The brothers in arms powering war’s final push

THE sun was already high when Laurie Burn's amphibious tank trundled on to Sword beach at 7.25am on that fateful D-Day of June 6, 1944.

- Marco Giannangeli

Behind him were more than 29,000 troops of Lt Gen Miles Dempsey's Second Army, ready to do their part on one of five beaches chosen to begin the pushback which would eventually drive Hitler's fascist jackboot out of occupied Europe.

Ahead of him there was only the enemy; the piercing machine gun fire, the bursting of mortar bombs and the pounding of German shells from Merville, five miles to the east, and Le Havre, 20 miles away.

The 20-year-old tailor's assistant from Killinghall, North Yorks, had not expected to be a gunner in one of the specially-adapted Dual Drive Sherman tanks designed by Maj Gen Sir Percy Hobart, which formed the 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 had dubbed "Icanhopit".

With German fury unleashed around him, this was just the beginning of a year-long slog that would see Laurie lose three tanks as he blasted his way through France, Belgium and Holland - before entering Germany itself.

Engines flooded by a huge wave, his tank had come to a standstill on those sands near Hermanville-sur-Mer.