I later learnt that he’d been shot. We struck up a conversation about the war and over time became firm friends. Bill was called up in 1942 and joined the Essex Yeomanry where he trained as a radio operator, later being assigned to Sherman tanks. Within 45 minutes, he’d been shot by a German sniper hiding in the adjacent field. Looking back, the fact that I was injured so early on probably saved my life. The corpses certainly mount up in Fury, particularly in the final scene. But they were better disciplined than those in Fury. It still amazes me that it floated at all. The soldier next to him was killed. He talks about the memories reignited by Fury, which stars Brad Pitt as a Sherman tank commander leading his team through Germany in 1945This article contains mild spoilers, Last modified on Wed 18 Jan 2017 12.43 EST. Aged 21, he was one of the first ashore on D-Day, tasked with firing at a German gun emplacement defending the village of Le Hamel, before rejoining his tank. (Like the Tiger, Bovington tank museum - which supplied tanks for Fury, and hosted the press junket - is also home to the only surviving one.). The start of the Hayfield Battle in Fury. In response to an attack from a Tiger, Wardaddy yells: “It will end soon. We trained our browning machine gun on him and were just about to shoot him when he laid down his weapon and surrendered. For Bill, the scene in which this Tiger tank takes on three US counterparts was the most realistic part of the film. I liked him because he reminded me of my own father. Recently widowed, he sat in the corner on his own, nursing his pint. Though Oxfordshire doubles for Germany in terms of location, Ayer was able to use a real German Tiger 131 tank, the only working model in the world, captured from the Germans on the secret orders of Winston Churchill (and currently housed at Bovington). We came around a corner and there was a member of the Volksstrum [a civilian militia army set up by the Nazi party in the final months of the war] armed with a Panzerfaust. Fury accurately portrays how superior the German tanks were. In March 1945 he was one of the first people across the Rhine in a floating “Duplex Drive” Sherman. Link to video: Fury: watch Brad Pitt in the trailer for the World War II tank thriller. Within six weeks of being repatriated to Britain, Bill was back on the front line, fighting his way into Germany in a Sherman tank. All the crew were from Essex except me. A Tiger also had 3.9 inch thick armour, so shells from a Sherman literally bounced off it. Much of the movie tracks the evolving relationship between Wardaddy and Norman “Cobb” Ellison (Logan Lerman), a fresh recruit shocked by the reality of war.Bill was also the youngest in his tank and had a very close relationship with his crew. We didn’t write the name of our tank on the barrel like they did in Fury or plaster the inside with photographs but we were just as proud of our tank. To be honest we were more worried about it sinking than we were about the German gunfire coming from the other side of the river. The M4 Sherman, officially the Medium Tank, M4, was the primary battle used by the United States and the other Allies in World War II, and proved to be a reliable and highly mobile workhorse. A Tiger also had 3.9 inch thick armour, so shells from a Sherman … I first met Bill about five years ago in his local pub following a Remembrance Day service in Wellesbourne, Warwickshire. Ours was called Beverley and her name was written on the turret. The Sherman weighed 33 tonnes and had a 75mm gun, compared to the Tiger’s 54 tonnes and a 88mm gun. The prisoner pleads for his life and shows both of them a photo of his wife and children. A Sherman provided you with protection against most enemy fire but against a Tiger it could easily become your coffin. The Germans seemed to be used as canon fodder. So many people died liberating that tiny stretch of beach. This brought back memories for Bill of the end of his own war, spent in the German port of Kiel.
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