大象传媒

My father, Denis Knight, joined the 44th Royal Tank Regiment as a volunteer in 1942, when he was 20, and remained with the Regiment (in C Squadron) until the end of the war in 1945. The 44th was a front-line unit, and Denis took part in the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, and the push up the Adriatic coast in Italy in late 1943. He then returned home to prepare for the D Day landings in Normandy in June 1944, landing at Anblie early on D Day+3, and was then involved in heavy fighting around Caen; then on through northern France, Belgium, and Holland - including being part of Operation Market Garden in September 1944, under the 101st US Airbourne Division. On the 24 March 1945 they were among the first tanks to cross the Rhine, at Xanten. Their last action was in Bremen in late April 1945 and the crossing of the Elbe in May, when fighting on that front ceased on 5 May.

Denis now (in 2005) lives in Devon. Anyone wishing to get in touch can email me at peter.knight3@virgin.net.
PS: there is a good brief history of this regiment at http://uk.geocities.com/williamfdungey/odds/44rtr.html

I have posted two articles on this site:
A Panzer and a Sherman 'duel of shells' (Part 1): see A7174172;
A Panzer and a Sherman 'duel of shells' (Part 2): see A7174721;
plus four poems written by Denis in 1943 and 1944: see A8138252.