BBC Documentary - Tankies - 5 RTR, Jan 6th.

Problem was that a lot of the 'colour' footage was actually 'colourised' by computer. I thought this awful practice had been in terminal decline after a group of film directors railed against it. I have seen a lot of the original (B&W) footage and this was indeed badly coloured in.

 

When is Episode 2 ?

 

BBC Two - Tankies: Tank Heroes of World War II - Next on

repeated on HD on Tuesday 8th..

 

QUOTE FROM PRESS RELEASE.

"5th Royal Tank Regiment... the perfect choice by Mark Urban - Diplomatic and Defence Editor for Newsnight, Author, and presenter of Tankies: Tank Heroes of World War II.

The Second World War was such a uniquely destructive episode in human history, that entire divisions - thousands of men - were often written off in a few days fighting, with the broken remnants sent to other units. It might seem inconceivable that a formation could have gone all the way through six years of it, with a cadre of people who served in combat throughout that time, but a handful of British formations did.

So what did involvement in prolonged involvement in such intense fighting do to those who survived it and how did they rationalise their experience? The survivors are now disappearing at an alarming rate, so I couple of years ago, having found a British tank battalion that had been in combat dozens of times between the abortive 1940 campaign in France and VE Day in Germany in May 1945 I was anxious to trace former members and interview them as quickly as possible.

The choice of a tank battalion was important for a number of reasons. The issue of armoured warfare, and how the Allies managed to recoup ground lost to the Germans when they unveiled their ‘Blitzkreig’ (or ‘Lightning War’ tactics, with panzers as their centre piece) is in itself of major interest. But the other reality, sadly, is that men in infantry formations simply didn’t last long enough for a study of their role in the war as a whole to be viable.

‘Band of Brothers’ the classic work about Easy Company, one of those in the US 101st Airborne Division shows how quickly men churned through due to the casualties and stress of combat - and really it just focuses on eleven months from D-Day to the end of the war. When I looked at the record of one of the battalions of the Queen’s Regiment that was part of the famous 7th Armoured Division or Desert Rats, I found that just ten out of 1,200 who landed in Egypt with the battalion in the summer of 1942, had survived until VE Day just under three years later - half the war in other words.

So I was happy to settle on the choice of the 5th Royal Tank Regiment, or 5 RTR, another element of the Desert Rats, of which something like three dozen men in its ranks in 1945 had been with it or sister battalions at the outbreak of war. To the best of my knowledge none of them survive to this day - but I did find old soldiers who had served in its ranks for most of the war, and one of 96 who was serving with 5th Tanks in 1939 and spent four years as a prisoner of war!

My research about 5 RTR was conducted for a book that will be published in March 2013. But early on it struck me that the veterans who agreed to talk should be recorded on camera too, and soon after putting this idea to the BBC, the Tankies documentary was born, growing into its own distinctive thing.

The films feature: Harry Finlayson, that one time prisoner of war who had been captured at the battle of Sidi Rezegh in November 1941 (how many tank commanders from that bloody, and seminal, 8th Army action are still around to tell the tale ?); Gerry Solomon, a volunteer who joined soon after the outbreak of war and fought up to the battle of Normandy in 1944 when his Firefly was knocked out by SS Panzergrenadiers and he was badly wounded; Bob Lay, another desert veteran who made it all the way to the finishing line in Hamburg in 1945; and Roy Dixon who joined 5 RTR as a fresh faced subaltern in 1944 and soon rose to be the battalion’s adjutant.

Of course the work I have been doing - films and book - features much more than the testimony of veterans. It gleans dozens of written accounts, unpublished memoirs, letters and diaries. In many ways the 5th Tanks is just a typical unit of the Royal Armoured Corps - we wouldn’t pretend that it did its duty any better than some of the other regular army Royal Tank Regiment and cavalry outfits that were around in 1939.

It did however, in my view, produce a very rich seam of testimony from the other ranks - the non-commissioned soldiers who commanded most of its tanks and were its backbone. The diary of Jake Wardrop, a 5 RTR sergeant killed just weeks from the end of the war, is remarkable for its honesty and has already appeared in book form - but during this project his family made available to me extraordinary new material that was edited out of the original published text. The battalion contained many other wise chroniclers too, from hardened regular army NCOs to smart grammar school boys like Bob Lay who brought their sharp civilian sensibilities to the bloody business they were collectively engaged in.

Although usually numbering between 500 and 600, 5 RTR churned through nearly 2,500 men during the six years of war. Of these about 10% were killed in action, something like 40% were wounded and around 90 became prisoners of war like Harry Finlayson. Of the remaining difference between those who served at some time in 5th Tanks and were still there at the end of the war, hundreds were posted to other units to help train them, and others who were sometimes posted away because their nerves couldn’t take any more fighting.

What did those who remained at the centre of this battalion, the corporals and sergeants commanding tanks or the trucks of the transport echelon make of this experience? That’s the story that we will start to tell on BBC2."

END QUOTE

 

A fine analysis of the tank battles in the BEF and North Africa and a worthy tribute to the men who took part against the overwhelming German superiority in tank design and tank deployment as well as leaderskip. That we eventually drove the Germans out of North Africa : 'Well done Monty; Well done lads!

Joe Brown

 

One abiding memory of the re-education of the British Army was the "credo " of Monty
" our job is to kill Germans - one a day - even Padres - once per day - twice on Sundays " brought the house down.......

Cheers

 

On again today at 21:00 hrs BBC 2

Ron

 

BBC iPlayer - Tankies: Tank Heroes of World War II: Episode 2

just finished on BBC2

 

Lots of familiar scenes and places

 

I do wonder what the book can add to what's in Press On Regardless, which is a comprehensive mix of war diary and extensive veteran accounts.

 

I thought it was very good and well presented and I would happily watch it when it is repeated.

 

Joe
while you are quite right in congratulating Monty and the lads for their overwhelming Rommel as from Wadi el Halpfa onwards - it was the application by Monty of Alanbrooke strategy frame before he took over the CIGS' job from Dill.

Monty cleared the infantry corps commanders and imported Leese - Horrocks and Kirkman
for the Artillery but he couldn't do anything about the Armour as both MacCreery and Roberts were not ready for their roles until Medenine when he fired both Lumsden and Gatehouse and their Balaclava tactics - and with Harry Broadhurst came up with the British Blitzkreig cab rank which was prominent in the victories of El Hamma and Tunis and later the "swan" to Antwerp/Brussels- even still handicapped by small guns and old Tanks - we never looked back - it was late when enough firefly's - crocodiles et al were
available...
Cheers

 

Yes great programme, and for those who don't know, where Shakers wood is, where they trained for D Day.

Desert Rat memorial, Thetford Forest:: OS grid TL8196 :: Geograph Britain and Ireland - photograph every grid square!

The Desert Rats Association - 7th Armoured Division Thetford Forest Memorial

 

In last nights final episode something was described by one of the vets that shook me to the core because it mirrored exactly an experience of my own.

A story was being told about a Jerry unit that was in the process of surrendering when completely out of the blue the 5th RTR were subjected to fresh enemy mortar fire.

As a direct result, they then shot down the Jerries who were moving across an open field towards them.

My own experience, which I have posted before, went as follows:
Friday 13th 1945
Moved over Santerno. Some M.G. nuisance and one H.E. about twenty yards away. Bags of prisoners, Kiss from Signora. "Liberatoris !". Chasing after tedeschis with 30 browning blazing!

The Browning machine gun referred to was rarely fired in anger, the exception being on this one occasion when I nearly killed Hewie our Stuart Tank driver.
We had been on the move all day and the Germans were surrendering left, right and centre. To our left, about two hundred yards away, German infantry were climbing out of slit trenches with their hands high and we were gesturing to them to get behind us and to make their way to the rear.
Suddenly someone to our right opened light rifle fire at us and Busty (SSM ‘Busty’ Thomas) lost patience and yelled at me "Let the bastards have it!" Hewie swung the tank to the right so we could face the new threat and I started firing non-stop, without giving Hewie a chance to drop his adjustable seat down below the level of fire belching from the Browning. A horrified Busty yelled: "Get down you stupid bastard!" and to my immediate relief Hewie disappeared from view before I could hit him.
Within seconds the rifle fire was replaced by more hand-raising, and we were able to proceed without further incident.
See what I mean ?

Ron

 

The Second World War was such a uniquely destructive episode in human history, that entire divisions - thousands of men - were often written off in a few days fighting, with the broken remnants sent to other units. It might seem inconceivable that a formation could have gone all the way through six years of it, with a cadre of people who served in combat throughout that time, but a handful of British formations did.
So what did involvement in prolonged involvement in such intense fighting do to those who survived it and how did they rationalise their experience? The survivors are now disappearing at an alarming rate, so I couple of years ago, having found a British tank battalion that had been in combat dozens of times between the abortive 1940 campaign in France and VE Day in Germany in May 1945 I was anxious to trace former members and interview them as quickly as possible.
The choice of a tank battalion was important for a number of reasons. The issue of armoured warfare, and how the Allies managed to recoup ground lost to the Germans when they unveiled their ‘Blitzkreig’ (or ‘Lightning War’ tactics, with panzers as their centre piece) is in itself of major interest. But the other reality, sadly, is that men in infantry formations simply didn’t last long enough for a study of their role in the war as a whole to be viable.
‘Band of Brothers’ the classic work about Easy Company, one of those in the US 101st Airborne Division shows how quickly men churned through due to the casualties and stress of combat - and really it just focuses on eleven months from D-Day to the end of the war. When I looked at the record of one of the battalions of the Queen’s Regiment that was part of the famous 7th Armoured Division or Desert Rats, I found that just ten out of 1,200 who landed in Egypt with the battalion in the summer of 1942, had survived until VE Day just under three years later - half the war in other words.
So I was happy to settle on the choice of the 5th Royal Tank Regiment, or 5 RTR, another element of the Desert Rats, of which something like three dozen men in its ranks in 1945 had been with it or sister battalions at the outbreak of war. To the best of my knowledge none of them survive to this day - but I did find old soldiers who had served in its ranks for most of the war, and one of 96 who was serving with 5th Tanks in 1939 and spent four years as a prisoner of war!
My research about 5 RTR was conducted for a book that will be published in March 2013. But early on it struck me that the veterans who agreed to talk should be recorded on camera too, and soon after putting this idea to the BBC, the Tankies documentary was born, growing into its own distinctive thing.
The films feature: Harry Finlayson, that one time prisoner of war who had been captured at the battle of Sidi Rezegh in November 1941 (how many tank commanders from that bloody, and seminal, 8th Army action are still around to tell the tale ?); Gerry Solomon, a volunteer who joined soon after the outbreak of war and fought up to the battle of Normandy in 1944 when his Firefly was knocked out by SS Panzergrenadiers and he was badly wounded; Bob Lay, another desert veteran who made it all the way to the finishing line in Hamburg in 1945; and Roy Dixon who joined 5 RTR as a fresh faced subaltern in 1944 and soon rose to be the battalion’s adjutant.
Of course the work I have been doing - films and book - features much more than the testimony of veterans. It gleans dozens of written accounts, unpublished memoirs, letters and diaries. In many ways the 5th Tanks is just a typical unit of the Royal Armoured Corps - we wouldn’t pretend that it did its duty any better than some of the other regular army Royal Tank Regiment and cavalry outfits that were around in 1939.
It did however, in my view, produce a very rich seam of testimony from the other ranks - the non-commissioned soldiers who commanded most of its tanks and were its backbone. The diary of Jake Wardrop, a 5 RTR sergeant killed just weeks from the end of the war, is remarkable for its honesty and has already appeared in book form - but during this project his family made available to me extraordinary new material that was edited out of the original published text. The battalion contained many other wise chroniclers too, from hardened regular army NCOs to smart grammar school boys like Bob Lay who brought their sharp civilian sensibilities to the bloody business they were collectively engaged in.
Although usually numbering between 500 and 600, 5 RTR churned through nearly 2,500 men during the six years of war. Of these about 10% were killed in action, something like 40% were wounded and around 90 became prisoners of war like Harry Finlayson. Of the remaining difference between those who served at some time in 5th Tanks and were still there at the end of the war, hundreds were posted to other units to help train them, and others who were sometimes posted away because their nerves couldn’t take any more fighting.
What did those who remained at the centre of this battalion, the corporals and sergeants commanding tanks or the trucks of the transport echelon make of this experience? That’s the story that we will start to tell on BBC2.
BBC Two - Tankies: Tank Heroes of World War II - 5th Royal Tank Regiment... the perfect choice

 

I thought it was very well done indeed, despite he managed to have a solid crack at breaking some of the myths - Villiers-Bocage, I feel that the issue with Tigers was vastly overplayed, most likely in the edit for dramatic effect.

Veteran's stories made it for me, and I must say Mark Urban was a fine presenter for this.

I'd love in future to see more attempts made to explain overall strategy and plans, but understand the time limitation and rough organisation of equivalent Allied/German Divisions/Battalions.

All in an excellent production, but I do not understand why a horribly incorrect Sherman was used instead of a Cromwell - there are plenty of the latter still bashing about...

 

Yes great programme, and for those who don't know, where Shakers wood is, where they trained for D Day.

Desert Rat memorial, Thetford Forest:: OS grid TL8196 :: Geograph Britain and Ireland - photograph every grid square!

The Desert Rats Association - 7th Armoured Division Thetford Forest Memorial

Myself and father enjoyed last nights program. Father says he spent quite a lot of time with them from Normandy to Hamburg. Each year we lay the wreath for the Desert Rats Memorial Association at Bayeux.

 

Watched last night's episode and full of admiration for the crews of The Armoured Corps: their courage and bravery despite knowing the odds which they faced with persistence and determination. Well done the Tanks lads!

My battalion generally teamed up with 13th/18th Hussars and we got to know each other, depended on one another as we faced the changing pattern of the battle and coming to grips with the unexpected. I now believe we should have trained more together, lived in a joint camp, aiming to become in even more closer in understanding what each other could best do.

Joe Brown.

 

Joe
Our Brigadier insisted that the ONLY reason for our existence was to support the 1st CID in ALL aspects - and that we should train unceasingly with them to breathe - live and probably die with them....he had us doing schemes with them all day long - but it paid off
in the end - and we had a few laughs with them as well as we were with them for more than nine months.....
Cheers