D-Day 80 The Last Veterans: Ted Rutland
Ted Rutland, Age 100, Royal Armoured Corps
Interviewed 23 February 2024
Trained to drive lorries and tanks, Ted Rutland crossed the Channel after D-Day.
He said: "They trained me to drive a lorry and a tank.
"They took us down to Lulworth near Bournemouth. And that was a firing range. We were just firing at tanks on the hillside. Captain, loader, gunner and driver.
"You did the training for all the different things."
Once in France Mr Rutland drove Churchill, Sherman and Cromwell tanks. And as crews were flexible he also took turns as a gunner and loader.
"We handed on the twelfth - six days after D-Day," he said.
"Very early in the morning. We had been loading all the day before. It was an American landing ship, not a landing craft.
"And all the big vehicles were up at the top and the tanks were on the bottom. We were stood at the top watching the landing craft coming back.
"There were lots of ships coming back to pick more people up. And we landed on Gold Beach.
"As the tanks moved into the countryside they had to negotiate their route very carefully as they came under German shelling.
"We went into a field north of Bayeux. We had to take all the sailing off the tanks before we were sent to the front. I was the co-driver actually.
"When the Germans retreated they pulled the dead Germans into the road and they put mines into the side so that if the tank went onto the side it would blow the tractor off. The co-driver of the first tank had to get out and move the dead bodies.
"The Germans were firing at you all the time.
"If a tank was hit you were very lucky if anybody got out. All the five were gone. If they hit the ammunition it set the tank on fire. You never thought about that.
"You were just hoping that they missed you."
In Caen many of Mr Rutland’s comrades were killed when American aircraft mistakenly dropped bombs on them.
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