A Fine Night for Tanks Quotes

“He didn’t want to die...He expected to be blasted into eternity at any moment. He didn’t know from second to second whether they were in range and view of the enemy or whether they were temporarily in cover. His religious faith helped him not one whit as he fought desperately in his mind. No loving God could subject men to this hell...As the tank bounced along he could not avoid thoughts of death, mutilation, burning, scorching and the certainty of his end.”
― Ken Tout, A Fine Night for Tanks: The Road to Falaise

“The flames went up 50 to 60 feet in the air. We all bailed out and sought shelter in the rows of potatoes. As these were well grown by August 8th they provided excellent cover.”
― Ken Tout, A Fine Night for Tanks: The Road to Falaise

“As we advanced up the ridge, what a sight met our eyes — the whole area strewn with the smoke-blackened carcasses of the 29th Brigade’s Sherman Tanks which had ‘brewed up’ and burnt out, some with their turrets blown off, other still ‘brewing’ with gouts of orange flame shooting skywards from turret hatches as the ammunition exploded, dead bodies hanging from escape hatches at grotesque angles; dismounted crews were glimpsed trying to rescue wounded comrades from the wrecked vehicles while others were attempting to mend broken tracks amid the swirling black smoke from burning fuel and the flashes of mortar bombs raining down.”
― Ken Tout, A Fine Night for Tanks: The Road to Falaise

“The British invented the tank. The British first employed it in battle. The British won the first battles using tanks. In 1916-17 Britain was, as one might say, the Tank Champion of the world. How then did the British tank equipment and strategy of 1939-44 become such a shambles? How was the champion so easily deposed? Why did so many British (and French and Canadian and Polish) tank crews die unnecessarily and their infantry go unsupported into the valleys of death?”
― Ken Tout, A Fine Night for Tanks: The Road to Falaise

“The tactic of unbroken artillery barrages lasting for hours was a gruesome mental and physical torture. For me, when politicians today toy with the idea of sending young men off to war, they should be made to take part in an exact reconstruction of the action at Tilly-la-Campagne and experience personally what it means to be a soldier.”
― Ken Tout, A Fine Night for Tanks: The Road to Falaise

“In 1942 his actions resulted in posting to officer training and a commission on 21 December 1942. It was only in 1943 that he first commanded an actual heavy tank, a Tiger of the LAH’s heavy armour company. He took part in several astonishing tank battles, both in Russia and in Normandy, and at the time of Totalize was calculated to have been responsible for knocking out, in Russia and Normandy, 138 tanks and 132 other armoured vehicles and guns. Surprisingly,”
― Ken Tout, A Fine Night for Tanks: The Road to Falaise

“Over on our left the other three tanks of our Troop are misshapen black beetles swimming in a cauldron of fire...great spouts of flame illuminate a long vista of forest...in a hurricane of blast the tops of the trees dance against a sky of incandescent orange. The explosions, starting as vermilion pinpricks, bulge into leaping rainbows of light. A huge square object rises lazily above the trees, turns slowly over and over, then drops into the writhing forest.”
― Ken Tout, A Fine Night for Tanks: The Road to Falaise