Buried among the admirably detailed archives of The Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset, is this account of a ferocious pitched battle, from the point of view of a tank commander – in this case, a British Lieutenant named Ken Giles. “The 75mm main gun is firing,” Lt Giles recalls, breathlessly. “The 37mm secondary gun is firing, but it’s traversed round the wrong way. The Browning [machine gun] is jammed. I am saying, ‘Driver advance’ on the A set, but the driver – who can’t hear me – is reversing. “And as I look over the top of the turret, and see 12 enemy tanks, just 50 yards away, someone hands me a cheese sandwich.” But while this story might seem funny to a civilian, it sums up what, for many tank commanders today, is the very recognisable chaos of tank warfare. This particular cheddar-based incident occurred in an M3 Grant tank in North Africa, during the build-up to the Second Battle of El Alamein in the Second World War. But, as the Tank Museum’s curator David Willey points out, the same bedlam could have happened at any time in the past century. Fury: all you need to know about life in a tank
I always thought that was Keith Douglas. Looking it up though, it does appear to be in Alamein to Zem Zem but indeed attributed to Lt. Giles. Now faintly annoyed I can't find my copy...
I suppose a "cheese sandwich" might have been a bit of cheese between two bits of biscuit? Love the comic strip version!
Excellent thread! Reminds me of the Horrocks moment asking a tank man (3RTR) how the War is going and gets the reply 'just the usual two thirds fighting: 3RTR and the 3rd Reich'....I think that's the quote, or something similar. Wonder if that got the comic strip treatment?
