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There’s one part of the war that I took part in that I’ll never forget, the first time the allies crossed the Rhine in force. It happened at around two o’clock one morning in March 1945.

We had been renamed the 4th Royal Tank Regiment and for this operation our Shermans had been replaced with American Buffalo amphibious tanks, supporting the 51st Highland Division. It was pitch black as we led our tanks into the water, we couldn’t see and had no idea what to expect, other than that being the first unit over the Rhine no doubt meant resistance would be heavy. It was an extremely nerve-wracking crossing, especially as we had only just changed over from the Shermans we were used to! After a while though we realised that in fact there was next to no resistance and our crossing was all but uncontested, which was a huge relief. When we reached the other side I remember one man, Colonel Alan Jolly, planting the regimental flag on the eastern bank of the river. It was in fact the very same flag taken into battle by the unit in the First World War and was a proud moment for us all.

We actually lost two crews in the crossing, but not to enemy fire. The tanks somehow became stuck in the river and the men inside drowned. After crossing and securing the other side we spent our time ferrying supplies from bank to bank, almost constantly travelling back and forth. I’m sure everyone else in the unit joins me in still being proud of our crossing that morning, spearheading the allied advance into Germany, and I still have the newspaper clipping from home describing our actions to this very day.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by James Barton and has been added to the website on behalf of Walter Fuller with his/her permission and they fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

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