:45:56

Of the 2,300 German tanks committed to the battle,

0:45:560:46:00

less than 120 were brought back across the Seine.

0:46:000:46:05

The Allies lost many more tanks - 4,000.

0:46:050:46:08

But all of them were rapidly replaced.

0:46:080:46:11

Jake Wardrop, Bob Lay, Arthur Crickmay and Roy Dixon had all

0:46:130:46:17

come through relatively unscathed.

0:46:170:46:20

On the 31st of August, after nearly three months of fighting

0:46:200:46:24

in the hedgerows, they crossed the River Seine,

0:46:240:46:27

about here, and left behind the horrors of Normandy.

0:46:270:46:30

The tanks now sped across France,

0:46:330:46:36

driving in hours across the Flanders fields their fathers had contested

0:46:360:46:41

for years during the First World War.

0:46:410:46:43

In just five days,

0:46:430:46:45

they travelled 200 miles, the 5th Tanks being the first

0:46:450:46:49

Allied unit to liberate the Belgian city of Ghent.

0:46:490:46:52

DISTANT CHEERING

0:46:520:46:54

When we got to Ghent, it was tremendous, it was a big city.

0:46:540:46:57

Everybody turned out.

0:46:570:46:58

Girls leaping on your tank and, you know, embracing you.

0:46:580:47:02

And it was good stuff.

0:47:020:47:03

Parts of Ghent were still occupied by the Germans,

0:47:120:47:16

so Arthur Crickmay, now a major, came here to their headquarters,

0:47:160:47:20

in an attempt to persuade the German commander to surrender.

0:47:200:47:24

After five days on the road, though, Crickmay was painfully aware

0:47:240:47:28

that his usually immaculate standards had slipped

0:47:280:47:32

and that he was living up to the nickname of the Filthy 5th.

0:47:320:47:35

"To describe my kit - overalls tanked in, slept in,

0:47:360:47:40

"non-stop for a week - as a mess, would be understating a condition

0:47:400:47:45

"that compared most unfavourably with that of General Bruhn.

0:47:450:47:48

"He took this in and, being appraised of my meagre rank,

0:47:480:47:52

"immediately took off on his thesis, often repeated, that surrender

0:47:520:47:56

"could only be made to a British officer of equal rank to himself."

0:47:560:48:01

The 5th Tanks had advanced so rapidly, though,

0:48:010:48:04

that there were no generals to hand.

0:48:040:48:06

So Major Crickmay persuaded his boss, the commanding officer

0:48:060:48:10

of the battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Holliman, to act the part.

0:48:100:48:13

Unfortunately, the German general guessed what was going on

0:48:130:48:17

and still refused to surrender. But he did agree to pull his troops

0:48:170:48:22

back to the north of the city, and so the 5th Tanks played

0:48:220:48:26

their part in saving the historic centre of Ghent from destruction.

0:48:260:48:30

EXPLOSIONS

0:48:300:48:31

It was now September, and fighting raged to the north of the city.

0:48:310:48:36

The tide of war had moved decisively against Germany,

0:48:360:48:40

but they fought on, much to the frustration of many British soldiers.

0:48:400:48:44

"The stupid, pig-headed Boches infantry came at us,

0:48:480:48:51

"marching across the open fields. When they were good and close

0:48:510:48:56

"we went to town with the machine guns.

0:48:560:48:58

"There was no cover and we kept firing and firing.

0:48:580:49:01

"It was great.

0:49:010:49:03

"One was waving a white flag so we didn't fire

0:49:030:49:07

"but they didn't come in. Perhaps they were wounded.

0:49:070:49:10

"At any rate, I nipped down to pick them up

0:49:100:49:12

"when just then the Boche started to lob over more mortar.

0:49:120:49:17

"They dropped quite close and I picked up a small splinter

0:49:170:49:20

"in my face. That settled it.

0:49:200:49:22

"I got back on the tank, gave Jimmy the word

0:49:220:49:26

"and he chopped them down."

0:49:260:49:27

Jake's attitude to war was very belligerent.

0:49:330:49:37

He wanted to get at them and knock them out

0:49:370:49:41

and that may have been great satisfaction.

0:49:410:49:43

Not everybody felt that way.

0:49:450:49:47

Jake Wardrop testified to the bitterness of the fighting.

0:49:490:49:53

Near here he saw two wounded Germans being finished off with head shots,

0:49:530:49:57

after they'd surrendered, by a British soldier.

0:49:570:50:01

It wasn't a good thing to do, he wrote, but at least it saved

0:50:010:50:04

the danger of sending a British stretcher party to get them.

0:50:040:50:08

The 5th, by this stage of the war, contained some very hard men,

0:50:080:50:13

many of whom fought according to their own rules.

0:50:130:50:16

Another sergeant in the battalion wrote that he had become

0:50:160:50:19

"a bloodthirsty fighter who just longed for the next battle".

0:50:190:50:23

They wanted to get home too, of course,

0:50:230:50:26

but that just added to their anger with the Germans who fought on.

0:50:260:50:30

By the 14th of September, the whole of Belgium

0:50:320:50:36

and Luxembourg was in Allied hands.

0:50:360:50:38

Now they crept into Holland, nearer the German border.

0:50:380:50:42

Progress was slow.

0:50:420:50:44

There were simply not enough supplies coming through

0:50:440:50:47

to an Allied Army that now numbered three million men.

0:50:470:50:50

For the 5th Tanks, the war now came to a pause.

0:50:500:50:54

The battalion's casualty record for November shows just how inactive

0:50:560:51:01

they were at that stage of the war. It records just two deaths.

0:51:010:51:05

One from artillery fire, the other from a heart attack.

0:51:050:51:09

And it was that second one that shocked the men.

0:51:090:51:12

For them, natural death had become unnatural.

0:51:120:51:16

MORTAR AND GUNFIRE

0:51:160:51:20

While war raged elsewhere in Europe, over the winter months

0:51:200:51:24

the 5th Tanks' biggest battle was keeping warm.

0:51:240:51:28

After months of inactivity, the 5th Tanks crossed the Rhine

0:51:300:51:34

on the 27th of March.

0:51:340:51:36

I can only imagine how hard it must have been for the likes

0:51:360:51:39

of Arthur Crickmay or Jake Wardrop, who had been at war for five years

0:51:390:51:43

and had so many close escapes,

0:51:430:51:45

to steel themselves for battle once more,

0:51:450:51:48

knowing they had probably used up their nine lives.

0:51:480:51:52

The 5th Tanks was now fighting in the last desperate battles

0:51:570:52:01

against a crumbling Third Reich,

0:52:010:52:03

their objective, Hamburg, 200 miles away.

0:52:030:52:07

For 5th Tanks, the last major engagement of the war

0:52:100:52:14

was at a place called Rethem.

0:52:140:52:16

Small in the overall scheme of things perhaps,

0:52:160:52:19

but for the battalion it was a place of huge significance.

0:52:190:52:23

Jake Wardrop was advancing through woods just south of Rethem

0:52:280:52:32

when all hell broke loose.

0:52:320:52:35

CACOPHONY OF GUNFIRE

0:52:380:52:41

HE GROANS

0:52:470:52:49

Jake was found, pistol in hand.

0:52:500:52:53

Wounded in the legs, he had fought to the last

0:52:530:52:56

but finally succumbed to a bullet in the heart.

0:52:560:52:59

When Jake was shot, the regiment was really upset.

0:53:050:53:09

Because he was such a very widely respected guy in the regiment.

0:53:090:53:13

Everybody in the regiment knew about him

0:53:160:53:18

so his loss was particularly badly felt.

0:53:180:53:21

When Jake's tank was knocked out and another one shortly afterwards,

0:53:280:53:33

we had lost great characters who were a great treasure

0:53:330:53:38

to the regiment.

0:53:380:53:40

And nine people altogether

0:53:400:53:42

out of 75 crew members of C Squadron

0:53:420:53:46

just at the end of the war.

0:53:460:53:49

And that...that hurt.

0:53:490:53:51

It was very...

0:53:520:53:54

..very tragic.

0:53:550:53:56

Jake Wardrop's precious diary was recovered from his tank

0:53:590:54:03

and eventually made its way home.

0:54:030:54:05

His best epitaph perhaps comes in his own words to his mother,

0:54:050:54:09

explaining, in a letter, why he wouldn't take a safer job.

0:54:090:54:14

"I am a tank commander and I shall continue to be one

0:54:140:54:18

"until the end. Should it be the wrong one, don't worry.

0:54:180:54:22

"I've played the game as it seemed to me the right way to play it.

0:54:220:54:27

"I have respected the women and given my rations to the little

0:54:270:54:30

"children because they were hungry, and I've shot the Germans down

0:54:300:54:34

"and laughed because of friends lost and, in any case, they started it."

0:54:340:54:39

Wardrop had been killed less than a month before the end of the war.

0:54:410:54:45

The 5th Tanks, in their drive to Hamburg,

0:54:500:54:52

now encountered Allied prisoner of war camps.

0:54:520:54:56

By an amazing coincidence,

0:54:560:54:58

Bill Chorley, captured eight months earlier in Normandy,

0:54:580:55:01

was liberated by his own division.

0:55:010:55:04

He was lucky to be alive.

0:55:040:55:06

Used for slave labour in Poland, when Russian forces approached

0:55:060:55:11

his captors forced him on a death march west.

0:55:110:55:14

It was the depths of winter. Many prisoners never made it.

0:55:140:55:18

MEN CHEER

0:55:180:55:20

By God, I was delighted.

0:55:200:55:22

He weighed six-and-a-half stone.

0:55:220:55:24

On the 3rd of May, the 5th Tanks crossed the Elbe into Hamburg.

0:55:340:55:38

There was no resistance at this moment of triumph.

0:55:380:55:42

In 11 months since landing at Normandy,

0:55:420:55:44

they'd suffered 84 killed and two dozen tanks destroyed.

0:55:440:55:49

Driving into Hamburg was an amazing experience.

0:55:530:55:56

The war hadn't technically finished

0:55:560:55:58

but in all senses fighting had stopped, and we drove through

0:55:580:56:02

what was a completely shattered city.

0:56:020:56:05

It was an appalling sight, really.

0:56:050:56:07

On the 4th of May,

0:56:190:56:20

General Montgomery accepted the unconditional surrender

0:56:200:56:24

of all German forces in Holland and Northwest Germany.

0:56:240:56:27

Four days later, Victory in Europe was declared.

0:56:300:56:35

We knew. We'd made it.

0:56:380:56:41

And we didn't know what to do.

0:56:410:56:44

And we just hugged each other and we threw our berets in the air,

0:56:440:56:48

never got our own berets again. But that was it.

0:56:480:56:52

That was the end of the war for us.

0:56:520:56:55

A marvellous moment.

0:56:560:56:58

The war had been an extraordinarily hard experience

0:57:070:57:10

for the men of 5th Tanks.

0:57:100:57:12

By VE Day there were just a few dozen, less than 50 serving

0:57:120:57:16

in its ranks, who had been there at the outbreak of the conflict.

0:57:160:57:20

Their odyssey had lasted six years, carrying them across thousands

0:57:220:57:27

of miles and costing the lives of 240 of their men.

0:57:270:57:32

Their advances across North Africa and France

0:57:320:57:35

equalled the achievement of Hitler's Panzer divisions.

0:57:350:57:39

But our tank soldiers were citizens in a democracy

0:57:390:57:43

and modest with it, their achievements even now understated

0:57:430:57:47

and distinctly British.

0:57:470:57:49

It is a terrible thing, in a way, to admit one was taking part

0:57:510:57:56

in a sort of war of destruction,

0:57:560:57:58

but from a personal point of view, as a very young man,

0:57:580:58:03

it was some of the happiest days of my life

0:58:030:58:06

because you were living in a little compact group, in this case

0:58:060:58:10

the troop, who were great sort of pals.

0:58:100:58:13

You had no responsibilities other than keeping yourself alive

0:58:130:58:16

and doing the job.

0:58:160:58:18

CHEERING

0:58:180:58:20

The people in the services had a job to do.

0:58:220:58:25

It had to be done.

0:58:260:58:28

And we'd done it.

0:58:290:58:31

It wasn't a matter of rejoicing.

0:58:320:58:35

I didn't go to the parade in Berlin.

0:58:350:58:38

I didn't see anything to rejoice about.

0:58:390:58:42

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