James Holland

Otherwise, the Tiger and I would have met and the result might have been very different."

That was, of course, Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Christopherson, officer commanding the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, writing about the experiences of Monday, the 27th of June, 1944.

You know, they've suffered quite a lot of casualties on D-Day.

You know, Bert Digby, they'd lost people at sea.

Then afterwards, a number of crews, including officers such as Keith Douglas, Peter Poplar, Pepler rather, had been killed as well.

Werner, Lieutenant Werner.

And of course, the CEO and George Jones, the adjutant, had also been killed.

And so already there's quite a lot of churn.

Yeah.

And that means you need replacements.

Yeah.

And you've got new guys coming in all the time.

Coming in immediately.

Yeah, he's an officer.

So that means he's going to be commanding a troop.

Yeah.

And he's going to be commanding men, some of whom have already served for a couple of years in the desert in North Africa.

And here's this wet-behind-the-ears 19-year-old telling them what to do.

I mean, it's just, whichever way you look at it, it's an awkward situation, isn't it?

Yeah.