8/8: Brothers in Arms: One Legendary Tank Regiment’s Bloody War from D-Day to VE-Day, by James Holland
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 1 January 2024
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08YS123SZ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0
In the annals of World War II, certain groups of soldiers stand out, and among the most notable were the Sherwood Rangers. Originally a cavalry unit in the last days of horses in combat, whose officers were landed gentry leading men who largely worked for them, they were switched to the “mechanized cavalry” of tanks in 1942. Winning acclaim in the North African campaign, the Sherwood Rangers then spearheaded one of the D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944; led the way across France; were the first British troops to cross into Germany, and contributed mightily to Germany’s surrender in May 1945.
1945 14th Tank Battalion crossing.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a CBSI on the world. I'm speaking to James Hollen. His book, Brothers |
| 0:09.5 | in Arms, details war on the ground. |
| 0:15.0 | It was the story of 1944-45 in the Allied victory over Germany. |
| 0:21.0 | We come now to May 5th, 1945. The same Stuart Hills, who is heartbroken |
| 0:27.6 | by the loss of his good friend Dennis Elmark, is driving back towards headquarters where the Sherwood Rangers are waiting for their next |
| 0:36.8 | orders to keep attacking because the Germans won't surrender so they have to attack and |
| 0:40.4 | attack and |
| 0:43.7 | attack and I think they're headed for Bremen. However, Bremen-Hoben, thank you. |
| 0:47.4 | And Christofferson gets a message that James has reproduced in his book. |
| 0:52.2 | What is the message, James? |
| 0:54.0 | Well, it arrived the previous evening of the 4th of May, and he's handed it. |
| 0:59.0 | He's in this courtyard and this farmyard, in this farmyard, in this beautiful little village in the kind of sort of hinterland |
| 1:06.5 | between Bremen and Hamburg, sort of farming, |
| 1:08.9 | low-level farming land, called Carl's Hufen, |
| 1:12.1 | and he's overtaker, you know, he's taken over this farmyard and building |
| 1:15.3 | as the regimental headquarters and suddenly this message is scrawled and sort of on a used message pad in pencil and he's rather irritated. Why haven't you used a clean sheet of paper? And the guy says I just I had to take this down immediately on the first one I could find it was so important. |
| 1:33.2 | And basically it says no further advance, no further firing. |
| 1:36.6 | BBC reports that the Germans will surrender of 8 o'clock tomorrow morning, |
| 1:40.8 | stay where you are. |
| 1:42.1 | And they realize that this is the end of the war. And it was |
| 1:45.9 | amazing because in October 2020 and a gap in the pandemic, I went over to |
| 1:50.4 | I went over to Carl's Herf and on a pilgrimage really, |
... |
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