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In late May of 1944 I was living in Cobham, Surrey near the Portsmouth Road. We shared a house called Little Capel there and I remember spending one afternoon standing for hours at the gateway to the garden with my cousins and grandmother.

We were there because the tanks had come. There seemed to be hundreds of them, British tanks driving past us for what seemed like forever. I was only a little girl at the time, and I remember thinking that each tank was simply huge and they made such a noise! We stood there seemingly for ages waving to the British soldiers who were sticking out of the tops of the tanks and waving back to us. This was shortly before D-Day and I remember us all standing there feeling so proud of them and thinking it was such a wondrous site. Later in the afternoon a long line of different tanks came back the other way and we watched them as well. Perhaps they were trying to confuse any German spies or planes to keep them guessing about the plan for D-Day.

I remember that that day was hot and the tanks weighed so much that they actually melted their tracks into the road, leaving these deep grooves. A set of steamrollers came along after they’d all gone to smooth the road out, I guess again partly for us but partly to cover up the evidence of their movements. Obviously shortly after this all those men went off to fight, but I’ll never forget that sunny day in May when they looked such an impressive sight as they made their way along our road.

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

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