Dan Snow's History Hit - James Holland on The Sherwood Rangers: Legendary Tank Regiment

Episode Date: October 2, 2021

Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry was one of the best tank regiments of the Second World War and was at the speartip of the British Army from the North Africa campaign to Northern Europe right up to the fall of the Third Reich in 1945. They saw an incredible amount of action as one of the first British units ashore on D-Day and were also the first British unit to fight on German soil in 1944. The regiment's story is also one of remarkable transformation reflecting the rapidly changing face of war. They started the war as a cavalry unit still mounted on chargers and ended it as the tank regiment as which they are perhaps best known. In this episode of the podcast, Dan is joined by the Legendary James Holland whose new book, Brothers in Arms: A Legendary Tank Regiment's Bloody War from D-Day to VE Day, charts the story of the regiment throughout this titanic conflict. James and Dan discuss the path of the regiment to become an armoured unit, the incredible bravery and stoicism of its men in the face of death and injury and what it was like to fight in a tank in Northern Europe during the Second World War.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. A few years ago I was talking to James Holland, the renowned, best-selling author, broadcaster, podcaster, all-round legend. I asked him what his next work was going to be. He told me it was going to be a history of a tank unit, the Sherwood Rangers. I said, I wasn't expecting you to say that. But then he enlarged on it, took me through his thinking, and I realised it was an act of genius.

The Sherwood Rangers are one of the great tank regiments of the Second World War. They fought all the way through North Africa, and they landed on Gold Beach on D-Day. That's one of the most battle-hardened, combat-ready armoured units in the British Army. I've been lucky enough to meet veterans of the Sherwood Rangers, so it was a great pleasure reading James's at times harrowing book about what that unit went through on the march from D-Day to North Germany and V-Day nearly a year later on. It was great to have James on this podcast and he was able to talk me through what this unit did, how they served, what they suffered and what they

saw in this huge titanic year of fighting that finished off the Second World War in Europe. If you want to watch James Holland talking about armoured warfare, we've got a series on historyhit.tv, which we've just launched. James Holland talking about the tanks of the Second World War. He goes through the various tanks of various nations in minute detail. You're going to love it if you have an interest in that period. So please go to historyhit.tv. It's like Netflix for history. All the history documentaries you need, hundreds of hours of them right there.

Historyhit.tv. You get 30 days free if you sign up today and you can binge watch all of James Holland's armoured programmes. But in the meantime, folks, here he is talking about the Sherwood Rangers, one of the most remarkable Allied units of the Second World War. James Holland, thanks very much for coming back on the pod, dude. Well, it's always a joy, Dan, you know that. I'm never happier than when talking to you about history. Our preamble is so hackneyed now, because all that happens is you come on about once a year

with some monster book you've published, and I go, how do you do it and then you tell me and so i'm gonna have to just do something else let's take that as read that i'm in awe of you how quickly you write these goddamn books and how good they are let's talk about the guys let's talk about this unit okay they're not the guards they're not paris they're not super famous why these guys well it goes back to 2004 which was my first ever trip to Normandy. And I was a bit of a novice in the Second World War back in them days. And I was there with a party of friends, some of whom I knew very well and some I didn't. And one of the people I didn't know very well was a chap called David Christopherson.

And we were standing on Gold Beach by that bunker at Le Hamel, which you will know, Dan. And David was sort of going, going yeah my dad came ashore here on the morning of d-day and he said this bunker was really troublesome until some bloke managed to shoot it out in the essex yeomanry and this little voice said that was me and it was the veteran standing next to him it was a guy called palmer sergeant palmer who knocked it out and there he was anyway later on we were staying just south of bayeux and all the rest of the gang had sort of bundled off so gone off for a drink or something and anyway i was talking to david he said well the thing is my dad kept all these diaries in the war and journals and whatnot

and he said i've just been looking at them and and i'm pretty sure that he spent most of june 1944 just a mile or so from here because there was this key feature called 0.103, and it's really close. I looked on the map and everything, and he showed me his dad's diaries, and there it was. It was literally about a mile away. So we just walked out of the place we were staying, walked up the road, and there was 0.103, and we were looking at Stanley's, his father Stanley's diaries, and he was talking about this sunken lane and tree-lined and all the rest of it, and there it was. And you could half close your eyes and imagine all these sort of sherman tanks and other vehicles of the sherwood rangers yeomanry kind of lined up there and it was a damascene moment frankly and

david and i became really really good mates and he mentioned that his dad had been in the desert and the sherwood rangers had been in the desert and then he happened to drop in to war with whittaker because hermione Ramphalys, which you may remember were huge bestsellers, these diaries of this wife who followed her husband over to the Middle East, Dan Ramphalys, who had also been in the Sherwood Ranges. And then he was talking about Keith Douglas

and Keith Douglas was probably the best known war poet who'd also been in the Sherwood Ranges in North Africa and wrote this brilliant book called Alameda Zemzem. And anyway, I said, look, I'm writing a book about North Africa at the time, as as i was is there any chance i could look at your dad's diaries for that and he said yeah no problem at all and so that's really where the kind of relationship with the sherwood rangers began and so i wrote about stanley his father in my north africa book and then in subsequent books the war in the west one and two and all the rest of it

and then i think it was about 2012 something like that about 10 years ago we had this idea to actually publish his dad's diaries david had been contacted by i think pen and sword and i said rate of respect to pen and sword i think this deserves a sort of slightly bigger publication so i talked to bill scott kai's my publisher at bantam press part of the penguin random house conglomerate and he said no i think that's a really nice idea. So I kind of sort of annotated them and put in contextual notes and all the rest of it. So we published that.

But to do that, David and I went around interviewing as many veterans of the Sherwood Rangers as we could. And two of the key ones were a chap called John Semkin. He was just total legend. You know, age 23, A Squadron Commander for most of the northwest europe campaign and an amazing guy and one of the most profoundly moving interviews i've ever done with a war veteran and david render who subsequently got to know stewart tootle and wrote his own memoir and

stuff and various others and equally important for being a history hit veteran as well right right so you know david and he was a lovely guy and stewart met at the Chalk Valley History Festival because having got to know David, I then kind of dragged him down to Chalk Valley as I tend to do with surviving veterans. I was having this conversation with John Orloff last year, who was a screenwriter for Band of Brothers and who's an amazing guy and has also just been writing the script for Masters of the Air, which is, you know, the new Spielberg-Hanks mega series that's following on from Band of Brothers and the Pacific, being filmed in Britain at the moment. And we were talking about Band of Brothers,

and I dusted down my old copy. I thought the TV series was just absolutely amazing. And I reread Band of Brothers, and it was first published in 1992, and it is quite dated now. And there's a few inaccuracies and stuff. But what a pioneering book that was. You know, no one had written history in that way, of following one unit to illustrate the bigger picture and so I was talking to John about

this and it suddenly struck me as I was talking to him god wouldn't it be good to do a kind of band of brothers of the Sherwood Rangers because I reckon I've got enough here I reckon I've got enough personal testimonies and people have sent me stuff on the back of the Stanley Christopherson diaries as well not least Michael Wharton whose father had written all these amazing wartime letters to his wife who basically he'd barely seen since August 1939 and various other bits and pieces and so I sort of dug around I got in touch with the Sherwood Rangers Association and they had quite a lot of material as well and I suddenly realized this was completely doable and then you know this is just the amazing thing about Twitter.

I put out on Twitter, you know, I'm thinking of doing a kind of sort of band of brothers of the Sherwood Rangers of a British tank unit. What does everyone think? Do you reckon that's got legs? And I've just got the most amazing response I've ever had to any tweet I've ever made. So then I talked to my publisher and they said, yeah, go for it.

So that, in a very long-winded way, is how it all came about. But why these guys? Is it because you just had the access? You had these fortuitous meetings and wonderful source material? Or by design or by accident? Were they actually in the right or the wrong place at the wrong time at every single juncture of the war from D-Day to V-Day?

Yeah, I think it's the latter, really. I might have had all this access, but if they're a kind of dud regiment who didn't really do anything, then what's the point? I mean, the amazing thing is they go off to war in early 1940 to Palestine with their horses. There's photos of them at summer camp because they're a TA unit. They're yeomanry. They're kind of part timers, weekend soldiers. They go off to their summer camp at the seat of the state of Lord Yarborough. And there's sort of photographs of them in there, Sam Browns and riding boots and lots of leather, looking like something out of the Anglo-Burr War rather than the Second World War that's about to start.

And looking just completely out of date. And interestingly, you know, British Army, the professional army is 100% mechanised, but the TA absolutely isn't. And even once they get pulled into the war full time, they are the only part of the British Army that's still riding horses. And they go off to Palestine and they do a sabres drawn cavalry charge against Arab insurrectionists. And to be perfectly honest, they're a bit rubbish. And they have to learn the hard way. Then in July 1940, they get horses taken away from them. They get converted to artillery, which they think is massively infradig. And they do so because, of course, there aren't any tanks for them to go. But the new CO is a chap called Flash Kellett, who's an MP for somewhere near oxford he's a mover and shaker knows churchill personally and lobbies and lobbies and lobbies for

them to be mechanized so a lot of the omen reunits do become artillery and some of them staff should yomi northampton yomi whatever they become armored units and the sherwood rangers get mechanized having seen out the siege of tobrook with their guns and half the regiment gets split goes to Crete the other half goes to Tobruk they then get mechanized and they do one of those sort of reckless balaclava charges at the Battle of Alam Halfa which is a completely one-way ticket in favor of Eighth Army but one of the kind of low points is lots of tanks being destroyed and many of those tanks from the Sherwood Rangers because they just sort of go come on chaps I mean it's like the old-fashioned savers drawn, but they learn very, very quickly.

And they perform incredibly well at the Battle of Alamein. And by the end of the Tunisian campaign in May 1943, they're really good. And one of the reasons they're really good is because they're populated with officers that Flash Kellett has brought in. They're still using much of the old sort of county stock from Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, which is their traditional recruitment areas. But they brought in lots

of new guys as well, who are really savvy and really good and really understand that if they're going to survive this war, they need to get good. They need to kind of wise up and learn the lessons of war. And they need to learn about all arms combat and cooperating with artillery and infantry and engineers and all the rest of it. And among those are people like John Semkin, but also Stanley Christopherson and various others. And they also, they do a lot of promoting from the ranks. So Bill Wharton, who I just mentioned, this guy with the amazing letters to his wife, he joined in the ranks. He was a trooper before the war and the yeomanry and then got commissioned in the field and really rose to the challenge and was obviously really, really good at what he did did he was respected by the men and fearless and sassy and all those sort of things

and so by the time montgomery's making his plans for d-day you know they're absolutely on the list for going in in the spearhead they're going to be landing at 7 30 or 7 25 actually five minutes ahead of the infantry as planned on the morning of d-day on gold beach and by the end of the infantry as planned on the morning of D-Day on Gold Beach. And by the end of the war, they are the single unit in the British Army with more battle honours than any other. So it's an absolutely extraordinary turnaround. And in a way, you can see the Sherwood Rangers as a leitmotif for the experience of the British Army in the Second World War, I think. They start off kind of a bit behind the times, not quite good enough, needing to learn the lessons pretty quickly. But by the end of the war, have turned themselves into a pretty useful outfit.

And what's the turnover? What's the cost in human terms of them being that successful? How many of them survive all the way through up to North Africa? How many survive from D-Day through to V-Day? What sort of proportion become casualties? Well, it's absolutely horrific. And one of the reasons it's particularly horrific is because they're part of an independent armoured brigade, which is the 8th Armoured Brigade.

So how the British Army is designed is you have armoured divisions who are there to exploit gaps. So the infantry and attached armour of the independent armoured brigades and the artillery do the grinding. They do the punching the hole in the enemy line. Then the kind of fast corps de chasse, the kind of armoured division, 7th Armoured, whatever it might be, 11th Armoured, they then pour through and exploit. But as we all know, the war in the last 11 months in Northwest Europe was pretty grinding for the most part. There were moments of sharp advances, not least immediately after the end of the Normandy campaign.

But for the most part, it was a sort of grinding attritional broad front battle. And the Sherwood Rangers and 8th Army Brigade were just in the firing line all the time. I mean the reason they've got 18 battle honours from D-Day to V-Day is because they're fighting a lot of battles and when you fight a lot of battles particularly those attritional battles you have an awful lot of casualties. One has to understand the structure of the British Army in North West Europe by middle of 1944. And the whole idea is to have this incredibly sharp point, but a very, very long tail so that you have this incredible logistic support.

So if your tank gets knocked out, there's another one, literally click your fingers and there it is. And that if you lose a track by kind of, you know, three hours, that track has been repaired and you're good to go back into action. You know, medical supplies are absolutely second to none. But the net result of that is in Second Army, for example, you've got 43% service corps, you've got 22% gunners, you've got 18% engineers, you've got 14% infantry, and 8% in tanks. So your infantry and your tanks, they're at the coalface, they're doing the really hard yards. The whole idea is to try and use massive mechanization global reach you know all that kind of stuff the long tail logistics supply chains to do a lot of

the hard yards that's one of the reasons why there's so much emphasis on air power for example and naval power as well so you can constantly supply things but you still got to take land and that land has to be taken by the infantry and the armor going forward putting their head above the parapet and into the firing line and if you're doing that if you are unfortunate has to be taken by the infantry and the armour going forward, putting their head above the parapet and into the firing line. And if you're doing that, if you are unfortunate enough to be in the infantry or the armour in 1944 to 1945, your chances of getting through are considerably worse than they were surviving 1914 to 1918, for example, which, of course, as you know, is considered a sort of byword, certainly in British history, for mindless slaughter. And the truth of the matter is, is even with a tank regiment, a tank regiment is 688 men, of which 300 are in tanks,

and the rest are supply troops for that armoured regiment. So the percentages get even smaller. And if you're unfortunate enough to be in tanks, your chance of getting through unscathed is statistically zero. I mean, the Sherwood Rangers lose 142% casualties of their men in tanks in that last 11 months of war. So at some point, your tank is going to get hit. It just will. There is no escaping it. And whether you get out unscathed, whether you're lightly wounded, whether you're badly wounded, whether you're maimed for life, or whether you're incinerated and burned to a crisp is really a matter of luck. So in a way, the tragedy for the Sherwood Rangers is that by getting themselves really good, by learning the lessons of war,

they then get thrust into the firing line even more than they might otherwise have done. And do they know that process is going on? Because I've read lots of accounts of units who felt that they'd done their fighting in North Africa and Italy, and they weren't super excited about spearheading other massive campaign in Northwest Europe. I mean, what was their morale and how did their commanders encourage them? Because it seems like a completely hideous honour to have. Yeah, it does really. Well, the first one is sort of shoehorned in during the kind of interregnum between the North Africa campaign and D-Day. And no one really likes him. He's seen as a bit of an outsider and there's something kind of a bit queer about him. Anyway, he probably gets wounded on D-Day, so that's him out of it.

And then Mike Laycott takes over, who is an absolute stalwart and wins the first MC for the regiment when they move into tanks at the Battle of Allemhalva in the summer of 1942. You know, and he's a bit of a ledge, but he's known as Black Mike and he's a moody so-and-so and, you know, he's got a fiery temper

and everyone really, really respects him, but everyone's a bit kind of fearful of him. He then gets killed when the headquarters gets hit on the 11th of June, about 10 miles south of bayeux and so stanley christopherson takes over you know my man my friend david's father and stanley is a completely different character he's effortlessly charming and he has a very very sunny disposition and he obviously thinks right i'm going to lead this regiment in a completely different way. I'm going to absolutely support those who use their initiative. I'm going to encourage those below me.

I'm going to try and keep morale as high as I possibly can. And I think the thing is, is that he imposed this sort of completely different command style, which helped keep morale up. And he had this incredible padre attached, an incredible medical officer. And between them, they really kept an eye out for people and made sure that if there was someone whose courage bank was starting to run out, they'd send them back on a course or whisk them off to become intelligence officer for a bit or something like that. And he just managed to keep everyone going. The other thing that I can't get over is just the huge weight of responsibility of these

senior sergeants, the troop commanders, i.e. the young subaltern of these senior sergeants the troop commanders i.e the young subalterns you know the lieutenants and so on the squadron commanders and of course stanley christopherson himself if you're a squadron commander for example you've got 19 tanks under your command you know best part of 100 men and you've got to listen to your own crew on the intercom you've also got to listen to thenet, which is the number 19 wireless set, which enables you to communicate with the rest of the squadron. You've also got to listen to the A-net, which is the wider net, which connects you to maybe the infantry or RHQ of the regiment

and that wider picture of what is going on. You've got to be watching all the time for any movement. Every decision you make might have potentially fatal consequences for your men if you get it wrong you have to make snap decisions you're basically on your feet the whole time and you have to have your head and shoulders at the very least out of the turret as well because otherwise you can't see if you're in a sherman tank you'll know this from having been in shermans and things you know you look for those periscopes you can see diddly squat i mean you just can't see anything you cannot command a Sherman tank, you'll know this from having been in Shermans and things. You know, you look for those periscopes. You can see diddly squat.

I mean, you just can't see anything. You cannot command a tank from inside a tank. So you've got to have your wits about you. You've got to be able to read the lay of the land. And because they haven't trained in the run up to D-Day in how to do this sort of close country infantry armour cooperation, because there simply isn't the geographical space in Britain to do that. And the most important thing is training how to land and jump out of landing craft and

all the rest of it. They're having to make up these tactics on the hoof as well, because it's a very different landscape to that of North Africa, for example. So if you're John Semkin, and you're 23 years old, and you're a squadron commander in Normandy, the pressures and strain and responsibility is just so gargantuan. It's kind of hard to compute. And you're getting up at 3.30 in the morning in June and July 1944. You're then on the go all day. You're having to have lots of O-groups and meetings and all the rest of it. Your life is in danger, not just because you've got your head and shoulder out of the turret, but also because you're constantly having to get out of the tank to go and talk to

infantry commanders or talk to other men because the radio set isn't good enough. So that exposes you as well. I mean, the human body is a very fragile thing in a place of all-out war. And then you're probably not going to bed till kind of after midnight because you're in operations until it gets dark. Then you've got to kind of do maintenance. Then you've got to go to more O-groups. Then you've got to try and get a bite to eat. Then you've got to try and get your head down. And you're getting your head down lying on the ground with a tall pooling over you next to the tank or in the tank or something. I mean, it's just absolutely brutal. You know, after six days of battle, you are absolutely shot. I just do not know how they did it. And then, you know, it comes to winter and

you've got a whole host of different privations. You've got shorter fighting days, but it's freezing cold. We know that the winters in Europe in the 1940s were absolutely brutal. So you've got rain, rain, rain all October and November. Then it turns to snow and ice. Then it eventually falls out again by February 1945. Then there's a whole host of more rain. It's just relentless. And who remembers things like Operation Veritable now, which is launched at the beginning of February to get across the Reichswswald take the key towns of cleve and goch and get close up to the mighty rhine which is yet another massive obstacle that has to be got over but operation veritable is double the size of market garden for example in terms of manpower

half a million troops it's just the relentlessness of it it's just absolutely incredible and i just don't know how they did it i am just completely in awe of what they achieved listen to dan snow's history i've got james holland on talking about the sherwood rangers in world war ii more coming up if you love ancient history then't worry, we've got you covered. I'm Tristan Hughes, host of The Ancient's podcast, the podcast for all things ancient history. And these are the only surviving boxing gloves from the Roman Empire, and the earliest surviving boxing gloves for over 1,600 years. So through this material, we're actually looking at this entangled sum of hundreds and thousands, in fact, of stories of life across ancient Eurasia.

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for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. So between D-Day and... There's almost exactly a year, right? So about 11 months. That is around 300 and something days, right? So 340 days, something.

Go on, call it. How many days do you think they were under enemy fire or even distant shelling out of that 340? I think about 200, 220, something like that. And then the rest of the time, you might be moving pretty fast, right? So on the breakout, then you've got different chances. You're still rattling along a tank, I mean, getting your

bones shaken to bits, and I mean, it's pretty gruelling getting a tank at the best times, right? So there's very few days when they're sitting in the fields, listening to the birdsong and writing poetry, right? Yeah, not very often at all. So to think about cricketers, this will go, it's really tough for them. They've just played five days of cricket, and then they've got kind of three days off, and then they've got another test match.

You know, will Jimmy get through the next test? And you're thinking, you know, that's just total chance play. I mean, I know they've got to sort of perform elite sportsmen and all the rest of it. It's a completely false comparison. But just imagine, you know, seven days is probably the absolute limit

of which you can be sustained in action. But quite often they're doing that and then they're getting kind of three days off or four days off and then they're back in the line again where they're kind of under shellfire. And then they're properly in action but quite often they're doing that and then they're getting kind of three days off or four days off and then they're back in the line again where they're kind of under shellfire and then they're properly in action again a few more days after that and it's just utterly utterly relentless they take it in turns to be lead when you're on the march so maybe on tuesday it's b squadron's turn and someone's got to be lead troop and someone's got to be lead tank and when you're lead tank you're going down some road and you have no idea when someone's going to be lead tank and when you're lead tank you're going down some road and

you have no idea when someone's going to jump out of a panzerfaust or when there's going to be a massive mine or when there's going to be an 88 millimeter or 75 millimeter just around the corner just imagine the kind of being on edge and sort of right at the end of the war in april 1945 the shared rangers are going along this dead straight road going up towards cloppenberg it's total sort of 30 years war grim's fairy tale kind of landscape where it's just straight road two lanes of traffic huge pine forests where you expect the ginger nut house to be and hansel and gretel and all the rest of it and it's just utterly relentless it's just massive forest straight road town gap in the forest, another forest. And you just know at some point there's going to be a roadblock

and people are going to be jumping out of Panzerfaust. It's B Squadron's turn to lead. The guy's leading and the squadron commander's going, hurry up, get a shift on, you're going too slow. And they're going, well, you know, we're kind of looking out for the enemy. And he goes, well, I'm getting my ass wrapped from behind by brigade. Just get a shift on so they send up a new lieutenant who's just arrived and he's told to just push on 200 yards passing the

lead tank boom out comes the german with the panzerfaust guy's killed tank brews up the commander's killed the operators had his legs blown off the guy in the tank behind they run up behind try and rescue them you know an early leopard who's in the tank behind, they run up behind, try and rescue them. You know, an early leopard who's in the tank behind, he's a plasterer from South London, just goes, you know, and I really think my nerves started to be a bit shot at that point. I've been in the war for kind of six months. Had to pull this guy out of the tank with no legs on, total mess inside.

And there's this sort of mounting anger. It's like, what are the Germans doing? They're completely defeated. They can't, why are you still killing us? I mean, you can understand it, can't you? I mean, it's just absolutely gassy. So, I mean, the point is, it's just right to the very end. There is no let up.

The last Sherwood Rangers guy killed in action is on the 2nd of May, 1945. I mean, what a waste. Are they doing the same thing all the time? Like, you mentioned that going up a long, dead straight road. Is there a lot of variety in what they're doing? Or is there a kind of operational model that they follow, that they've just become really good at? So when there's a guy with a pounce fast on the road,

do they all break off the road and try and establish a more broad front? Like what's a day in the face the enemy look like for these guys? Or is it always different? Well, this is the thing, is it's constantly evolving. So by the time they're going through forests in Germany, you can't go through the forest because the forest is too dense you have to go down the road and anyone who's going down that road knows that they will be hit almost certainly and it's just can you spot the enemy before they hit you quite often the germans would sort of put a tree across so you have to stop and then when they stop they'll jump out so what you do is as

soon as you see that you just spray the wood with as much firepower as you possibly could when the lead tank gets hit the tanks behind slightly pull off the road just to the edge and just hammer it with as much shell fire and machine gun fire as they possibly can the germans then come out with their hands up so that's another position taken but the damage is already done i mean in normandy you've got sort of bockage and tense fields and close country then you're on Normandy, you've got sort of Bocage and Tensefields and close country. Then you're on the run and you've got sort of deep river valleys that you've got to overcross, like the River Noireau, and then climb up onto a ridgeline, a Berjou, you know, another massive fight for them. Later on, you might be attacking the town of Guille, trying to get across the Albert Canal, which you all know from the early part of the war in 1940 there it is being fought over again

four years later and Giel it's a small little Belgian market town and it's an absolute mess try fighting with tanks in urban environments it's an absolute nightmare so they're constantly having to evolve all the time and they're having to kind of think on the hoof and things work well when they're working with infantry units that they've had experience of working with it's when they've got a new division comes out that's sort of untested and they don't know the form and the problem they always have is that an armored brigade is attached to an infantry division so eighth armored brigade might be attached to i don't know the 43rd wessex division for example so you're always the hired help you're always like i don't really know what you guys do but go and sort that out over there.

Well, the problem is, is if you can see infantry not cooperating as well as they should, what do you do? Because you're always outranked. So what would typically happen was the three armoured regiments of the armoured brigade would be attached to each of the infantry brigades of the infantry division.

And each squadron would be attached to each of the infantry brigades of the infantry division and each squadron would be attached to each of the battalions so you've got a brigadier in the armoured brigade having to kind of support a major general of an infantry division you've got a lieutenant colonel of a armoured regiment supporting a brigadier of an infantry brigade and you've got a squadron commander supporting a half colonel of an infantry battalion and so at every stage the armoured guys are being outranked which means your ability to get what you want is quite often tested that's the problem quite a lot of the time the Sherwood rangers are attached to a brand new infantry division and the infantry even don't know what they're doing and he does but there's a limit to what

he can say because he's outranked so he can sort of coerce and try and he's got to be really careful not to kind of boss them about there's egos involved and so on without getting to this massive area why not give armor infantry rather than the other way around? Well, quite, because there just isn't enough of it, basically. That's why there's more infantry than there is armour. It's easier to supply infantry in the field than it is armour. And also, I suppose you need more numbers,

you need more infantry than you do armour. The British Army is flush with armour compared to, say, the Germans, for example. And they use it very effectively. But you see throughout the story of the Sherwood Rangers that when they're working with units that they're familiar with, chances are it's going to go well. When they're working with units for the first time, it's a lot more problematic. Every time I talk to an infantryman in the Second World War, they always say, bloody hell, glad I wasn't in a tank. I was lying there in my little shell scrape,

feeling all right. And I was just watching tanks brew up all around me and just flaming and people struggling out of them on fire every time you talk to a tanky they go i don't want to be infantry i'm sitting in my tank i've got the pattering of german machine gun rounds on the hull i'm thinking well i'm glad i'm in here how does that work out with the veterans and the people that you talk to or for your point of view what is the answer to that conundrum was Was it just terrible on both sides of the armour? The two things you just do not want to be, as in a tank or an infantryman in the Second World War. You really don't. I mean, it's absolutely brutal.

I'll just get back to my early point that in the narrative, because of films and all the rest of it, we assume that everyone's an infantryman or everyone's in a tank. Such a small proportion. But it was absolutely brutal. I mean, the interesting thing about tanks is they do brew up, but people aren't incinerated as often as you think. Only 25% of tank casualties were burns. 75% are not burns.

So the majority of woundings are of those hit outside the tank. So, you know, you might be a commander and you might be sniped and shot through the head or something. But technically you're outside of the tank there because your head's above the parapet. but usually you would bail out pretty quickly if there was any trouble and it's the bailing out that's the problem because obviously you don't want to stay in the tank because then you're a sitting duck there in the middle of the battlefield and you're big and obvious you don't want to be hit so you jump out and try and run for cover and it's

running for cover that's the problem because mortars are flying around and trapnors going everywhere and it tends to be that that does for them more than brewing up i mean the idea that the shermans were particularly prone to burning is not particularly there's no evidence of that especially that they're more flammable than any other tank the problem is of course is that tanks it also depends on what stage of the battle that you're hit if it's early in the morning the chances are you're more likely to brew up because it might just be a straight shot that just goes straight through and brews it up. I did a demonstration once. It was very, very interesting where we put effectively an 88 millimetre charge against some

armour plate. And what happens is it doesn't actually punch much of a hole through on this particular bit of armour plate. But what you've got was like a sort of a half penny piece sort of size hole. But on the reverse side, you actually got quite a big glob of part of the metal that was forced away even though it wasn't a sort of clean 88 millimeters worth of hole through the armor plate and what that happens is first of all you get a glob of metal that goes into the turret for example but you also get lots of spalling which is these little bits of metal which are white hot and they just go like that all around the turret and obviously you know if you're a bloke and you get hit by that that's not very funny but also the big problem is if you've

got lots of ammunition in there that's only got to kind of pierce the shell casing and suddenly you're in trouble and that can also happen quite slowly you know it might be that something hits the shell casing and it doesn't go through immediately and then does and then ignites and then that's when you're building up so much pressure that kind of whole turrets are being blasted off and all the rest of it. But you might've had five or 10 seconds to get out of the tank before that actually happens. So it just depends.

But I mean, the Sherman tank, I mean, you'll have seen it, Dan. You know, you've got shells all around the turret. You've got shells down in the driver's compartment. They're flipping everywhere. But at the end of the day, you haven't got many. So you've got less ammunition to blow up if you get hit. So whether something burns or doesn't burn,

as again, it's kind of so much down to chance and circumstance and time of day and moment in the battle and all sorts of things. And that is down to luck as well. The ones that survived, the ones that made it home, do you talk much about what happens to them afterwards? How do you go back to just becoming a plasterer in London after doing after doing that well yeah i mean only leopard did and it's quite interesting actually because he wasn't a smoker but at bremen he managed to find a cache of german cigars and cigarettes and he took it and so until he was demobbed in late 1946 he survived financially entirely on

what he was given for free from the army and on selling cigarettes and cigars on the black market so he'd saved his army pay which meant that when he got home he was able to set himself up as a plaster with a little bit of money in the back pocket but most of them really struggled even stanley this sort of ever cheerful stanley christopherson had dark moments where you know he's retreat to his study and the kids knew not to bother him for a day or two. The burden was just so immense. And what they'd seen was so grotesque, so horrible, so awful, that how can it not affect you? And of course, there was very little understanding

of mental health issues in those days. So there was sort of very few outlets for it. And of course, so many people were in the same boat that they just sort of swallowed it up for the most part. It's interesting, you know, when I talked to John Semkin, who after the war went up to Oxford, read law, became a seriously high-ranking legal man in Whitehall. Even as an old man, you can see he was absolutely broken by his war experiences. That was one of the reasons why the interview with him was so profoundly moving. It was clear that he'd never got over it.

The interview with him was so profoundly moving, it was clear that he'd never got over it. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed

not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. And what a burden to carry. I mean, really. And what's so amazing about the Sherwood Rangers is there's such a bunch of wonderfully mixed eccentrics love of the ridiculous sense of humor is never far away even in this sort of bleakness and nor is there innate humanity

so at Christmas 1944 there are the village of Shinnon which is on the German border snows on the ground and all the men have saved their chocolate and sweet ration and one of the troop commanders dresses as Father Christmas and they get a sleigh and they get one of the lighter tanks from the recce troop to tow it as the reindeer. And there's another guy from the Essex Yeomanry who's their kind of forward observational, so attached to the Sherd Rangers, and he does acrobatics and they have a bit of a Christmas tree up in the middle of the town

and they issue chocolate and sweets to all the kids of the town. And you just think, crikey, amongst all this mayhem, they've still got the wherewithal and the humanity to do that. And even in the middle of February 1945, from the mayhem of destruction of Cleve and Gott, Stanley Christopherson goes, I've just saw my first snowdrop of the year. These people, they're just remarkable, incredible people

who just are colourful, fascinating, would never have been there had it not been for the Second World War, never worn a uniform, and just rise to the challenge. They're absolute tops, as far as I'm concerned. They obviously suffer more casualties than they actually landed with on D-Day, but obviously that could be replacements being then in turn replaced. What's your sense, roughly, how many people that landed on D-Day survived the war? I mean, what proportion of the unit?

I mean, survived the war, a lot. The number of actual deaths is 160 or something out of the 300 in tanks, so roughly 50%. But casualties are obviously a lot higher. But those who are still standing at the end of the war unscathed, the only one is Stanley Christopherson. What do you mean? The rest have all, in some way, been injured or...?

Been wounded or injured or at some point, yeah. Stanley Christopherson and Hilda the rest of all in some way been injured or being wounded or injured or at some point yeah the Stanley Christopherson and Hilda Young who's the MO the only other one is David Render who doesn't join until the 13th of June or something like that so a week after D-Day and he's still standing but only just I mean god I mean he is John Semkin called him the inevitable Mr Render because he was inevitably always there every single day and just somehow always survived. But I mean, the number of close calls. I mean, he had several tanks knocked out and hit and blown up underneath him.

He had moments where, I mean, there's this moment where he goes around this corner just near Nijmegen and it's just inside the German border. And he goes around this corner and there's a MAT of 88 and it's firing at him. But it's firing high explosive, not armour piercing. And it hits him and it doesn't destroy him and then they miss and he slips off the road and they're stuck and he's just having this kind of ah moment where desperately trying to urge the driver to get into reverse and get out and they're completely stuck they're total setting

down and he thinks I am dead but his best mate in the squadron, a chap called Harry Heenan, has been on a different track and has seen what's happened. And so from the other side of this brook and through these trees has spotted the 88mm and drives a shallow to him and knocks out the gun. But he does it and saves David Render's and his tank crew's life by an absolute whisker. And I was lucky enough to meet David Render, who now sadly is an enlig with us. How many of them are still alive today?

I think two. So I've been extraordinarily lucky to get to know Stan Perry, who is the only troop commander. I think he's the only officer still surviving. And he's 98, and he's just a wonderful, wonderful fellow. He's got a lovely twinkle in his eye. And he was wounded twice twice he got wounded once crossing the war at the end of the normally campaign got shot in the arm but survived met his wife who was

danish was in england at the time they got married lightning quick beginning of december she gave him a wallet with a photo in it which he put in his breast pocket of his battle dress he went back out rejoined the sherwood rangers operation black cock another kind of completely forgotten episode to capture heinsberg and straighten the seafreed line in january 1945 got very badly wounded by nebelwerfer fragments as he was heading to an o-group a piece of shrapnel hit him and it spattered his chest basically but one piece hit the wallet and when he was operated on they found a piece that had gone through the wallet was just resting against his heart well had the wallet not been there it would pierced it and he'd have been dead and he's still alive you know amazingly he's

still got bits of metal in him which he always says is very interesting when he goes to an airport but he's the most remarkable guy again it's just there's a chance moments you know an inch either side all that kind of stuff i mean it's chance it's luck it's just he was lucky so he got away with his touch and go for a while but he survived and he's still alive now and he's amazing the other guy was a tank driver in rhq who drove made marion they robin hood was the commander's car and made marion was the two ic's and he's still alive, aged 100. But I think that's it now.

I mean, God, that generation is just slipping away so quickly. I sure am. But Stanley is an absolute legend. Actually, I should just do a bit of a shout out for him because he's just got onto Twitter. He is at Stanley Perry, P-E-R-E-Y 23.

The year of his birth, of course. And he's now a Twitter sensation. So everyone should follow him because who knows what gems this former troop commander might put out on social media. Well, I'm going to follow him now, bud. Thank you very much, James.

What's the book called? It's called Brothers in Arms and not to be confused with the Dar Strait's album. It was a very personal book for me and I'm very glad I've done it. But boy, the insights I got into what it was like being in a tank in North West Europe

in 1944-45. I mean Jeepers you just thank our lucky stars. I do every day. Thank you very much James. Thanks for coming on. Cheers Dan. I feel we have the history on our shoulders. All this tradition of ours our school history, our

songs, this part of the history our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. Thanks, folks, you've made it to the end of the episode. Congratulations, well done you. I hope you're not fast asleep. If you did fancy supporting everything we do here at History Hit, we'd love it if you would go and wherever you get these pods, give it a rating, five stars or its equivalent.

A review would be great. Thank you very much indeed. That really does make a huge difference. It's one of the funny things the algorithm loves to take into account. So please don't ever do that. It can seem like a small thing, but actually it's kind of a big deal for us. So I really appreciate it. See you next time. you