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Flame Thrower: Memoir of a Crocodile Tank Commander, D-Day to the Rhine
Flame Thrower: Memoir of a Crocodile Tank Commander, D-Day to the Rhine in Bloomington, MN
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'One of the most vivid battle stories of the Second World War'
SIR BASIL LIDDELL HART
The only memoir by a Churchill Crocodile tank commander.
This Spitfire Publishers 2022 edition features a new introduction by the author.
Normandy, June 1944. Tank commander Andrew Wilson, a twenty-year-old lieutenant, is in charge of a troop of three British Churchill Crocodile flame-throwing tanks. The fearsome Crocodile was one of 'Hobart's Funnies' - top secret armoured vehicles designed to punch a hole through Hitler's Atlantic Wall defences during D-Day. But there was nothing remotely humorous about the Crocodile. This terror-weapon reduced German fortifications to raging infernos of clinging liquid fire in seconds, incinerating its occupants. It was truly a horrific weapon. The flame projector, firing a crude form of napalm, was also a powerful psychological weapon, so feared by the Germans that many surrendered after the first ranging shots.
Andrew Wilson, MC, vividly describes battling across 1,800 miles of enemy-held territory, the vicious street-to-street fighting, the constant risk of ambush from anti-tank
panzerfausts
and 88s, Tiger and Panther tanks. From Noyers Ridge and the Falaise Gap through to the final confrontation at the Rhine, here is a first-hand account of tank warfare at its deadliest. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Andrew Wilson, MC, was an English journalist and writer whose career spanned the
Daily Express
, the
BBC World Service
to his long-term home at
The Observer
. Born in Herne Bay, Kent he volunteered on his 18th birthday and served in the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment) becoming a captain commanding a troop of Churchill Crocodile flame-throwing tanks from D-Day through France, Holland and into Germany. After the war he read PPE at Oxford University and embarked on his almost 40-year journalism career. He wrote several books including his first-hand account of his experiences as a tank commander,
Flame Thrower
, and as co-translator of Helmut Pabst's Eastern Front memoir,
The Outermost Frontier: A German Soldier in the Russian Campaign
('A masterpiece'
). He was awarded a PhD in military history from the Catholic University of Leuven in 2009. He died in 2020 aged 97.
SIR BASIL LIDDELL HART
The only memoir by a Churchill Crocodile tank commander.
This Spitfire Publishers 2022 edition features a new introduction by the author.
Normandy, June 1944. Tank commander Andrew Wilson, a twenty-year-old lieutenant, is in charge of a troop of three British Churchill Crocodile flame-throwing tanks. The fearsome Crocodile was one of 'Hobart's Funnies' - top secret armoured vehicles designed to punch a hole through Hitler's Atlantic Wall defences during D-Day. But there was nothing remotely humorous about the Crocodile. This terror-weapon reduced German fortifications to raging infernos of clinging liquid fire in seconds, incinerating its occupants. It was truly a horrific weapon. The flame projector, firing a crude form of napalm, was also a powerful psychological weapon, so feared by the Germans that many surrendered after the first ranging shots.
Andrew Wilson, MC, vividly describes battling across 1,800 miles of enemy-held territory, the vicious street-to-street fighting, the constant risk of ambush from anti-tank
panzerfausts
and 88s, Tiger and Panther tanks. From Noyers Ridge and the Falaise Gap through to the final confrontation at the Rhine, here is a first-hand account of tank warfare at its deadliest. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Andrew Wilson, MC, was an English journalist and writer whose career spanned the
Daily Express
, the
BBC World Service
to his long-term home at
The Observer
. Born in Herne Bay, Kent he volunteered on his 18th birthday and served in the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment) becoming a captain commanding a troop of Churchill Crocodile flame-throwing tanks from D-Day through France, Holland and into Germany. After the war he read PPE at Oxford University and embarked on his almost 40-year journalism career. He wrote several books including his first-hand account of his experiences as a tank commander,
Flame Thrower
, and as co-translator of Helmut Pabst's Eastern Front memoir,
The Outermost Frontier: A German Soldier in the Russian Campaign
('A masterpiece'
). He was awarded a PhD in military history from the Catholic University of Leuven in 2009. He died in 2020 aged 97.
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