I'm John Matthew with Sir Max Hastings, discussing one of the two beaches the British Army were assigned

and took on June 6, 1944. This is Sword Beach, the left flank of the Allied bridgehead. Must be held.

There's no plan B if it's not held. Okay. But the landings are coming now. There's sort of daylight and the tide is out

and the third division is landing and all of its pieces. But inside the third division is a genius

called the British referred to as the funnies. What were the funnies, Max? This was the so-called

specialised armour division. And it was created by a really weird figure

called Percy Hobart, who was an authentic eccentric.

And most senior officers the British Army hated his gut.

And in fact, he was sacked as a general back in 1941. And Churchill,

Churchill wrote a memo to the head of the army. And he said, wars are not one in Charlie by all the

good boys. We need the sneaks and stinkers as well. And he insisted that Hobart, who'd become a corporal in the

Home Guard, he was a man in his 50s, was brought back into the army and given the job.

And the job that Hobart invented for himself was the creation of so-called specialized armour

to support troops and attack.

And they became known within the army, as you say, as the funniest.

And they were a funny mixture that, for example, you had so-called flails.

And they were tanks which had fitted whirling chains on the front, turned by electric motors, which blew up mines in your part.

So you had a flail, lead your attack, clearing a part for the ordinary tanks that followed.

You had bobbins, which carried enormous spools of p-paving material or parding material to make paths over sand

for the landing troops and the landing vehicles.

And above all, you had the so-called duplex drive tanks, amphibious tanks.

And even now, when one reads about those amphibious tanks,

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