Hello. Welcome to the history hit World Wars Podcast, a podcast dedicated to that turbulent period in history between 1914 and 1945.

I'm James Rogers and in this episode, first recorded for Dan Snow's history hit, Dan talks with Second World War Tank Commander Captain David Render.

Captain Render was a 19 year old second lieutenant, fresh out of Santas,

when he was sent to fight in France. And it's hard to imagine, but young, fresh-faced,

he was sent to join a veteran armoured unit that had already spent years fighting together with a desert rats in North Africa.

In this episode we hear about how David settled into life with the Sherwood Rangers

Yeomanry five days after the D-Day landings and how these

hardened men didn't think he was going to last very long. David. David, you don't look old enough, but you are a Normandy veteran, Western Europe veteran

from 1944-45.

Great.

What was your job?

I was a lieutenant troop leader of five troop

a squadron, Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry.

That's for Nottinghamshire, Yeomanry.

How old were you?

I was 19 when I was in action against the Germans.

I joined the army at 18 on my birthday and because it was the thing to do, this sort of thing.

I did a year and a half, it took to train us from being a school boy to being, well we were a man at 18 of course,

to the being a lieutenant in able to command a troop of four tanks.

And what kind of tanks were they at that point?

Sherman fires, yeah.

Fireflies?

...