The brothers in arms who powered war’s final push

Laurie and one of his Sherman tanks during the war (Image: Laurie Burn)Ahead of him, however, there was only the enemy; the piercing machine gun fire, the bursting of mortar bombs and the pounding of German shells from Merville, 5 miles to the east, and Le Havre, 20 miles away.The 20-year-old tailor’s assistant from Killinghall, North Yorkshire had never expected to be a gunner in one of the specially-adapted Dual Drive (DD) Sherman tanks designed by Major General Sir Percy Hobart, which formed the very tip of the spear that day.Nor had he expected Army brass to assign his older brother, Peter, to serve alongside him in that very tank, which they lovingly dubbed ‘Icanhopit’.Little could they know, with German fury unleashed around him, that this was just the beginning of a year-long slog that would see Laurie  lose three tanks from under him as he blasted his way through France, Belgium and Holland before entering the heart of Germany itself.If he had been told then that this would involve taking part in some of the war’s deadliest engagements, from the bloody battles of Caen and the Bulge to the hard-fought crossing of the Rhine, he might have felt relieved. Because it seemed that his luck had already run out. Sgt Laurie Burn just after the war’s end in 1945 (Image: Laurie Burn)His tank , its engines flooded by a large wave, had come to a complete standstill on those Normandy sands near Hermanville-sur-Mer.’My brother Pete and I were part of the same Sherman tank crew in ‘A Squadron’- Pete was the co-driver and I was the Gunner,’ recalled Laurie, 98, from his home in Harrogate.’When we came ashore that morning there was nothing and no one in front of us, except the Germans who soon let all hell loose upon us.’It must have been a real dismay to them when that canvas dropped and they were staring into the barrel of our 75mm gun.’But as soon as we dropped the floater screen we were swamped by the incoming high tide, which flooded the engine compartment.’Laurie continued to pound enemy positions, aware that, with every passing minute,”Icanhopit ” was becoming more of a target.’We returned fire, trying to take out as many positions as we could,’ he said.’But we soon became a sitting duck and, with incoming mortar and artillery fire raining down on us, there was nothing left to do but evacuate.’That was our baptism of fire;  that was when, like it or not, boys very quickly became men, me amongst them.’He had been luckier than other tankers.  On Omaha beach, 27 of the initial 29 DD tanks had sunk with all hands after they were released more than three miles offshore and left to contend with 6-foot waves. US infantry suffered particularly high casualties because of this, as depicted by Steven Spielberg in the blockbuster Saving Private Ryan.But that night Laurie discovered that even a hard day’s fighting did not guarantee rest, when his position came under heavy and sustained German mortal attack.’From that day on we always slept in our tanks,’ he said. Laurie Burn now holding up images of himself in the war (Image: Laurie Burn)For the next six weeks they pressed on, reaching Caen, where the fighting was heavy, and Villers Brocage where, a month before, Waffen SS Panzer ace Michael Wittmann and his battalion of Tiger tanks – for which Shermans were no match – had ambushed the British Army’s 7th Armoured Division, destroying 14 tanks, 2 anti-tank guns and 15 transport vehicles in less than a quarter of an hour.’We sometimes encountered the feared Tiger tanks which we saw destroy a lot of our tanks and kill many of our lads,” he said.’The Germans we came across were very tough, but we got through Normandy and even Falaise in August.’The Falsie Pocket was where Germany’s mighty Army group B – now without an injured Rommel to lead them – found itself surrounded by Allied forces, losing 60,000 men and most of its equipment.’We all witnessed a lot of suffering and casualties; British, American, Canadian, German, and the poor civilians who got caught up in the line of fire. It was very sad,’ said  Laurie.By September Laurie’s tank had joined 30 Corps. Having failed to relieve the stranded 1st Airborne Division trapped at Arnhem it soon found itself at Ardennes, on the sharp end of Germany’s final desperate breakout offensive, the Battle of the Bulge. One of the specially-adapted amphibious Sherman tanks (DD tanks) used by Laurie (Image: Laurie Burn)Already on ‘Icanhopit lll’ after their second tank was destroyed by a landmine, fate intervened to save Laurie’s life – and almost ended Peter’s.Only a single crew member was allowed to take leave at any one time, and in January 1945 it had been Laurie’s turn.But because Peter wanted to go home for his 21st birthday, they had swapped.So it was Peter who was in their third Sherman when it was destroyed by a Panzerfaust- wielding German.The lethal hand-held tank killer – a forerunner of the NLAws sent to Ukrainian troops this year – carried a 6.4lb warhead with a deadly mix of TNT and hexogen explosives, and could penetrate any allied armour. They would eventually destroy a third of all British tanks.The attack killed the tank’s commander and left Peter so badly shaken that he was sent home.”Peter had what we now call PTSD, and wasn’t too good afterwards,’ said Laurie.With its amphibious capability, Laurie’s tank was again tasked with spearheading the crossing of the River Rhine as part of Operation Plunder.German defenders knew that this mighty river was the last natural barrier protecting the Fatherland from an allied onslaught. Hitler tasked Field Marshal Albert Kesselring – who had commanded German defences in Italy – with holding them back.For four hours, some 4,000 allied guns fired almost 14,000 shells during the opening bombardment, as RAF bombers pummelled entrenched Germans from the air.Laurie’s tank eventually reached Bremmen by late May the 8th when news of Germany’s surrender reached them.’I’ll never forget it because we had just captured one of those lethal German 88mm Guns. There were long columns of German POW’s marching everywhere and one of our officers told us at last the war in Europe was over. It seemed unreal after nearly a year of almost continuous hard fighting.’ Historian Gary Bridson-Daley and Laurie (Image: Laurie Burn)He added: ‘I didn’t talk about the war for over 50 years and have only been back to Normandy once.’But as I’ve got older and the years have passed I feel that it is important to share with those who are interested to know what we now see as very important historical events.’If we don’t, how else will people know what happened and what we, as young lads, all went through for our country and the others we helped liberate back then?’Today Laurie will deliver the Ode to Remembrance at the Bar Methodist Chapel in Harrogate which he has attended since 1928 and where, in 1952, he married his wife Dorothy.Laurie’s story is featured in historian Gary Bridson-Daley’s new book, The Last Stand.To ensure the survival of his eight-year ‘Debt of Gratitude’ project, in which he has interviewed hundreds of veterans who have never before told their stories, please visit www.gofundme.com/f/debt-of-gratitude-project