Tracklink Article - British WW2 tank crew – Unit loyalty and crew comradeship re-examined

(This article was originally published in Issue 102 (Spring 2019) of Tracklink, the magazine of the Tank Museum.  It was largely a spin-off from the research done while producing my Osprey book "British Tank Crewman 1939-45")

“In war it is the man that counts, and not only the machine. A good tank is useless unless the team inside it is well trained, and the men in the team have stout hearts and enthusiasm for the fight” (Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, “Some notes on the conduct of war” November 1944)

Through much of World War 2, British tank crews had to fight knowing their vehicles were outclassed by their German opponents. Morale can be influenced by many things – Allied troops received a steady stream of propaganda about the Nazi regime even before beginning training, some had friends or relatives killed or made homeless by German bombing, and many memoirs mention how much letters from home were appreciated, or the gratitude of liberated European civilians.

However, while men may fight for their country, they die for their friends. This comradeship was traditionally driven by two related factors – attachment to the regiment one served in (the traditional “cap badge loyalty”) and to the tight-knit crew within each tank, welded together into a kind of synthetic family that lived, fought and sometimes died together.

There is much truth in this. Arthur Soper from 44 RTR notes “a very close bond soon developed among crew members. Everyone knew without being told that they depended upon each other for their continued existence and wellbeing. This bond has continued into life-long friendships, and when – generally due to enemy action – a friend “wasn't there any more” the loss was felt acutely by those remaining. A band of brothers, without a doubt”

Equally, fear of letting comrades down was extremely powerful. Stuart Hills recalled “My greatest fear throughout the whole campaign had been to be thought a coward by the men I commanded. I can honestly say that I would have preferred to die than to let that happen”

However, wartime conditions were not always conducive to either of these things, and this article looks at some memoirs and letters left by veterans to examine these assumptions.

Unit loyalty and belonging

Unit loyalty was traditionally encouraged through the army’s regimental system, although trappings such as dress uniforms disappeared under the pressures of war. Regiments used their history and traditions to instil loyalty and pride; the RTR celebrated Cambrai Day (20th November), with officers and senior NCOs serving rum-laced tea to the troops in bed, even in the field.

Before the war, men enlisted in particular regiments, received their training with that regiment and would ideally stay with it for their entire military career.

During the war, however, this system was unable to cope with the numbers conscripted, and men were trained in dedicated RTR training regiments, each specialising in a particular type of tank, before being posted to their operational unit.

Even pre-war soldiers in the cavalry regiments – the last of which finally converted from horses in 1941 – might find themselves transferred out if they couldn't learn the skills necessary to maintain and operate their new mounts, being replaced with drafts of new men.

Considerable effort was made to get wounded back to their original units after they recovered, rather than assigning them to a general replacement pool as the US Army did. However, units which took heavy casualties were sometimes disbanded and their surviving personnel used to make up the losses of others.

Relatively few RAC regiments fought in North Africa, and new ones were created as the RAC expanded. To give these raw regiments a minimum leavening of combat experience before they were committed to D-day, any regiment returning from the combat theatre had to give up men to provide cadre, often in significant numbers

For example, the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry returned from North Africa in December 1943, and had to give up more than 10% of its complement, receiving 100 men from the Lancashire Fusiliers who knew nothing of tanks or the regiment in exchange.

Even supposedly experienced regiments could thus include significant numbers of replacements – in 3 RTR the commissioned former ranker Jock Watt reckoned only three of the eight officers in his squadron in the run-up to D-day had been with the regiment in the desert, with the others replacements or transfers.

Indeed, since battle casualty replacements were novices without combat experience at best – and at worst, given manpower shortages during the European campaign, might not even be fully trained as tank men – units had to use any break in operations for refresher training in the field.

A few men (such as Rea Leakey, who served in five different regiments) might be transferred multiple times. However, this was exceptional even for someone who served throughout the war, and unit loyalty generally remained a significant factor.

At its purest, Jake Wardrop describes 5 RTR being paraded by its CO in September 1942 after seeing heavy combat. The men were given the choice between going into reserve and missing the next operation, or continuing. Everyone in the battalion chose to remain and go into battle rather than leave their mates.

On a more personal level, Keith Douglas was assigned to a safe staff job as a camouflage officer in Cairo but applied to re-join his unit in the front line numerous times. He finally “borrowed” a vehicle and set off – in direct disobedience to orders and risking court martial - across several hundred miles of desert to return to them, knowing they were in heavy fighting at Alamein.

However, it was noted during the NW European campaign that “experienced” units advanced more cautiously than those yet to receive their baptism of fire, and everyone showed a marked reluctance to take unnecessary risks once units crossed the Rhine and the end of the war was in sight.

Crew Comradeship

The morale effect of keeping tank crews together was well understood, as they bonded strongly under the pressure of living and working together in a confined space amid shared danger. Men might even turn down promotion to stay with a good crew, and crews who were used to working together performed better not only in combat, but in the smaller tasks of maintaining and readying their tanks for the following day's action.

However, it was an extremely unusual crew that stayed together for an entire campaign, or indeed, even for more than a few weeks of combat.

The primary reason for this was heavy casualties. The North African, Italian and North-west European campaigns all saw armoured regiments committed to fierce battles, often assaulting well-prepared defences.

For example, 8 RTR lost 120 men in only three weeks fighting on the Gothic Line in northern Italy - roughly 50% of its tank crews. Even a single day could see significant losses. A private diary from 7 RTR notes “That day we lost five tanks knocked out and three on mines. We became a squadron of ten tanks and wiser and more sober men. We had lost some of our best officers, NCOs and men in a few hours after years of intensive training”

Equally, Bill Close describes Operation “Goodwood” in Normandy as “a hard battle with two days of heavy fighting. The battalion had lost well over sixty tanks with heavy personnel losses. In my own squadron I had lost seventeen tanks out of my complement of nineteen, over half being completely destroyed. All my officers were casualties, except Johnny Langdon, and only one troop sergeant, Buck Kite, was with me at the end. Practically every man in the squadron had bailed out at least once”

On average, each tank knocked out meant one crewman dead and another wounded badly enough to be out of action, so even crews whose tank had not been hit might be broken up to provide a leavening of experience – however limited – to crews which would otherwise have been made up of fresh replacements.

Casualty rates like this could traumatise men, and make them cautious of bonding too closely. In the desert, Bill Close noted “Sidi Rezegh was a severe battle for 3RTR and casualties were heavy. The cream of the battalion went west and it was never quite the same. For me, the operation confirmed my conviction that it 'did not pay to make special pals'. Too many friendships were cut short”

Even men who weren't physically injured might not be able to carry on. Often, these were rotated to the regiment's support echelon of soft-skin vehicles, which brought food, fuel and ammunition forward to the fighting vehicles each night.

It was still hard physical work, and Jock Watt points out that the echelon had its own dangers “How about driving a lorry with 700 gallons of high octane fuel in the back contained in leaking 4-gallon flimsy cans, or a load of high explosive ammunition, often sitting in a hollow within range of enemy guns and vulnerable to air attack. They were the brave ones. At least we had the protection of armour plate and knew from the chatter on our radios what was going on.”

Even so, a short transfer to the echelon allowed worn-out crewmen a breathing space to recover. Trevor Greenwood was posted back to the echelon severely shaken and exhausted by days of fighting, but returned to combat after a few days. Similarly, after the Goodwood action above, Bill Close describes how “three fairly senior sergeants who had been with the regiment from the desert days formed up and requested permission to be released from tank duties. This was an unusual request from experienced troop sergeants, but there comes a time when a man's courage and fortitude can run out. This time, after a few days of comparative peace and quiet in the echelon lines, two of the three returned to duty and served in tanks until the end of the war”

The third sergeant might have remained with the echelon, or he might have become one of the 10% of casualties who were evacuated for psychological reasons, and were often haunted by their experiences long after their service ended.

Few men equalled Bill Close, who had eleven tanks knocked out under him, or Jake Wardrop, who was shot out of 10 tanks in 30 days, but almost everyone “bailed out” at least once. Many men were part of several crews during their time in action, if they avoided becoming casualties themselves, rather than staying with the same crew throughout.

Churchill crewman Stephen Dyson recalled “It struck me again that out of the original 15 who landed in Normandy with me, only three were left: Joe, Taffy and Owen...Of the three tanks, only Buzzard had survived without being replaced”

One tank in each troop was commanded by the troop officer. While officers ate and socialised in their own mess during training, they generally lived with their crews in the field. Stephen Dyson recalls “The troop officers lived and slept with their crews, which proved a great leveller. No matter what their former background or lifestyle, the officers mucked in wholeheartedly with the other ranks”.

Other regiments preferred more formal relationships; the CO of 13/18 Royal Hussars preferred his officers to eat together rather than living “Mucko Chummo” with their men. While tempting to see this as the difference between the RTR and more socially exclusive cavalry regiments, this may be unfair.

Commanders were disproportionately likely to become casualties even if their tank was not knocked out, as they routinely exposed themselves for a better view. David Render, joining the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry as a replacement troop commander in Normandy, was told his life expectancy was two weeks. Like Stuart Hills, Render proved one of the few troop commanders in his entire regiment to get through the campaign unscathed.

At the extreme, both Bob Crisp and Ken Tout talk about taking over a tank and spending a day in action without even knowing the names of their crew.

This article does not suggest that unit loyalty and crew comradeship did not exist or were not important. Had this been the case, it is very unlikely that British armoured units would have achieved what they did. However, accounts of close crew comradeship in war memoirs reflect – intentionally or otherwise – what their authors wished to remember about their war experiences, and the reality might be more complicated.

Sources used or quoted

Close, Bill, Tank Commander: From the Fall of France to the Defeat of Germany,

Crisp, Major Robert, Brazen Chariots

Douglas, Keith, Alamein to Zem Zem

Dyson, Stephen W, Tank Twins: East End Brothers-in-Arms 1943-45

Forty, George, Jake Wardrop's Diary: A Tank Regiment Sergeant's Story

Forty, George, Royal Tank Regiment: A Pictorial History

Forty, George, Tank Warfare in World war II – First-hand Accounts from Allied and Axis Soldiers

Greenwood, Sgt Trevor, D-day to Victory: The Diaries of a British Tank Commander

Hills, Stuart, By Tank into Normandy

Leakey, Rea & Forty, George, Leakey's Luck: A Tank Commander with Nine Lives,

Render, David & Tootal, Stuart, Tank Action: An armoured troop commander's war 1944-45,

Tout, Ken, By Tank: D to VE Days,

Watt, Robert “Jock”, A Tankie's Travels: World War II Experiences of a Former Member of the Royal Tank Regiment,