大象传媒

It started about three years ago during a visit by my uncle Ted Catlin who lived for most of his life in the Needham market area of suffolk and for several years before his death in 2004 at Coddenham
Ted was a memeber of the tank regiment during the war but never talked about his experiences
He was a quiet unusumming man of a very small stature 5' in his stocking feet if that
Ted knew that I had visited the War graves in France and Belgium to trace relatives who had died during the first war
He asked me if it would be possible to "trace his mates" who had died
Having passed on the information a letter arrived from which this story is told
"I am stilll not sure who was killed and who survived
I remember Maurice Roberts very bravely climbing out of the turret of his tank to help me climb onto the turret of his tank after mine blew up
He was just getting back into the turret when he to got hit
He just dissappeared inside and was presumably burned to death
I suppose I just dropped off the front
I imagine all the others died
My gunner survived but the tank commander and wireless operater both died in the turret
After we had sorted ourselves out and extinguished the flames on each others clothes we decided to try and get back to the canadian front line
Luckily there was long grass several went on ahead as they were not badly injurred George my gunner and I were making such a hash of crawling through the long grass that we attracted both motar and machine gun fire
After a long and painful day we reached the canadian lines and were eventually taken out on a jeep which was a bit painful
the call sign of my tank was "Easy one"and was at the front of three tanks
My indomitable tank commander was at the rear and I remember him saying "Go on easy you are doing very well" He was awarded the DSO

That was Ted's story that took nearly sixty years to be told
He also told me that during the same action Sgt Buggs of Needham Market who had swapped a duty as a favour was also killed
After the war Ted Returned to Needham working for many years at Needham chalks a quiet unassuming man to the end

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