大象传媒

On a very cold, icy day in 1944 as a driver in the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service) following another military vehicle, I was transporting five ATS personnel and a male Warrant Officer to their depot. As we got to the boundary of Windsor Great Park, the road ahead, on a downward slope was one large sheet of ice. The truck in front hit the ice and spiralled into a wire fence. At this point I could see six Churchill tanks ranged widely across the park but one was right in the middle of 'my' road!! All this was encompassed in seconds by my mind so I geared down in order to avoid a nasty impact, warning my passengers of the situation. I tried to slide off the road into the verge with the tank and me approaching one another. He managed to stop and we crunched into the tank at about five miles per hour.

The most irritating feature of the story comes with the driver of the tank laughing his head off fifteen feet above us - and I couldn't reach him!!

With any War Department vehicle accident the driver is automatically on a 'charge'(before the Commanding Officer) however the Warrant Officer sitting beside me commended me for my quick thinking - and I got away with it!

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