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The Second World War was the ultimate conflict of the machine age. | 0:00:16 | 0:00:21 | |
And this machine was an iconic symbol, | 0:00:21 | 0:00:25 | |
the decisive weapon of the war on land. | 0:00:25 | 0:00:28 | |
From North Africa to the Russian front, | 0:00:28 | 0:00:31 | |
the tank ruled the battlefield | 0:00:31 | 0:00:33 | |
and if you didn't master armoured warfare, you faced annihilation. | 0:00:33 | 0:00:38 | |
GUNFIRE | 0:00:38 | 0:00:40 | |
It's quite terrifying, really, because | 0:00:41 | 0:00:44 | |
you can see these flashes from the enemy's guns | 0:00:44 | 0:00:47 | |
in the distance and you think, | 0:00:47 | 0:00:48 | |
any minute, one of them is going to hit me. | 0:00:48 | 0:00:51 | |
'Tanks were at the beginning of the war and the end, | 0:00:53 | 0:00:56 | |
'giving their crews a unique view of the entire conflict, | 0:00:56 | 0:01:01 | |
'from the fall of France to North Africa, D-Day | 0:01:01 | 0:01:05 | |
'and final victory in Germany.' | 0:01:05 | 0:01:07 | |
As a trainee officer in the Royal Tank Regiment, | 0:01:09 | 0:01:11 | |
I was indoctrinated in their exploits. | 0:01:11 | 0:01:14 | |
And who could fail to have been awe-inspired | 0:01:14 | 0:01:17 | |
by the way those men faced death, time and time again, | 0:01:17 | 0:01:22 | |
in these iron-clad monsters? | 0:01:22 | 0:01:24 | |
When I first went in, | 0:01:29 | 0:01:30 | |
I thought it was going to be great fun and all that, | 0:01:30 | 0:01:34 | |
'but I realised it wasn't. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:36 | |
'This tank near me, I saw it just blown to bits... | 0:01:36 | 0:01:39 | |
'A couple of my mates were in that.' | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
It was terrible. | 0:01:42 | 0:01:44 | |
'This is the story of six remarkable men | 0:01:44 | 0:01:47 | |
'from one armoured unit, | 0:01:47 | 0:01:49 | |
'The 5th Royal Tank Regiment, 5RTR, | 0:01:49 | 0:01:52 | |
'or to those who really knew them really well, | 0:01:52 | 0:01:55 | |
'The Filthy 5th. | 0:01:55 | 0:01:58 | |
'Their war is brought to life, | 0:01:58 | 0:02:00 | |
'not only by the last surviving veterans, | 0:02:00 | 0:02:02 | |
'but also by previously unseen letters and diaries, | 0:02:02 | 0:02:06 | |
'that give us a real insight into the visceral reality | 0:02:06 | 0:02:10 | |
'of tank warfare.' | 0:02:10 | 0:02:11 | |
Each man had his own story. | 0:02:13 | 0:02:15 | |
Some were wounded, some captured, and some were killed. | 0:02:15 | 0:02:20 | |
A few, very few, made it all the way through. | 0:02:20 | 0:02:23 | |
Taken together, those accounts form a unique picture of the war. | 0:02:23 | 0:02:28 | |
EXPLOSIONS | 0:02:37 | 0:02:38 | |
'For three long years, | 0:02:45 | 0:02:47 | |
'the men of the 5th Tanks had been fighting | 0:02:47 | 0:02:49 | |
'in the deserts of North Africa, | 0:02:49 | 0:02:51 | |
'as part of 7th Armoured Division, The Desert Rats. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:55 | |
'Inside their tanks, facing a sudden, fiery death, | 0:02:56 | 0:03:00 | |
'the crews formed close friendships, | 0:03:00 | 0:03:02 | |
'like the one between Bill Chorley and Bob Lay. | 0:03:02 | 0:03:06 | |
'They'd joined the 5th at the same time in 1942. | 0:03:06 | 0:03:10 | |
'The bond you established, | 0:03:11 | 0:03:13 | |
'was not the normal relationships of friends.' | 0:03:13 | 0:03:17 | |
You were a partnership, | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
it was closer than friendship. And, er... | 0:03:19 | 0:03:23 | |
..that crew, um... | 0:03:24 | 0:03:27 | |
..were friends for life. | 0:03:29 | 0:03:31 | |
'The Allied victory at Alamein in November 1942, | 0:03:36 | 0:03:41 | |
'was a turning point in the war. | 0:03:41 | 0:03:44 | |
'The Desert Rats became celebrated heroes | 0:03:44 | 0:03:47 | |
'and the 5th Tanks returned home to Britain | 0:03:47 | 0:03:50 | |
'expecting a well-earned rest.' | 0:03:50 | 0:03:52 | |
'Instead, Montgomery, architect of that desert victory, | 0:03:53 | 0:03:57 | |
'sent them in secret to a run-down camp in Norfolk | 0:03:57 | 0:04:01 | |
'called Shakers Wood to prepare for a new fight, | 0:04:01 | 0:04:05 | |
'one that would require very different skills | 0:04:05 | 0:04:07 | |
'to the ones they'd learned in North Africa.' | 0:04:07 | 0:04:10 | |
'The 5th Tanks were now going to spearhead | 0:04:11 | 0:04:14 | |
'the invasion of Europe, D-Day. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:17 | |
'Sergeant Gerry Solomon, a former greengrocer, | 0:04:17 | 0:04:22 | |
'had survived the last three years of combat in the desert. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:26 | |
'He didn't relish the prospect | 0:04:26 | 0:04:27 | |
'of a murderous, close-quarters fight in Normandy.' | 0:04:27 | 0:04:31 | |
We thought we'd had enough. Let somebody else have a go. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:35 | |
But you see, they wanted seasoned troops | 0:04:35 | 0:04:39 | |
and there weren't many seasoned troops. | 0:04:39 | 0:04:41 | |
'What I find extraordinary is that even by this stage in 1944, | 0:04:43 | 0:04:47 | |
'after nearly five years of war,' | 0:04:47 | 0:04:49 | |
less than half of the British army had seen active combat. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:53 | |
They were people in support units, garrisons and training bases. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:58 | |
The 5th Tanks on the other hand, | 0:04:58 | 0:05:00 | |
had fought all the way through North Africa and Italy. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:03 | |
They felt they'd done their bit and who can blame them? | 0:05:03 | 0:05:07 | |
But the army had other ideas. | 0:05:07 | 0:05:09 | |
They were tried and tested | 0:05:09 | 0:05:11 | |
and Monty knew he could rely on them to deliver. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:15 | |
'Before D-Day, the 5th Tanks received hundreds of new recruits. | 0:05:16 | 0:05:21 | |
'The first was 19-year-old Roy Dixon, | 0:05:21 | 0:05:24 | |
'a 2nd Lieutenant fresh from officer training, | 0:05:24 | 0:05:26 | |
'making him the only man without the Africa Star campaign medal, | 0:05:26 | 0:05:31 | |
'yet expected to lead veterans.' | 0:05:31 | 0:05:33 | |
'Fitting into 5RTR was a little bit of a problem, | 0:05:34 | 0:05:38 | |
'because they had had so much more experience | 0:05:38 | 0:05:41 | |
'and they all knew each other well' | 0:05:41 | 0:05:43 | |
and it didn't help that they spoke | 0:05:43 | 0:05:46 | |
in a sort of special language of their own, partly Arabic. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:49 | |
And so one did feel a bit of an outsider, | 0:05:49 | 0:05:54 | |
but they were all extremely friendly. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:56 | |
'The battalion didn't just get new men as it was re-built for D-Day. | 0:06:01 | 0:06:05 | |
'The 5th Tanks and their fellow Desert Rats | 0:06:05 | 0:06:08 | |
'also took delivery of a brand new fighting machine.' | 0:06:08 | 0:06:12 | |
When the soldiers saw their new British made Cromwell tanks, | 0:06:12 | 0:06:16 | |
they were aghast. There was so much wrong with it. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:19 | |
The first thing, obvious to the eye, is that so much of the armour, | 0:06:19 | 0:06:22 | |
unlike many other tanks around by that time, | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
is flat on towards the enemy. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:27 | |
And that meant that a shell striking it | 0:06:27 | 0:06:29 | |
was much less likely to glance off. | 0:06:29 | 0:06:33 | |
There was a serious problem with the gun too. | 0:06:33 | 0:06:35 | |
The 75mm gun performed well enough against Mark IIIs | 0:06:35 | 0:06:39 | |
and Mark IVs in the desert, | 0:06:39 | 0:06:41 | |
but it simply lacked the punch | 0:06:41 | 0:06:43 | |
to defeat the latest German heavy Tiger tanks. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:46 | |
'29-year-old Scotsman, Sergeant Jake Wardrop, | 0:06:46 | 0:06:51 | |
'one of The Fifth's hardened Tank Commanders, | 0:06:51 | 0:06:53 | |
'was all too aware of the differences | 0:06:53 | 0:06:55 | |
'between the new British and German tanks. | 0:06:55 | 0:06:59 | |
'In a remarkably candid diary he kept throughout the war, | 0:06:59 | 0:07:02 | |
'he was scathing...' | 0:07:02 | 0:07:04 | |
"The big difference between the Cromwell and the Tiger | 0:07:04 | 0:07:07 | |
"made it possible for the Boche to stand back at 2000 metres | 0:07:07 | 0:07:12 | |
"and pick the Cromwells off like a rifle range. | 0:07:12 | 0:07:15 | |
"At that distance, the 75 on the Cromwell | 0:07:15 | 0:07:18 | |
"would not look at the four inch armour of a Tiger, | 0:07:18 | 0:07:22 | |
"while the long barrelled 88 | 0:07:22 | 0:07:24 | |
"tore through the Cromwell, like a knife through butter." | 0:07:24 | 0:07:27 | |
Getting into the Cromwell, typical British tank, is a tight fit. | 0:07:32 | 0:07:37 | |
But of course, for the men, it was getting out | 0:07:37 | 0:07:40 | |
that was more important, because many had escaped | 0:07:40 | 0:07:43 | |
with seconds to spare from burning tanks in the desert. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:47 | |
And more generally, they'd got used to the bigger American tanks, | 0:07:47 | 0:07:51 | |
they were roomier inside, | 0:07:51 | 0:07:53 | |
and coming back to this was like coming back to a tiny flat. | 0:07:53 | 0:07:57 | |
'Hadn't they listened to our experiences in the desert? | 0:07:58 | 0:08:02 | |
'Hadn't they learned anything?' | 0:08:02 | 0:08:04 | |
I expressed my views very forcefully | 0:08:04 | 0:08:07 | |
and eventually I was told that if I said any more | 0:08:07 | 0:08:10 | |
I'd be court marshalled. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:11 | |
GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS | 0:08:20 | 0:08:22 | |
'1944, on June 6th, | 0:08:27 | 0:08:30 | |
'136,000 US, British and Canadian troops | 0:08:30 | 0:08:34 | |
'land on the beaches of Normandy.' | 0:08:34 | 0:08:37 | |
'It's the biggest amphibious landing ever attempted. | 0:08:40 | 0:08:44 | |
'D-Day has dawned at last. | 0:08:44 | 0:08:46 | |
'On Gold Beach, | 0:08:46 | 0:08:48 | |
'the 50th Northumbrian Division, led the assault | 0:08:48 | 0:08:51 | |
'and captured it after a fierce fight | 0:08:51 | 0:08:54 | |
'during which over 400 were killed, wounded or missing.' | 0:08:54 | 0:08:58 | |
'The 5th tanks were still out at sea. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:11 | |
'They had been delayed by bad weather.' | 0:09:11 | 0:09:14 | |
And it wasn't until 3pm the next day, June 7th, | 0:09:14 | 0:09:18 | |
that they came thundering across these sands. | 0:09:18 | 0:09:21 | |
'80 tanks and 730 men, all keyed-up... | 0:09:21 | 0:09:27 | |
'only to find the battle for the beach was already over.' | 0:09:27 | 0:09:30 | |
'It wasn't what I expected at all.' | 0:09:33 | 0:09:35 | |
I imagined fighting my way up the beach, but it didn't happen to me. | 0:09:35 | 0:09:40 | |
'The invasion had taken the Germans completely by surprise. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:46 | |
'In command was the 5th Tank's old foe, Erwin Rommel. | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
'In 1940, he'd chased them out of France. They, in turn, | 0:09:49 | 0:09:55 | |
'had beaten the so-called Desert Fox in North Africa. | 0:09:55 | 0:09:59 | |
'Rushing back from his wife's birthday in Germany, | 0:09:59 | 0:10:02 | |
'Rommel was now to meet with Montgomery and the 5th Tanks | 0:10:02 | 0:10:06 | |
'for the decisive battle.' | 0:10:06 | 0:10:08 | |
Rommel knew he had to contain the British | 0:10:08 | 0:10:10 | |
and other landing forces, before throwing them back into the sea. | 0:10:10 | 0:10:15 | |
He feared that unless he managed that quickly, | 0:10:15 | 0:10:18 | |
Allied air superiority would be so overwhelming | 0:10:18 | 0:10:21 | |
that his own armoured forces would be destroyed | 0:10:21 | 0:10:24 | |
before they could come into action | 0:10:24 | 0:10:26 | |
and that would make Germany's defeat inevitable. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:29 | |
'Both Montgomery and Rommel knew the city of Caen | 0:10:32 | 0:10:35 | |
'was central to the battle for Normandy. | 0:10:35 | 0:10:38 | |
'The Allies had to capture this important road hub. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:42 | |
'Doing so would mean breaking out of the bridgehead | 0:10:42 | 0:10:45 | |
'and through the German defences.' | 0:10:45 | 0:10:47 | |
'Montgomery had nurtured some hope of capturing Caen on D-Day. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:54 | |
'But it proved much tougher than that, | 0:10:54 | 0:10:56 | |
'and the city's fate became central to the Normandy campaign. | 0:10:56 | 0:11:00 | |
'Three days on, | 0:11:01 | 0:11:02 | |
'the Allies only had a toe-hold a few miles deep, | 0:11:02 | 0:11:05 | |
'having failed to break out through German lines containing them, | 0:11:05 | 0:11:09 | |
'or advance inland as far as planned.' | 0:11:09 | 0:11:11 | |
'New boy, Roy Dixon, was one of the first in 5th Tanks to see action.' | 0:11:13 | 0:11:18 | |
'The first encounter we had was about a mile,' | 0:11:20 | 0:11:23 | |
a mile and a half away from the beach, where a party of Germans, | 0:11:23 | 0:11:26 | |
or a group of Germans had been, sort of bypassed | 0:11:26 | 0:11:28 | |
by the initial infantry and they were holding out for themselves. | 0:11:28 | 0:11:33 | |
And we had to attack them. | 0:11:33 | 0:11:35 | |
DISTANT GUNFIRE | 0:11:35 | 0:11:36 | |
'We came to this great big chateaux, there were Germans in there | 0:11:36 | 0:11:40 | |
'and they were rattling away with them machine guns.' | 0:11:40 | 0:11:42 | |
Well, I...I badly wanted to fire a shot into the... | 0:11:42 | 0:11:48 | |
into the chateaux, but no, they wouldn't let me do that. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:50 | |
They said, "Oh, no, you can't do that." | 0:11:50 | 0:11:53 | |
-HE LAUGHS -Not cricket, I suppose! | 0:11:53 | 0:11:55 | |
DISTANT GUNFIRE | 0:11:55 | 0:11:57 | |
'They put up, actually, quite a good fight, | 0:11:57 | 0:11:59 | |
'including climbing onto one of the tanks.' | 0:11:59 | 0:12:03 | |
So, a little fear, not very bad, | 0:12:03 | 0:12:05 | |
but a nice little action just to get us used to it really, | 0:12:05 | 0:12:10 | |
so we knew what was going on. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:11 | |
'The Normandy terrain came as a real shock | 0:12:16 | 0:12:18 | |
'to desert veterans in the 5th.' | 0:12:18 | 0:12:20 | |
Out in North Africa, if the enemy got within 500 metres of you, | 0:12:20 | 0:12:25 | |
that was getting too near. | 0:12:25 | 0:12:27 | |
Whereas with these hedges, there could be Germans on the other side | 0:12:27 | 0:12:31 | |
'and you wouldn't even know about it.' | 0:12:31 | 0:12:33 | |
GUNFIRE | 0:12:36 | 0:12:38 | |
'This close terrain was a frightening new experience | 0:12:38 | 0:12:41 | |
'for many of the 5th Tank's old sweats, | 0:12:41 | 0:12:44 | |
'and some were simply unable to cope.' | 0:12:44 | 0:12:47 | |
'Corporal Bridges, he was a desert veteran...' | 0:12:47 | 0:12:50 | |
he came to me and said, "I'm terribly sorry about this, | 0:12:50 | 0:12:53 | |
"but I really can't go on, I've had it in a big way. | 0:12:53 | 0:12:57 | |
"I was shaking like a leaf and I can't face doing another day." | 0:12:57 | 0:13:03 | |
So I said - | 0:13:03 | 0:13:04 | |
this is one o'clock in the morning of course by this time - | 0:13:04 | 0:13:07 | |
so I said, "Well, OK, | 0:13:07 | 0:13:10 | |
"but there's obviously nothing I can do about it at this time of night. | 0:13:10 | 0:13:13 | |
"We're going to have to go off in the morning. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:16 | |
"But I will do my best to see if we can get you replaced the next day." | 0:13:16 | 0:13:20 | |
'The next day we moved off | 0:13:23 | 0:13:25 | |
'and the first shot that was fired hit at the turret, ring level... | 0:13:25 | 0:13:29 | |
'and took half of him off, killed instantly. | 0:13:29 | 0:13:32 | |
'And so I then ran across to see what had happened,' | 0:13:32 | 0:13:35 | |
climbed up onto this tank and looked down | 0:13:35 | 0:13:37 | |
and not a very good sight to see, as you can imagine. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:40 | |
The whole place pouring in blood and a headless body at the bottom... | 0:13:40 | 0:13:44 | |
Very nasty indeed. That was my first initiation, | 0:13:44 | 0:13:47 | |
that's when I realised that this war wasn't going to be so much fun. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:51 | |
Inside you are safer, but there is a distinct limit to what you can see | 0:13:53 | 0:13:57 | |
through these vision blocks, so most of the commanders kept their heads | 0:13:57 | 0:14:02 | |
out of the turret. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:06 | |
Now, that was more dangerous, of course, | 0:14:06 | 0:14:09 | |
but it gave them a much better idea of what was going on around them. | 0:14:09 | 0:14:12 | |
GUNFIRE | 0:14:12 | 0:14:14 | |
'And that was vital in these narrow lanes and high hedgerows, | 0:14:16 | 0:14:19 | |
'called "bocage", because it was ideal country to ambush tanks.' | 0:14:19 | 0:14:25 | |
EXPLOSIONS | 0:14:31 | 0:14:33 | |
Any hedgerow could be concealing a Panzer or an infantryman, | 0:14:33 | 0:14:37 | |
armed with one of these, the Panzerfaust. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
It's a handheld anti-tank weapon. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:43 | |
Germany produced more than six million of these during the war. | 0:14:43 | 0:14:48 | |
This variant has a range of 60 metres. | 0:14:48 | 0:14:51 | |
Now, that would be pathetically inadequate in the desert. | 0:14:51 | 0:14:54 | |
You'd be killed before you could get that near. | 0:14:54 | 0:14:57 | |
But in the close country of Europe, | 0:14:57 | 0:14:59 | |
'it allowed the humble infantryman the chance | 0:14:59 | 0:15:02 | |
'to take out any Allied armoured vehicle. | 0:15:02 | 0:15:05 | |
'And for many in the 5th tanks, it proved to be their undoing.' | 0:15:05 | 0:15:09 | |
EXPLOSIONS | 0:15:10 | 0:15:12 | |
The Panzefaust imploded into the tank, blew it up. | 0:15:17 | 0:15:21 | |
You were all finished if that hit. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:24 | |
'So, you were virtually with the infantry all the time, | 0:15:24 | 0:15:28 | |
'you needed infantry to protect you.' | 0:15:28 | 0:15:30 | |
Breaking out of the bocage to the open countryside beyond was vital | 0:15:34 | 0:15:39 | |
if the pent-up Allied armour was to flow as an unstoppable torrent. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:44 | |
The alternative was unthinkable. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:47 | |
German containment of the Allied bridgehead, | 0:15:47 | 0:15:49 | |
a war of attrition in the hedgerows | 0:15:49 | 0:15:52 | |
and in the worst-case scenario, failure. | 0:15:52 | 0:15:55 | |
'One week after D-Day, | 0:15:57 | 0:15:58 | |
the Americans forced a gap in the German front line | 0:15:58 | 0:16:02 | |
'and an opportunity appeared to break out towards the city of Caen. | 0:16:02 | 0:16:07 | |
'Montgomery seized his chance to open up the battle | 0:16:07 | 0:16:10 | |
'and rout the Germans. | 0:16:10 | 0:16:12 | |
'The 7th Armoured Division, including 5th Tanks, | 0:16:12 | 0:16:15 | |
'was ordered to push through the gap as fast as possible.' | 0:16:15 | 0:16:19 | |
They advanced six miles through the Norman countryside | 0:16:19 | 0:16:23 | |
and arrived along this high street in Villers-Bocage. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:26 | |
The people of the town came to their balconies and open windows | 0:16:28 | 0:16:32 | |
to cheer the British tanks and throw flowers on them. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:35 | |
The Commander of that leading battle group felt they'd done it | 0:16:35 | 0:16:39 | |
and ordered everybody to stop while the men made tea. | 0:16:39 | 0:16:42 | |
The 5th Tanks meanwhile, the second battle group | 0:16:42 | 0:16:46 | |
were on a nearby hillside, | 0:16:46 | 0:16:48 | |
oblivious to the fact that a disaster was about to unfold. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:52 | |
'So far, the dreaded German Tiger tank | 0:16:56 | 0:17:00 | |
'had failed to make an appearance in Normandy, | 0:17:00 | 0:17:03 | |
'but now it was to make its spectacular debut, | 0:17:03 | 0:17:07 | |
'confirming the worst fears about the Cromwell tank's vulnerability | 0:17:07 | 0:17:11 | |
'and lack of fire power.' | 0:17:11 | 0:17:13 | |
'You knew very well that if you came up against a Tiger, | 0:17:16 | 0:17:19 | |
'you weren't going to be able to penetrate it.' | 0:17:19 | 0:17:21 | |
So you've got to blooming well avoid it. That's all there was to it. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:25 | |
EXPLOSIONS | 0:17:25 | 0:17:26 | |
'A Tiger tank appeared, commanded by Michael Wittmann, | 0:17:30 | 0:17:34 | |
'a Panzer ace with 137 kills to his credit. | 0:17:34 | 0:17:39 | |
'With this talent for mayhem, he was quick to seize his chance.' | 0:17:39 | 0:17:44 | |
It was along this road that Wittmann sowed a trail of destruction. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:52 | |
Appearing here with a couple of other Tigers, | 0:17:52 | 0:17:54 | |
he first engaged the rear-most tanks of the leading British group, | 0:17:54 | 0:17:59 | |
who were up on that hill. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:01 | |
That was to stop them taking any further part in what was to follow. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:05 | |
He then set off down this road, | 0:18:05 | 0:18:07 | |
engaging half-tracks and Cromwells as he went. | 0:18:07 | 0:18:10 | |
Within minutes, 25 British vehicles were ablaze. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:15 | |
EXPLOSIONS | 0:18:15 | 0:18:16 | |
In this particular spot, | 0:18:24 | 0:18:27 | |
one of the British tanks managed to stalk the German vehicle. | 0:18:27 | 0:18:32 | |
They came up to within 100 metres of the back of Wittmann's tank | 0:18:32 | 0:18:37 | |
and fired twice at it. | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
They watched their own shells bounce off, | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
and then in horror, | 0:18:42 | 0:18:44 | |
as the German tank traversed its turret to the rear, | 0:18:44 | 0:18:48 | |
pointed its 88mm gun at them and opened up, | 0:18:48 | 0:18:51 | |
destroying the Cromwell instantly. | 0:18:51 | 0:18:53 | |
EXPLOSION | 0:18:53 | 0:18:55 | |
'Almost single-handedly, Wittmann had brought | 0:18:55 | 0:18:58 | |
'the British Army's advance in Normandy to a halt.' | 0:18:58 | 0:19:01 | |
JAKE WARDROP: "I hold the design of the Cromwell tank | 0:19:02 | 0:19:05 | |
"and the men who ordered its production personally responsible | 0:19:05 | 0:19:09 | |
"for the death of hundreds of men | 0:19:09 | 0:19:10 | |
"who fought in those tanks and had a lot more guts than common sense." | 0:19:10 | 0:19:15 | |
'British and German reinforcements, including more Tiger tanks, | 0:19:16 | 0:19:20 | |
'now poured in to the village, feeding the fierce fight there. | 0:19:20 | 0:19:25 | |
'The British decided to pull back. | 0:19:25 | 0:19:27 | |
'The 5th Tanks on the hillside | 0:19:29 | 0:19:31 | |
'waited nervously, as the sounds of battle came closer.' | 0:19:31 | 0:19:34 | |
DISTANT GUNFIRE | 0:19:34 | 0:19:36 | |
'We just didn't quite know what was going on. | 0:19:43 | 0:19:46 | |
'We knew there were Tiger tanks there. | 0:19:46 | 0:19:48 | |
'That was all we knew about it.' | 0:19:48 | 0:19:50 | |
And we were unaware of what really a serious situation it was. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:55 | |
We didn't realise that they were being massacred in the town | 0:19:55 | 0:19:59 | |
and a whole regiment had gone. We didn't realise that at all. | 0:19:59 | 0:20:02 | |
'Now it was the turn of 5th Tanks to face the formidable Tiger. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:13 | |
'But, as well as Cromwells, | 0:20:13 | 0:20:14 | |
'they were equipped with another new tank, the British Sherman Firefly.' | 0:20:14 | 0:20:19 | |
Now, this is an American copy, | 0:20:21 | 0:20:22 | |
but the Firefly combined the proven Sherman hull | 0:20:22 | 0:20:27 | |
with a powerful 17 pounder anti-tank gun. | 0:20:27 | 0:20:30 | |
It was such a beast of a weapon, | 0:20:30 | 0:20:32 | |
that it fired its anti-tank projectile | 0:20:32 | 0:20:34 | |
at three times the speed of sound. | 0:20:34 | 0:20:36 | |
And it could punch a hole in any German tank of the time. | 0:20:36 | 0:20:41 | |
GUNFIRE | 0:20:41 | 0:20:42 | |
'The Sherman Firefly, yes, very good tank...' | 0:20:42 | 0:20:46 | |
The 17 pounder, yeah. | 0:20:46 | 0:20:49 | |
That's...that was an entirely new gun. | 0:20:49 | 0:20:53 | |
Muzzle velocity, 2,000 feet per second. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:57 | |
That's going some. | 0:20:57 | 0:20:59 | |
'That weapon produced such a flash and bang' | 0:20:59 | 0:21:03 | |
that it could easily give away the position of the tank. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:07 | |
And for the crew inside the turret, | 0:21:07 | 0:21:09 | |
they could be temporarily blinded by that blast, | 0:21:09 | 0:21:12 | |
or even have their hair singed. It all made it vital | 0:21:12 | 0:21:16 | |
to get that first round on target accurately. | 0:21:16 | 0:21:20 | |
'When we received these new Sherman 17-pounders, the Firefly,' | 0:21:23 | 0:21:28 | |
the decision was made | 0:21:28 | 0:21:30 | |
that troops would consist of three Cromwells and one Sherman. | 0:21:30 | 0:21:34 | |
So that gave one a really good hitting power within the troop. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:39 | |
'But of course, that's all very well,' | 0:21:43 | 0:21:45 | |
but when tanks get spread out in battle, | 0:21:45 | 0:21:49 | |
the Firefly's not where you want it when you need it. | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
But it was a vast improvement and it did knock out Tigers. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
'And using the Sherman itself also was a mixed blessing. | 0:21:58 | 0:22:02 | |
'The British Army knew the tank very well,' | 0:22:02 | 0:22:05 | |
but it was in Normandy that it was discovered just how easily | 0:22:05 | 0:22:09 | |
it set fire when it was hit or brewed up, | 0:22:09 | 0:22:12 | |
leaving the British crews to nickname them Ronsons | 0:22:12 | 0:22:15 | |
after the popular lighter | 0:22:15 | 0:22:17 | |
and the Germans to dub them Tommy Cookers. | 0:22:17 | 0:22:19 | |
'The one dozen Sherman Fireflies in the 5th Tanks | 0:22:21 | 0:22:24 | |
'were commanded by its most experienced sergeants and corporals, | 0:22:24 | 0:22:28 | |
'all of them desert veterans, | 0:22:28 | 0:22:30 | |
'including Gerry Solomon and Jake Wardrop.' | 0:22:30 | 0:22:34 | |
OK, movement spotted. Use the AP rounds. | 0:22:34 | 0:22:37 | |
JAKE WARDROP: "Back on our front, somebody had seen a couple of Tigers | 0:22:37 | 0:22:40 | |
"and we got ready to engage them. | 0:22:40 | 0:22:43 | |
"By sitting on top of the turret and looking through the trees, | 0:22:43 | 0:22:47 | |
"I could see the thing about 150 yards away. | 0:22:47 | 0:22:50 | |
"It was closer now so I said, 'Well, fire anyhow, | 0:22:51 | 0:22:55 | |
"'or the bloody thing will be alongside.' | 0:22:55 | 0:22:57 | |
"Like the stout lad he is, | 0:22:57 | 0:23:00 | |
"no sooner had the empty case rattled on the floor, | 0:23:00 | 0:23:03 | |
"than Woody had slammed another one up." | 0:23:03 | 0:23:05 | |
"The Tiger halted now, | 0:23:05 | 0:23:07 | |
"so I gave the gunner aim little left and fire again. | 0:23:07 | 0:23:11 | |
"They had the wind up on the Tiger by now | 0:23:11 | 0:23:14 | |
"and it was reversing as fast as it could go. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:17 | |
"I was kicking myself for not brewing it up, | 0:23:17 | 0:23:20 | |
"but we had twisted the tail of the big brave Tiger | 0:23:20 | 0:23:23 | |
"and he had run away and my morale was way up." | 0:23:23 | 0:23:27 | |
Well, whether or not 5th Tanks hit any of the Tigers | 0:23:27 | 0:23:30 | |
moving up that valley, German records show 16 of them | 0:23:30 | 0:23:34 | |
were put out of action during the three days | 0:23:34 | 0:23:37 | |
of the Villers-Bocage battle. Nine of those Tigers destroyed. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:42 | |
A couple of dozen other types of German tanks were also knocked out. | 0:23:42 | 0:23:46 | |
'But it wasn't just Panzers that the 5th Tanks had to face. | 0:23:50 | 0:23:54 | |
'The Germans also threw their infantry into the battle.' | 0:23:54 | 0:23:57 | |
'I got out of the tank to water the grass,' | 0:23:59 | 0:24:03 | |
Jock got out... | 0:24:03 | 0:24:04 | |
..and did the same, | 0:24:06 | 0:24:08 | |
and when he got back in and was adjusting his overcoat, | 0:24:08 | 0:24:11 | |
he got a dum-dum bullet to his head. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:13 | |
There were snipers about. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:17 | |
So I count myself lucky. | 0:24:17 | 0:24:18 | |
'The battle raged for two days | 0:24:21 | 0:24:24 | |
'and as the death of Bob's commander demonstrated, | 0:24:24 | 0:24:27 | |
'it was far too risky to leave the protection of the tank.' | 0:24:27 | 0:24:32 | |
When you're closed down inside for long periods, | 0:24:33 | 0:24:36 | |
it can be very tough mentally as well as physically. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:40 | |
I remember doing it for 20 hours on a Cold War exercise in Germany | 0:24:40 | 0:24:45 | |
and pretty soon, because I couldn't stand up or stretch, | 0:24:45 | 0:24:49 | |
I was very uncomfortable. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:51 | |
My legs and the knee were singing with pain | 0:24:51 | 0:24:54 | |
and there was a voice in my head, pleading with me to get out. | 0:24:54 | 0:24:58 | |
In Normandy, because of the threat of artillery and snipers, | 0:24:58 | 0:25:02 | |
they had to do it for long periods | 0:25:02 | 0:25:05 | |
and of course the smell must have been pretty terrible, | 0:25:05 | 0:25:08 | |
people were getting on one another's nerves | 0:25:08 | 0:25:10 | |
and having to urinate into shell cases. | 0:25:10 | 0:25:13 | |
Must have been a nightmare. | 0:25:13 | 0:25:14 | |
'Bill Chorley had abandoned his tank when it broke down. | 0:25:17 | 0:25:20 | |
'He'd seen Cromwell crews, including his own commander, | 0:25:20 | 0:25:24 | |
'abandon their vehicles in panic when the Tigers appeared. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:28 | |
'Now Bill, just 23 years old that day, | 0:25:28 | 0:25:31 | |
'tried to sneak back to his own lines with two other crew members.' | 0:25:31 | 0:25:36 | |
BILL: "We crept through the hedgerows, which took a long time, | 0:25:36 | 0:25:39 | |
"until we came to the main road. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:41 | |
"It seemed all quiet, so I got up and suddenly heard, | 0:25:41 | 0:25:45 | |
"Hande hoch, Englander! | 0:25:45 | 0:25:47 | |
"Followed by a burst of machine gun fire. | 0:25:47 | 0:25:50 | |
"We had no weapons, so had to surrender. | 0:25:50 | 0:25:52 | |
I heard a burst of mauser fire and I thought, God, they've got him | 0:25:53 | 0:26:00 | |
and I firmly believed that he'd been killed. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:03 | |
'Devastated, absolutely, he was...' | 0:26:09 | 0:26:12 | |
He was my best friend... Marvellous chap as well. | 0:26:12 | 0:26:16 | |
Er, but... | 0:26:16 | 0:26:18 | |
..by the time we'd reached the Seine, | 0:26:20 | 0:26:22 | |
I'd lost all my friends. | 0:26:22 | 0:26:25 | |
When that happens, you're on your own. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:28 | |
'Allied aircraft dominated the skies over Normandy, | 0:26:30 | 0:26:33 | |
'striking fear into the Germans. | 0:26:33 | 0:26:36 | |
'5th Tanks now witnessed a massive air attack on Villers-Bocage, | 0:26:36 | 0:26:40 | |
'where earlier that day, | 0:26:40 | 0:26:42 | |
'French civilians had greeted the triumphant British.' | 0:26:42 | 0:26:45 | |
EXPLOSIONS | 0:26:45 | 0:26:47 | |
'They just stonked the place, flattened it altogether. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:56 | |
'You couldn't mess about with things like that, | 0:26:56 | 0:26:59 | |
'you had to get on with it. It was desperate times...' | 0:26:59 | 0:27:03 | |
We were in a bridgehead and wanted to get out... | 0:27:03 | 0:27:07 | |
and, you know, you couldn't worry about details like that. | 0:27:07 | 0:27:12 | |
'If the RAF came and hit the target, well, | 0:27:12 | 0:27:15 | |
'so be it. As far as we were concerned, it was a good thing.' | 0:27:15 | 0:27:19 | |
Because war is war and there's no half measures. | 0:27:19 | 0:27:23 | |
'Allied air power was a blunt instrument. | 0:27:29 | 0:27:32 | |
'Its bombs killed about 70,000 French people. | 0:27:32 | 0:27:36 | |
'A third more killed by accident than the British suffered | 0:27:36 | 0:27:40 | |
'from the Luftwaffe's deliberate bombing during the blitz.' | 0:27:40 | 0:27:43 | |
'British Infantry divisions had failed to link up | 0:27:51 | 0:27:55 | |
'with the 5th Tanks and 7th Armoured Division. | 0:27:55 | 0:27:58 | |
'So on June 14th, the order came to retreat, | 0:27:58 | 0:28:01 | |
'giving up all the ground they'd captured over the past days. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:06 | |
'They'd inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans, | 0:28:06 | 0:28:08 | |
'but they were isolated six miles forward of Allied lines. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:13 | |
'It was feared only a matter of time | 0:28:13 | 0:28:15 | |
'before they'd run out of supplies. | 0:28:15 | 0:28:17 | |
'5th Tanks, acting as rearguard, was the last to leave.' | 0:28:19 | 0:28:22 | |
'Captain Arthur Crickmay was the 5th Tank's Adjutant, | 0:28:26 | 0:28:30 | |
'right-hand man of the battalion's Commanding Officer. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:34 | |
'He'd been fighting since 1939 | 0:28:34 | 0:28:36 | |
'and had won the military cross for bravery.' | 0:28:36 | 0:28:39 | |
ARTHUR: "We moved off in pitch dark and clouds of choking dust, | 0:28:39 | 0:28:43 | |
"to the steady clanking of tracks | 0:28:43 | 0:28:46 | |
"and the dull roar of Rolls Royce engines. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:49 | |
"It seemed too much to expect of the enemy to let us go unmolested. | 0:28:49 | 0:28:53 | |
"But they did. They'd had enough." | 0:28:53 | 0:28:55 | |
The true vision of Arthur | 0:29:01 | 0:29:03 | |
was somebody who was absolutely immaculate. | 0:29:03 | 0:29:05 | |
We hadn't had any sleep for about five nights, | 0:29:07 | 0:29:09 | |
we had tablets to keep ourselves awake | 0:29:09 | 0:29:12 | |
and when we pulled out, most people flopped out and went to sleep | 0:29:12 | 0:29:16 | |
and I was still on my feet. | 0:29:16 | 0:29:17 | |
So I was required to go to Arthur's tank, | 0:29:17 | 0:29:22 | |
and Arthur was shaving. | 0:29:22 | 0:29:24 | |
And so there he goes, Americans arrived. | 0:29:24 | 0:29:28 | |
And one wanted to know what the position was. | 0:29:28 | 0:29:32 | |
And Arthur finished his shaving | 0:29:32 | 0:29:35 | |
and slowly told them, | 0:29:35 | 0:29:39 | |
quite quietly and slowly, what was happening. | 0:29:39 | 0:29:42 | |
But he wasn't going to be rushed by any Americans while he was shaving. | 0:29:42 | 0:29:47 | |
HE CHUCKLES | 0:29:47 | 0:29:49 | |
So what actually happened here? | 0:29:53 | 0:29:55 | |
Well, on the morning of the 13th, no doubt about it, | 0:29:55 | 0:29:58 | |
the 7th Armoured Division took a beating. | 0:29:58 | 0:30:00 | |
But later that day, and on the 14th of June, | 0:30:00 | 0:30:04 | |
it was the Germans who got the drubbing. | 0:30:04 | 0:30:07 | |
So in my view, Villers-Bocage was a score draw. | 0:30:07 | 0:30:11 | |
The Germans quite understandably made great propaganda play | 0:30:11 | 0:30:15 | |
out of Wittmann's actions, | 0:30:15 | 0:30:17 | |
and painted it as a great British defeat. | 0:30:17 | 0:30:20 | |
Far less understandable or forgivable was the fact that | 0:30:20 | 0:30:24 | |
certain British armchair critics took the same line. | 0:30:24 | 0:30:28 | |
The commanders of the 7th Armoured Division were sacked, | 0:30:28 | 0:30:31 | |
despite the fact that it was the infantry who failed to follow up | 0:30:31 | 0:30:36 | |
on their gains. | 0:30:36 | 0:30:37 | |
And some historians also unforgivably have bought the line | 0:30:37 | 0:30:42 | |
that, after this battle, the 7th Armoured Division was traumatised, | 0:30:42 | 0:30:46 | |
sticky, afraid to get into a fight. | 0:30:46 | 0:30:48 | |
There are criticisms of the 5th Tanks for being over-cautious. | 0:30:51 | 0:30:56 | |
But when you had the experience that we had, | 0:30:57 | 0:31:01 | |
you know when to go and when not to go. | 0:31:01 | 0:31:05 | |
And, er... | 0:31:05 | 0:31:07 | |
..that experience saved many lives. | 0:31:09 | 0:31:11 | |
We'd moved from a different type of terrain for warfare. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:16 | |
It was open desert, but here we were close country. | 0:31:16 | 0:31:20 | |
That was why we were cautious. | 0:31:20 | 0:31:22 | |
Stalking their enemies through the Normandy countryside, | 0:31:24 | 0:31:28 | |
many of the tank soldiers were struggling with inner demons. | 0:31:28 | 0:31:32 | |
Today we would call it post-traumatic stress. | 0:31:32 | 0:31:35 | |
Jake Wardrop, in his diary, mentions more than once | 0:31:35 | 0:31:38 | |
attacks of the jitters. | 0:31:38 | 0:31:40 | |
Mastering those feelings of fear and panic | 0:31:40 | 0:31:44 | |
was one of the biggest challenges facing the veteran tank commanders. | 0:31:44 | 0:31:48 | |
I think the general feeling amongst most fighting men was | 0:31:49 | 0:31:53 | |
that people only have a certain amount of stamina, | 0:31:53 | 0:31:55 | |
and when it's run out, that's it. | 0:31:55 | 0:31:58 | |
And you're lucky if you've got the stamina to keep going. | 0:31:58 | 0:32:01 | |
So we didn't blame them, really, when their nerves went. | 0:32:01 | 0:32:06 | |
Scared? Oh, yes. Everybody was scared. | 0:32:07 | 0:32:10 | |
Eventually I got to the stage where I was saying to myself, | 0:32:10 | 0:32:16 | |
"You keep getting away with it. | 0:32:16 | 0:32:17 | |
"God, you must have a charmed life." | 0:32:17 | 0:32:20 | |
And then I thought... | 0:32:20 | 0:32:23 | |
then later I thought to myself, | 0:32:23 | 0:32:25 | |
"Yeah, but my odds are getting shorter, surely." | 0:32:25 | 0:32:28 | |
Having failed to surround the city of Caen, | 0:32:29 | 0:32:32 | |
the 5th Tanks were pulled out of the front line for rest and to resupply. | 0:32:32 | 0:32:37 | |
"There was a cinema and baths in Bayeux which we visited, | 0:32:38 | 0:32:42 | |
"and in the improving weather we lay around and started to get tanned. | 0:32:42 | 0:32:46 | |
"At night we just simply sat around and read, wrote letters | 0:32:46 | 0:32:50 | |
"and took things easy." | 0:32:50 | 0:32:51 | |
GUNFIRE | 0:32:57 | 0:33:00 | |
Thirteen days after D-day, on the 19th of June, | 0:33:01 | 0:33:04 | |
a devastating storm hit the Channel. | 0:33:04 | 0:33:07 | |
Supplies fell to a trickle. | 0:33:09 | 0:33:11 | |
And since the 5th Tanks alone needed 650 tonnes of fuel, ammunition | 0:33:11 | 0:33:16 | |
and rations each day in combat, many operations had to be postponed. | 0:33:16 | 0:33:21 | |
While they rested, in the west, American units, | 0:33:22 | 0:33:26 | |
some with just three days of ammunition left, | 0:33:26 | 0:33:28 | |
were painfully grinding their way south against fierce resistance. | 0:33:28 | 0:33:32 | |
In the east, Monty kept up the war of attrition in the hedgerows, | 0:33:35 | 0:33:39 | |
trying to capture Caen and break out of the bridgehead. | 0:33:39 | 0:33:43 | |
With losses continuing day after day, | 0:33:48 | 0:33:50 | |
British infantry casualty rates were approaching those | 0:33:50 | 0:33:53 | |
of the First World War. | 0:33:53 | 0:33:55 | |
After years of fighting and worldwide commitments, | 0:33:55 | 0:33:59 | |
Britain was running out of foot soldiers. | 0:33:59 | 0:34:02 | |
Pressure was on Montgomery to get a move on. | 0:34:02 | 0:34:05 | |
On the 8th and 9th of July, he ordered a massive aerial bombardment | 0:34:09 | 0:34:14 | |
that devastated Caen and its civilian population. | 0:34:14 | 0:34:17 | |
After three major offensives | 0:34:19 | 0:34:22 | |
and 30 days of bloody fighting, | 0:34:22 | 0:34:24 | |
the city he'd hoped to take on D-day itself finally fell. | 0:34:24 | 0:34:29 | |
One week later, the Germans suffered another serious blow. | 0:34:32 | 0:34:37 | |
General Rommel had always feared Allied air superiority | 0:34:37 | 0:34:41 | |
and now he became one of its victims, seriously wounded | 0:34:41 | 0:34:45 | |
when his staff car was strafed by British fighters. | 0:34:45 | 0:34:48 | |
His war was over, but for the 5th Tanks | 0:34:48 | 0:34:51 | |
and others at the front, it continued. | 0:34:51 | 0:34:53 | |
General Montgomery called forward the Desert Rats | 0:34:53 | 0:34:57 | |
to play a key part in a coming offensive. | 0:34:57 | 0:34:59 | |
Operation Goodwood was to be a tank thrust across | 0:35:02 | 0:35:06 | |
the open countryside beyond Caen. | 0:35:06 | 0:35:09 | |
After weeks of suffering by his infantry, Montgomery intended | 0:35:09 | 0:35:13 | |
to use all three of his armoured divisions | 0:35:13 | 0:35:16 | |
to punch his way out of the bridgehead. | 0:35:16 | 0:35:18 | |
Over 1,000 tanks, | 0:35:21 | 0:35:24 | |
more than 60,000 infantry | 0:35:24 | 0:35:27 | |
and 700 pieces of artillery | 0:35:27 | 0:35:31 | |
guided into position, and then the rumble of thunder. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:35 | |
In the distance, 2,000 Allied bombers, | 0:35:36 | 0:35:39 | |
the largest number ever launched in support of ground forces, | 0:35:39 | 0:35:43 | |
pummelled the Norman fields. | 0:35:43 | 0:35:45 | |
BOMBS WHIR | 0:35:45 | 0:35:47 | |
We saw the bombing raid which preceded the Goodwood. | 0:35:52 | 0:35:57 | |
And that was enormous. | 0:35:57 | 0:35:59 | |
And you would have thought nobody could have lived through it. | 0:35:59 | 0:36:04 | |
In places, 56-tonne Tigers were hurled upside down. | 0:36:04 | 0:36:09 | |
German infantry went mad. | 0:36:09 | 0:36:11 | |
Some even committed suicide. | 0:36:11 | 0:36:13 | |
So began Operation Goodwood, | 0:36:15 | 0:36:17 | |
the biggest tank attack in the history of the British Army. | 0:36:17 | 0:36:21 | |
SOUND OF EXPLOSIONS | 0:36:23 | 0:36:26 | |
Today, the ground over which Goodwood was fought | 0:36:29 | 0:36:32 | |
is pretty much unchanged. | 0:36:32 | 0:36:33 | |
From this higher ground, the Germans had a grandstand view | 0:36:33 | 0:36:37 | |
as all three British armoured divisions in Normandy advanced, | 0:36:37 | 0:36:42 | |
from behind me, along an axis in line with these rows of crops. | 0:36:42 | 0:36:47 | |
The Germans had prepared defences, the villages had been fortified. | 0:36:48 | 0:36:53 | |
And the woods concealed scores of the feared 88mm anti-tank guns. | 0:36:56 | 0:37:02 | |
An 88 can knock out a Cromwell at 2,000 yards. | 0:37:08 | 0:37:13 | |
One 88 covers 4,000 yards. | 0:37:13 | 0:37:15 | |
They had lots of them together with Panthers and Tigers. | 0:37:15 | 0:37:19 | |
We were really up against it. | 0:37:19 | 0:37:21 | |
EXPLOSIONS | 0:37:21 | 0:37:23 | |
You know it's a 88 because you hear a tearing of paper. | 0:37:25 | 0:37:28 | |
And you move. | 0:37:30 | 0:37:32 | |
If you didn't hear it... | 0:37:32 | 0:37:34 | |
that was the end of you. | 0:37:34 | 0:37:36 | |
Despite the huge aerial bombardment, the Germans had hardly been harmed. | 0:37:39 | 0:37:44 | |
They had been expecting an attack for days | 0:37:44 | 0:37:47 | |
and had dug in five lines of defence, | 0:37:47 | 0:37:50 | |
stretching nine miles deep. | 0:37:50 | 0:37:52 | |
When Goodwood started, it's been likened to the French cavalry attack | 0:37:52 | 0:37:57 | |
at Agincourt or the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava. | 0:37:57 | 0:38:01 | |
The British advanced down a narrow corridor of death. | 0:38:01 | 0:38:05 | |
On the first day of Goodwood, nearly 200 Allied tanks were knocked out. | 0:38:08 | 0:38:14 | |
But 5th Tanks, along with the rest of 7th Armoured Division, | 0:38:14 | 0:38:17 | |
the most experienced of the three armoured divisions taking part, | 0:38:17 | 0:38:21 | |
was late getting to the fight. | 0:38:21 | 0:38:23 | |
They were stuck in a huge traffic jam near the Orne River. | 0:38:23 | 0:38:28 | |
But on day two of the battle, it was their turn to run the gauntlet | 0:38:28 | 0:38:32 | |
with 5th Tanks leading the way. | 0:38:32 | 0:38:35 | |
Going up a slope and looking down the other side, | 0:38:35 | 0:38:38 | |
my main thing was horror, | 0:38:38 | 0:38:41 | |
seeing a whole squadron of Shermans, in squadron formation, knocked out. | 0:38:41 | 0:38:47 | |
The place was littered with burning tanks everywhere | 0:38:51 | 0:38:54 | |
and there were bodies everywhere as well. | 0:38:54 | 0:38:57 | |
It was all very unpleasant indeed. | 0:38:57 | 0:38:59 | |
There were sort of half bodies around the place, | 0:38:59 | 0:39:01 | |
where people had been blown up. It was all very, very nasty. | 0:39:01 | 0:39:05 | |
As Jake Wardrop's troop approached a village across open fields, | 0:39:07 | 0:39:12 | |
an anti-tank gun concealed in woods opened fire. | 0:39:12 | 0:39:15 | |
"Then it happened. | 0:39:17 | 0:39:19 | |
"There was a loud thud behind, the tank slowed and stopped | 0:39:19 | 0:39:23 | |
"and the turret was full of flames, | 0:39:23 | 0:39:25 | |
"so I yelled, 'Jump!' and bailed for it. | 0:39:25 | 0:39:28 | |
"Poor Woody had been burned on the face and hands, | 0:39:28 | 0:39:32 | |
"they were starting to blister. | 0:39:32 | 0:39:34 | |
"We had lost all our kit." | 0:39:34 | 0:39:36 | |
For its crew, a tank is also a mobile home. | 0:39:41 | 0:39:45 | |
And when Jake Wardrop's Firefly went up in flames in this field, | 0:39:45 | 0:39:50 | |
they lost all their possessions. He was particularly upset | 0:39:50 | 0:39:54 | |
about losing a blue sweater he'd had since the desert battles, | 0:39:54 | 0:39:58 | |
and some chapters from his diary. | 0:39:58 | 0:40:01 | |
And they weren't the only people to get burnt out | 0:40:01 | 0:40:04 | |
of their vehicle that day. | 0:40:04 | 0:40:06 | |
The 5th lost three other tanks too, | 0:40:06 | 0:40:09 | |
and Roy Dixon had a close escape. | 0:40:09 | 0:40:12 | |
I had got out of my seat and was sitting on the turret ring, | 0:40:12 | 0:40:15 | |
so that I was higher up, so that I could see a bit better. | 0:40:15 | 0:40:18 | |
And an airburst went off above me. | 0:40:18 | 0:40:22 | |
And a bit of the shrapnel came down straight between my legs | 0:40:22 | 0:40:26 | |
and straight into the gunner. | 0:40:26 | 0:40:27 | |
I was incredibly lucky, it missed by about that much. | 0:40:27 | 0:40:31 | |
And the poor old gunner, we had to get him out of the tank | 0:40:31 | 0:40:33 | |
and getting a wounded man out of a tank is extremely difficult. | 0:40:33 | 0:40:37 | |
He subsequently died, regrettably. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:39 | |
You just had to accept it. | 0:40:39 | 0:40:41 | |
Everybody said, "Too bad, but, you know, make way for the new man." | 0:40:41 | 0:40:46 | |
You had to do that. | 0:40:46 | 0:40:48 | |
You couldn't go round... | 0:40:48 | 0:40:51 | |
weeping about it all, really. | 0:40:51 | 0:40:53 | |
When the operation ended on the 20th of July, | 0:40:53 | 0:40:56 | |
the British had advanced seven miles and taken this high ground. | 0:40:56 | 0:41:01 | |
But the cost of Goodwood had been high. | 0:41:01 | 0:41:04 | |
Critics made much of the fact the British had 400 tanks knocked out, | 0:41:04 | 0:41:09 | |
never mind that only half of them had actually been destroyed, | 0:41:09 | 0:41:13 | |
the rest could be repaired. | 0:41:13 | 0:41:16 | |
5th Tanks got off relatively lightly. | 0:41:16 | 0:41:18 | |
Sergeant Wardrop had survived being knocked out, | 0:41:18 | 0:41:21 | |
Gerry Solomon and Bob Lay had come through unscathed. | 0:41:21 | 0:41:26 | |
But the fact was, it wasn't the breakthrough that many had hoped for. | 0:41:26 | 0:41:30 | |
Goodwood was seen by many as a disaster | 0:41:34 | 0:41:37 | |
and Montgomery was nearly sacked. | 0:41:37 | 0:41:39 | |
But the Germans lost thousands of troops here, | 0:41:39 | 0:41:42 | |
scores of anti-tank guns and around 80 tanks and self-propelled guns. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:48 | |
And whereas the Allies were able to top up their tanks | 0:41:48 | 0:41:52 | |
to the original level within 36 hours of Goodwood, | 0:41:52 | 0:41:56 | |
the Germans had only succeeded, in all the weeks since D-day, | 0:41:56 | 0:42:00 | |
in replacing 17 out of 1,700 lost Panzers. | 0:42:00 | 0:42:05 | |
Two-thirds of the German Army was tied up fighting the Soviets | 0:42:11 | 0:42:15 | |
on the Eastern Front. | 0:42:15 | 0:42:17 | |
In France, Allied airpower strafed almost anything that moved. | 0:42:17 | 0:42:21 | |
As Rommel had feared, even though German tank production | 0:42:24 | 0:42:27 | |
was at its height, most were sent east, | 0:42:27 | 0:42:30 | |
while in France the resupply system had broken down | 0:42:30 | 0:42:33 | |
under pressure of air attack. | 0:42:33 | 0:42:35 | |
The Germans were being ground down and, bound by Hitler's orders | 0:42:37 | 0:42:41 | |
not to yield an inch of Normandy, | 0:42:41 | 0:42:44 | |
were becoming vulnerable to break-out and encirclement. | 0:42:44 | 0:42:47 | |
Just five days after Goodwood, on the 25th July, | 0:42:53 | 0:42:57 | |
the Americans launched Operation Cobra to great success. | 0:42:57 | 0:43:02 | |
The British had sucked most of Rommel's Panzer divisions | 0:43:02 | 0:43:06 | |
into the fight for Caen. | 0:43:06 | 0:43:08 | |
That helped the Americans break into open country. | 0:43:08 | 0:43:11 | |
The dream of mobile armoured warfare was now a reality. | 0:43:12 | 0:43:17 | |
In four days, they advanced 30 miles. | 0:43:17 | 0:43:20 | |
Meanwhile, 5th Tanks found themselves in their fiercest battle | 0:43:21 | 0:43:25 | |
of the Normandy campaign so far, | 0:43:25 | 0:43:27 | |
fighting to keep the Germans tied down in their sector. | 0:43:27 | 0:43:31 | |
So the Americans could exploit their break-out, | 0:43:31 | 0:43:34 | |
the 5th found themselves surrounded. | 0:43:34 | 0:43:36 | |
British infantry and tanks had to operate closely together as a team. | 0:43:39 | 0:43:45 | |
But this time it broke down, and the British infantry bugged out, | 0:43:45 | 0:43:50 | |
leaving the 5th Tanks to the mercy of SS Panzer grenadiers. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:54 | |
We were clustered there in a group and we were told we were going | 0:43:59 | 0:44:02 | |
to wait until the moon got a bit higher, give us a bit more light. | 0:44:02 | 0:44:07 | |
Then we were going to break out. | 0:44:07 | 0:44:09 | |
But, unfortunately, the enemy beat us to it. | 0:44:09 | 0:44:13 | |
I knew the tank had been hit. | 0:44:24 | 0:44:27 | |
I felt my right-hand side go numb. | 0:44:27 | 0:44:31 | |
Come on. Stand up. | 0:44:34 | 0:44:36 | |
Gerry Solomon had got through all the North Africa battles, | 0:44:36 | 0:44:40 | |
from Crusader to El Alamein, | 0:44:40 | 0:44:43 | |
and he'd been one of the first men into Tunis. | 0:44:43 | 0:44:45 | |
He'd been in Italy, in Villers-Bocage and on Operation Goodwood, too. | 0:44:45 | 0:44:50 | |
He knew he was living on borrowed time. | 0:44:50 | 0:44:53 | |
But true to the honour code of the 5th's sergeants and corporals, | 0:44:53 | 0:44:57 | |
the key tank commanders, he refused to put in for a cushier job. | 0:44:57 | 0:45:02 | |
Being seriously wounded had given him an honourable way out. | 0:45:02 | 0:45:06 | |
When I was injured, I wasn't sorry to be going home | 0:45:06 | 0:45:10 | |
because I'd been there for two months and, you know, | 0:45:10 | 0:45:14 | |
I thought all I'd done in the war, I'd done my bit anyway. | 0:45:14 | 0:45:18 | |
The British succeeded in holding the German Army in place. | 0:45:21 | 0:45:25 | |
For Gerry and the 5th, that came at quite a price. | 0:45:25 | 0:45:29 | |
They lost seven tanks and 25 casualties in one day. | 0:45:29 | 0:45:33 | |
But the bigger picture was the German Army was now trapped | 0:45:33 | 0:45:37 | |
and annihilated. | 0:45:37 | 0:45:39 | |
On the 25th of August, the Battle of Normandy was declared over. | 0:45:39 | 0:45:44 | |
The cost had been high. | 0:45:44 | 0:45:46 | |
In 80 days of fighting, the Allies had over 200,000 casualties, | 0:45:46 | 0:45:51 | |
the Germans around 300,000 out of a smaller force. | 0:45:51 | 0:45:56 | |
Of the 2,300 German tanks committed to the battle, | 0:45:56 | 0:46:00 | |
less than 120 were brought back across the Seine. | 0:46:00 | 0:46:05 | |
The Allies lost many more tanks - 4,000. | 0:46:05 | 0:46:08 | |
But all of them were rapidly replaced. | 0:46:08 | 0:46:11 | |
Jake Wardrop, Bob Lay, Arthur Crickmay and Roy Dixon had all | 0:46:13 | 0:46:17 | |
come through relatively unscathed. | 0:46:17 | 0:46:20 | |
On the 31st of August, after nearly three months of fighting | 0:46:20 | 0:46:24 | |
in the hedgerows, they crossed the River Seine, | 0:46:24 | 0:46:27 | |
about here, and left behind the horrors of Normandy. | 0:46:27 | 0:46:30 | |
The tanks now sped across France, | 0:46:33 | 0:46:36 | |
driving in hours across the Flanders fields their fathers had contested | 0:46:36 | 0:46:41 | |
for years during the First World War. | 0:46:41 | 0:46:43 | |
In just five days, | 0:46:43 | 0:46:45 | |
they travelled 200 miles, the 5th Tanks being the first | 0:46:45 | 0:46:49 | |
Allied unit to liberate the Belgian city of Ghent. | 0:46:49 | 0:46:52 | |
DISTANT CHEERING | 0:46:52 | 0:46:54 | |
When we got to Ghent, it was tremendous, it was a big city. | 0:46:54 | 0:46:57 | |
Everybody turned out. | 0:46:57 | 0:46:58 | |
Girls leaping on your tank and, you know, embracing you. | 0:46:58 | 0:47:02 | |
And it was good stuff. | 0:47:02 | 0:47:03 | |
Parts of Ghent were still occupied by the Germans, | 0:47:12 | 0:47:16 | |
so Arthur Crickmay, now a major, came here to their headquarters, | 0:47:16 | 0:47:20 | |
in an attempt to persuade the German commander to surrender. | 0:47:20 | 0:47:24 | |
After five days on the road, though, Crickmay was painfully aware | 0:47:24 | 0:47:28 | |
that his usually immaculate standards had slipped | 0:47:28 | 0:47:32 | |
and that he was living up to the nickname of the Filthy 5th. | 0:47:32 | 0:47:35 | |
"To describe my kit - overalls tanked in, slept in, | 0:47:36 | 0:47:40 | |
"non-stop for a week - as a mess, would be understating a condition | 0:47:40 | 0:47:45 | |
"that compared most unfavourably with that of General Bruhn. | 0:47:45 | 0:47:48 | |
"He took this in and, being appraised of my meagre rank, | 0:47:48 | 0:47:52 | |
"immediately took off on his thesis, often repeated, that surrender | 0:47:52 | 0:47:56 | |
"could only be made to a British officer of equal rank to himself." | 0:47:56 | 0:48:01 | |
The 5th Tanks had advanced so rapidly, though, | 0:48:01 | 0:48:04 | |
that there were no generals to hand. | 0:48:04 | 0:48:06 | |
So Major Crickmay persuaded his boss, the commanding officer | 0:48:06 | 0:48:10 | |
of the battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Holliman, to act the part. | 0:48:10 | 0:48:13 | |
Unfortunately, the German general guessed what was going on | 0:48:13 | 0:48:17 | |
and still refused to surrender. But he did agree to pull his troops | 0:48:17 | 0:48:22 | |
back to the north of the city, and so the 5th Tanks played | 0:48:22 | 0:48:26 | |
their part in saving the historic centre of Ghent from destruction. | 0:48:26 | 0:48:30 | |
EXPLOSIONS | 0:48:30 | 0:48:31 | |
It was now September, and fighting raged to the north of the city. | 0:48:31 | 0:48:36 | |
The tide of war had moved decisively against Germany, | 0:48:36 | 0:48:40 | |
but they fought on, much to the frustration of many British soldiers. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:44 | |
"The stupid, pig-headed Boches infantry came at us, | 0:48:48 | 0:48:51 | |
"marching across the open fields. When they were good and close | 0:48:51 | 0:48:56 | |
"we went to town with the machine guns. | 0:48:56 | 0:48:58 | |
"There was no cover and we kept firing and firing. | 0:48:58 | 0:49:01 | |
"It was great. | 0:49:01 | 0:49:03 | |
"One was waving a white flag so we didn't fire | 0:49:03 | 0:49:07 | |
"but they didn't come in. Perhaps they were wounded. | 0:49:07 | 0:49:10 | |
"At any rate, I nipped down to pick them up | 0:49:10 | 0:49:12 | |
"when just then the Boche started to lob over more mortar. | 0:49:12 | 0:49:17 | |
"They dropped quite close and I picked up a small splinter | 0:49:17 | 0:49:20 | |
"in my face. That settled it. | 0:49:20 | 0:49:22 | |
"I got back on the tank, gave Jimmy the word | 0:49:22 | 0:49:26 | |
"and he chopped them down." | 0:49:26 | 0:49:27 | |
Jake's attitude to war was very belligerent. | 0:49:33 | 0:49:37 | |
He wanted to get at them and knock them out | 0:49:37 | 0:49:41 | |
and that may have been great satisfaction. | 0:49:41 | 0:49:43 | |
Not everybody felt that way. | 0:49:45 | 0:49:47 | |
Jake Wardrop testified to the bitterness of the fighting. | 0:49:49 | 0:49:53 | |
Near here he saw two wounded Germans being finished off with head shots, | 0:49:53 | 0:49:57 | |
after they'd surrendered, by a British soldier. | 0:49:57 | 0:50:01 | |
It wasn't a good thing to do, he wrote, but at least it saved | 0:50:01 | 0:50:04 | |
the danger of sending a British stretcher party to get them. | 0:50:04 | 0:50:08 | |
The 5th, by this stage of the war, contained some very hard men, | 0:50:08 | 0:50:13 | |
many of whom fought according to their own rules. | 0:50:13 | 0:50:16 | |
Another sergeant in the battalion wrote that he had become | 0:50:16 | 0:50:19 | |
"a bloodthirsty fighter who just longed for the next battle". | 0:50:19 | 0:50:23 | |
They wanted to get home too, of course, | 0:50:23 | 0:50:26 | |
but that just added to their anger with the Germans who fought on. | 0:50:26 | 0:50:30 | |
By the 14th of September, the whole of Belgium | 0:50:32 | 0:50:36 | |
and Luxembourg was in Allied hands. | 0:50:36 | 0:50:38 | |
Now they crept into Holland, nearer the German border. | 0:50:38 | 0:50:42 | |
Progress was slow. | 0:50:42 | 0:50:44 | |
There were simply not enough supplies coming through | 0:50:44 | 0:50:47 | |
to an Allied Army that now numbered three million men. | 0:50:47 | 0:50:50 | |
For the 5th Tanks, the war now came to a pause. | 0:50:50 | 0:50:54 | |
The battalion's casualty record for November shows just how inactive | 0:50:56 | 0:51:01 | |
they were at that stage of the war. It records just two deaths. | 0:51:01 | 0:51:05 | |
One from artillery fire, the other from a heart attack. | 0:51:05 | 0:51:09 | |
And it was that second one that shocked the men. | 0:51:09 | 0:51:12 | |
For them, natural death had become unnatural. | 0:51:12 | 0:51:16 | |
MORTAR AND GUNFIRE | 0:51:16 | 0:51:20 | |
While war raged elsewhere in Europe, over the winter months | 0:51:20 | 0:51:24 | |
the 5th Tanks' biggest battle was keeping warm. | 0:51:24 | 0:51:28 | |
After months of inactivity, the 5th Tanks crossed the Rhine | 0:51:30 | 0:51:34 | |
on the 27th of March. | 0:51:34 | 0:51:36 | |
I can only imagine how hard it must have been for the likes | 0:51:36 | 0:51:39 | |
of Arthur Crickmay or Jake Wardrop, who had been at war for five years | 0:51:39 | 0:51:43 | |
and had so many close escapes, | 0:51:43 | 0:51:45 | |
to steel themselves for battle once more, | 0:51:45 | 0:51:48 | |
knowing they had probably used up their nine lives. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:52 | |
The 5th Tanks was now fighting in the last desperate battles | 0:51:57 | 0:52:01 | |
against a crumbling Third Reich, | 0:52:01 | 0:52:03 | |
their objective, Hamburg, 200 miles away. | 0:52:03 | 0:52:07 | |
For 5th Tanks, the last major engagement of the war | 0:52:10 | 0:52:14 | |
was at a place called Rethem. | 0:52:14 | 0:52:16 | |
Small in the overall scheme of things perhaps, | 0:52:16 | 0:52:19 | |
but for the battalion it was a place of huge significance. | 0:52:19 | 0:52:23 | |
Jake Wardrop was advancing through woods just south of Rethem | 0:52:28 | 0:52:32 | |
when all hell broke loose. | 0:52:32 | 0:52:35 | |
CACOPHONY OF GUNFIRE | 0:52:38 | 0:52:41 | |
HE GROANS | 0:52:47 | 0:52:49 | |
Jake was found, pistol in hand. | 0:52:50 | 0:52:53 | |
Wounded in the legs, he had fought to the last | 0:52:53 | 0:52:56 | |
but finally succumbed to a bullet in the heart. | 0:52:56 | 0:52:59 | |
When Jake was shot, the regiment was really upset. | 0:53:05 | 0:53:09 | |
Because he was such a very widely respected guy in the regiment. | 0:53:09 | 0:53:13 | |
Everybody in the regiment knew about him | 0:53:16 | 0:53:18 | |
so his loss was particularly badly felt. | 0:53:18 | 0:53:21 | |
When Jake's tank was knocked out and another one shortly afterwards, | 0:53:28 | 0:53:33 | |
we had lost great characters who were a great treasure | 0:53:33 | 0:53:38 | |
to the regiment. | 0:53:38 | 0:53:40 | |
And nine people altogether | 0:53:40 | 0:53:42 | |
out of 75 crew members of C Squadron | 0:53:42 | 0:53:46 | |
just at the end of the war. | 0:53:46 | 0:53:49 | |
And that...that hurt. | 0:53:49 | 0:53:51 | |
It was very... | 0:53:52 | 0:53:54 | |
..very tragic. | 0:53:55 | 0:53:56 | |
Jake Wardrop's precious diary was recovered from his tank | 0:53:59 | 0:54:03 | |
and eventually made its way home. | 0:54:03 | 0:54:05 | |
His best epitaph perhaps comes in his own words to his mother, | 0:54:05 | 0:54:09 | |
explaining, in a letter, why he wouldn't take a safer job. | 0:54:09 | 0:54:14 | |
"I am a tank commander and I shall continue to be one | 0:54:14 | 0:54:18 | |
"until the end. Should it be the wrong one, don't worry. | 0:54:18 | 0:54:22 | |
"I've played the game as it seemed to me the right way to play it. | 0:54:22 | 0:54:27 | |
"I have respected the women and given my rations to the little | 0:54:27 | 0:54:30 | |
"children because they were hungry, and I've shot the Germans down | 0:54:30 | 0:54:34 | |
"and laughed because of friends lost and, in any case, they started it." | 0:54:34 | 0:54:39 | |
Wardrop had been killed less than a month before the end of the war. | 0:54:41 | 0:54:45 | |
The 5th Tanks, in their drive to Hamburg, | 0:54:50 | 0:54:52 | |
now encountered Allied prisoner of war camps. | 0:54:52 | 0:54:56 | |
By an amazing coincidence, | 0:54:56 | 0:54:58 | |
Bill Chorley, captured eight months earlier in Normandy, | 0:54:58 | 0:55:01 | |
was liberated by his own division. | 0:55:01 | 0:55:04 | |
He was lucky to be alive. | 0:55:04 | 0:55:06 | |
Used for slave labour in Poland, when Russian forces approached | 0:55:06 | 0:55:11 | |
his captors forced him on a death march west. | 0:55:11 | 0:55:14 | |
It was the depths of winter. Many prisoners never made it. | 0:55:14 | 0:55:18 | |
MEN CHEER | 0:55:18 | 0:55:20 | |
By God, I was delighted. | 0:55:20 | 0:55:22 | |
He weighed six-and-a-half stone. | 0:55:22 | 0:55:24 | |
On the 3rd of May, the 5th Tanks crossed the Elbe into Hamburg. | 0:55:34 | 0:55:38 | |
There was no resistance at this moment of triumph. | 0:55:38 | 0:55:42 | |
In 11 months since landing at Normandy, | 0:55:42 | 0:55:44 | |
they'd suffered 84 killed and two dozen tanks destroyed. | 0:55:44 | 0:55:49 | |
Driving into Hamburg was an amazing experience. | 0:55:53 | 0:55:56 | |
The war hadn't technically finished | 0:55:56 | 0:55:58 | |
but in all senses fighting had stopped, and we drove through | 0:55:58 | 0:56:02 | |
what was a completely shattered city. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:05 | |
It was an appalling sight, really. | 0:56:05 | 0:56:07 | |
On the 4th of May, | 0:56:19 | 0:56:20 | |
General Montgomery accepted the unconditional surrender | 0:56:20 | 0:56:24 | |
of all German forces in Holland and Northwest Germany. | 0:56:24 | 0:56:27 | |
Four days later, Victory in Europe was declared. | 0:56:30 | 0:56:35 | |
We knew. We'd made it. | 0:56:38 | 0:56:41 | |
And we didn't know what to do. | 0:56:41 | 0:56:44 | |
And we just hugged each other and we threw our berets in the air, | 0:56:44 | 0:56:48 | |
never got our own berets again. But that was it. | 0:56:48 | 0:56:52 | |
That was the end of the war for us. | 0:56:52 | 0:56:55 | |
A marvellous moment. | 0:56:56 | 0:56:58 | |
The war had been an extraordinarily hard experience | 0:57:07 | 0:57:10 | |
for the men of 5th Tanks. | 0:57:10 | 0:57:12 | |
By VE Day there were just a few dozen, less than 50 serving | 0:57:12 | 0:57:16 | |
in its ranks, who had been there at the outbreak of the conflict. | 0:57:16 | 0:57:20 | |
Their odyssey had lasted six years, carrying them across thousands | 0:57:22 | 0:57:27 | |
of miles and costing the lives of 240 of their men. | 0:57:27 | 0:57:32 | |
Their advances across North Africa and France | 0:57:32 | 0:57:35 | |
equalled the achievement of Hitler's Panzer divisions. | 0:57:35 | 0:57:39 | |
But our tank soldiers were citizens in a democracy | 0:57:39 | 0:57:43 | |
and modest with it, their achievements even now understated | 0:57:43 | 0:57:47 | |
and distinctly British. | 0:57:47 | 0:57:49 | |
It is a terrible thing, in a way, to admit one was taking part | 0:57:51 | 0:57:56 | |
in a sort of war of destruction, | 0:57:56 | 0:57:58 | |
but from a personal point of view, as a very young man, | 0:57:58 | 0:58:03 | |
it was some of the happiest days of my life | 0:58:03 | 0:58:06 | |
because you were living in a little compact group, in this case | 0:58:06 | 0:58:10 | |
the troop, who were great sort of pals. | 0:58:10 | 0:58:13 | |
You had no responsibilities other than keeping yourself alive | 0:58:13 | 0:58:16 | |
and doing the job. | 0:58:16 | 0:58:18 | |
CHEERING | 0:58:18 | 0:58:20 | |
The people in the services had a job to do. | 0:58:22 | 0:58:25 | |
It had to be done. | 0:58:26 | 0:58:28 | |
And we'd done it. | 0:58:29 | 0:58:31 | |
It wasn't a matter of rejoicing. | 0:58:32 | 0:58:35 | |
I didn't go to the parade in Berlin. | 0:58:35 | 0:58:38 | |
I didn't see anything to rejoice about. | 0:58:39 | 0:58:42 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:55 | 0:58:58 |