大象传媒

At some time around the Autumn of 1942 some bright spark in the War Office decided that in the Army, due to the rapid rate of recruitment, a great many 鈥榮quare pegs鈥� had been placed in 鈥榬ound holes鈥� and a system of selection tests was set up.
At the time I was serving with the 70th Battalion Kings Royal Rifle Corps on aerodrome defence at a place called Debden in Essex.
At that time the RAF Regiment was being formed and it was decided by the powers that be to disband the 70th庐 As a result we were prime candidates for the new selection tests.
In a couple of months the results came through and in my case I was to report for tank crew training at the 51st Training Regiment Royal Armoured Corps at Catterick Yorkshire.
Altogether, not a bad result. If I was to be called upon to do battle, I reckoned that some sort of transport would certainly be desirable.
Catterick was the start of a whole new experience. Life was to become very interesting.
I presented myself at the guardroom where a large regimental police sergeant, resplendent, in dazzling white webbing with a pistol and a black beret with a shiny silver mailed fist badge, greeted me. He directed me to the regimental office where I was given a hut number and a chitty for the stores to get myself, 鈥淜itted out proper鈥�.
The first item on the training agenda was a driving course, wheeled vehicles. I looked out of the barrack room window. It was snowing hard. Like I said life was going to get interesting.
We were split up into groups of five and allocated a 1 5cwt Fordson truck and a driving instructor. The latter, being a busty corporal from Yorkshire with a dry sense of humour. He was going to need it!
Now this Fordson truck had a crash gearbox. For the uninitiated this means that in order to change gear, you need to double-declutch and changing down you need to get your engine revs to match your road speed or the gear wont go in.
It was our third day out and by now I was feeling pretty cocky. It was my turn at the wheel and I was up front with the corporal whilst my companions were sat in the back of the truck. We had been going for about half an hour and all was going well although the snow was packed hard on the road.
There is a village in Yorkshire called Scotch Corner, which lies, at the bottom of a steep hill. I came over the brow of the hill and decided to
change down, got my revs wrong and couldn鈥檛 get the perishing thing back in gear.

Meantime the truck is going faster and faster. I look at the corporal. He is hanging on to the roll bars and grinning. I panic and stand on the break pedal. Wrong move! The truck starts to waltz round and round down the hill. I have totally lost control and we finally hit a post box at the bottom of the hill.

I said 鈥�**** Corp. I鈥檝e demolished a post box鈥� He said 鈥淚f you do this in a Churchill tank you鈥檒l demolish the village鈥�.

The back of the truck was empty. My four mates having jumped for it at various points down the hill.

After 16 week of training in all aspects of tank technology I finally passed out as a driver/operator.

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