大象传媒

My name is Roger Butler of Loughborough I was born in Jan 1938. My father Len Butler enlisted in the army 1939 and was a Royal Engineer in the 4th field squadron 7th armoured division (8th army) He was a member of the long range desert group. Was captured and escaped in the siege of Tobruk. Battle of El Alamein and landed at Salerno in Italy. He then came back to the UK and was stationed nesr Thetford in Norfolk before going on the D Day landings in Normandy. During the fighting to Berlin he made friends with people in Ghent and Eindhoven with whom I have since visited. At the end of the war my father did guard duty at Spandau prison before coming home. He died in the year 2001. I myself served 2 years with the 1st batallion Royal Leicestershire regiment 1959-61.
My story starts when I was a 61/2 year old boy making my way home from Shelthorpe School in Loughborough one afternoon in late May 1944. My grandmother was at home as my mother would be at work. As I approached my grandmother's house I saw lots of strange army lorries which were parked and stretched the whole length of Shelthorpe road which is quite a long road in Loughborough. When I reached the house I found lots of soldiers both sitting and standing talking drinking tea and coffee. My grandmother saw me coming and told me daddy was here.
Can you imagine a 61/2 year old running about looking for his dad who he had never seen because he had signed up in 1939 and joined the Desert Rats. After this brief and exciting encounter I was not to see him again until after the war finished and gratefully he survived and returned home. I later learned that my father was stationed in Norfolk and he, along with all the other soldiers had come up to Chilwell in Nottinghamshire to colect these vehicles called half tracks which all became casualties in Normandy soon after D-Day

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