第二次世界大战是一场机械时代的最终较量 The Second World War was the ultimate conflict of the machine age.
这个机械（坦克）是它的标志符号 And this machine was its iconic symbol,
陆地战争胜负的决定性武器 the decisive weapon of the war on land.
从北非到前苏联以东的战场都由坦克主宰着 From north Africa to the Russian front, tanks ruled the battlefield.
如果你在装甲部队上吃亏 在战场上就面临着被消灭的危险 And if you didn't master armoured warfare, you faced annihilation.
它真的非常恐怖 It's quite terrifying, really,
因为你可以看到敌军的枪喷出的火舌 because you could see these flashes of the enemy's guns
即使离得很远 然后你会想 其中一只枪随时会打中我 in the distance, and you think,"Any minute, one of them is going to hit me."
坦克在二战中从始至终 Tanks were there at the beginning of the war,
都活跃在战场上 and tanks were there at the end.
在坦克里的士兵 The men who fought inside them
对整个战争也有着独特的见解 had an exceptional view of the entire conflict...
从法国沦陷到非洲沙漠的战役 ..from the fall of France,to the deserts of Africa.
自诺曼底登陆到最终战胜纳粹德国 From D-Day to the final victory in Germany.
作为皇家坦克军团的一员 As a young officer training in the Royal Tank Regiment,
他们用前辈的英勇事迹教导我 I was indoctrinated in their exploits.
我们可能已经无法感受到 And who could fail to have been awe-inspired by the way those men
他们在这些铁壳怪物里一次又一次面临着死亡 faced death time and time again,in these iron-clad monsters?
当我第一次爬进坦克时 我想这会很有趣，仅此而已 When I first went in, I thought it was going to be great fun, and all that.
但后来我意识到 根本不是这样 But I realised it wasn't.
我看到一辆离我不远的坦克冒着浓烟被炸成了碎片 There was a tank near me, I saw just blown to bits.
好几个兄弟在里面 那种感觉真的很糟糕 A couple of my mates were in that. It was terrible.
坦克里兄弟们的团结 The bond you established in Tank,
不仅仅是一种友谊 was not a normal relationships of friends.
那是生死搭档 比友谊浓多了 You were a partnership, it was closer than friendship.
这几个搭档是一辈子的朋友 That crew were friends for life.
这就是六个坦克兵不寻常的故事 他们来自同一支部队 This is the story of six remarkable men from one armoured unit,
第五皇家坦克团 The 5th Royal Tank Regiment,5 RTR.
对于那些非常了解他们的人来说 也叫 邋遢第五团 Or to those who really knew them,the Filthy 5th.
坦克战为人知晓并不仅仅是幸存的老兵们的贡献 Their war is brought to life not only by the few surviving veterans,
从一些之前没有发现的一些信件和日记中也能略知一二 but also by previously unseen letters and diaries
而这些使我们对坦克战的了解更加深入 that give us a real insight of the visceral reality of tank warfare.
他们每个人都是有故事的男人 Each of these men has his own story.
受伤 被俘 被杀 这些分别降临在他们头上 Some were wounded, some captured and some were killed.
只有非常幸运的极少数的人安全度过 A few, the lucky few, went all the way through.
他们在一起构成了战争中一幅独特的画面 Together their accounts form a unique picture of the war.
五团也给他们留下了太多的回忆 And they weren't called the Filthy 5th for nothing.
战争的一开始 五团就开始了自己的冒险 The Filthy 5th's odyssey began at the very beginning of the war.
但并非伴随着枪响开始 而是啜泣 Not with a bang...but a whimper.
一九四零年的六月 五团被困在法国的瑟堡 等待回家的船只 In June 1940, men from the 5th Tanks are stuck at Cherbourg, waiting for a ship home.
在法国损失惨重的战斗给了五团沉重的打击 Having been bloodied in the disastrous battle for France,
士兵们被打散了 the unit was scattered.
他们的幻想破灭 苦不堪言 Its men bitter and disillusioned.
毕竟他们才只来了几周 It had, after all,only arrived a few weeks earlier.
他们的使命已经足够简单 Their mission had been straightforward enough...
来稳固英国远征军在法国的防守 to reinforce the British expeditionary force in France,
以遏制德国在北欧的猛烈攻势 and halt the German onslaught across northern Europe.
但就当第五团驾驶着速度很快却已经快淘汰的坦克 But as they approached the River Somme, in tanks that were fast
抵达索姆河时 but poorly armoured and already obsolete, the 5th Tanks
他们被德军的精锐装甲部队狠狠的教训了一顿 were given the sledgehammer treatment by superior German Panzers.
到一九四零年 坦克就已经成为陆军的主要作战力量 By 1940, the tank was the essential component of warfare on the ground.
但英国却在这方面落后了很多 Yet Britain simply didn't have what was needed.
战争开始的前几年 很长一段时间里 In the years before the war, they'd left it too late
英国都没有改良军备 没有一直装甲部队遭受过像英国皇家坦克团 to start their rearmament and there was nobody for whom that failure
一样难堪的失败 was more galling than the Royal Tank Regiment.
第五团在德军精锐部队的打击之下溃不成军 Pursued by the German Panzer divisions, the 5th Tanks went to pieces,
称他们连上级的命令都收不到 更别说食物 claiming they never got any orders,let alone food.
他们和法国盟军仓皇撤退时 As they retreated along with their French allies,
丢弃了大量装备 they left most of their equipment behind.
撤离的路线上一片狼藉 It was a shambles on a grand scale.
在法国的几周内 他们的坦克损失殆尽 During those few weeks in France, they'd lost most of their tanks.
他们战斗力低下 They could only claim a single, knocked out German one,
很多士兵坦白 说他们事实上很多时候都醉醺醺的 and many of the soldiers confessed they'd spent much of the time drunk.
五团的第一次出击使他们蒙羞 The 5th Tanks' first experience of the war had been an exercise in humiliation.
下士Harry Finlayson 二十五岁 职业军人 Corporal Harry Finlayson, 25, a regular,
曾在印度服役 had already seen service in India.
但在法国对坦克的指挥却是一团糟 But commanding a tank in France was bewildering.
难以置信我们被打退了 Couldn't believe we'd be pushed back.
我从没这样想过 我以为我们会直捣黄龙打进德国 It never entered my head. I thought we'd go straight into Germany,
我们非常自信 was so sure about it.
当我们开始撤退时 我都不太相信 When we started getting pushed back, I couldn't believe it.
当你将我军的坦克装备和德军对比时 你会发现德军完胜 When you think of the tanks the Germans had and the tanks we had, they were all over us.
我们毫无胜算 We didn't have a chance.
好像四面八方都是德军 There were Germans everywhere, like.
第五团在法国的闹剧使很多人沮丧 哈利只是其中之一 Harry wasn't the only one dismayed by the 5th's French farce.
另一个是伞兵Jake Wardrop 二十五岁 一个精明的格拉斯哥人 A canny 25-year-old Glaswegian, Trooper Jake Wardrop,
提供了最重要的资料之一 他的袖珍日记 provided one of the most perceptive accounts, written in a pocket diary.
以我们的军队去攻击德军 "It was all as inadequate as would have been an effort
就好比螳臂当车 "to tie down a mad bull with white cotton.
我们的坦克又差又少 "We had a ridiculously small amount of material,
部队组织涣散 "and an even smaller amount of organisation.
我个人觉得 进军索姆河 "My own opinion of the Somme episode
是个愚蠢的决定 "was that it was a very silly place to be."
Jake Wardrop是五团的一座宝藏 Jake Waldrop was a great treasure to the 5th Tanks.
他很清醒 因此对局势认识的 He was no fool, he was able to assess the situation very...
很透彻 ..adequately for his own satisfaction.
所以才有了他的日记 Hence the diaries he wrote.
当然 他不该写的 Which, of course, he shouldn't have been writing.
因为一旦他们被俘虏 德军将得到他的日记 Because if the tank was captured and the diary was in it,
那里面有部队的位置和其他信息 positions and the details of the unit would be available.
但五团对这些纪律却并不重视 But 5th Tanks had regard to those rules which...
没有严格恪守 they liked to abide by, and not those they didn't.
撤回英国后 五团在萨里重组 Back in England, the 5th Tanks regrouped at an army base in Surrey.
在这里 一些新兵和 Here, the old regulars were joined by new recruits,
民兵加入 二十四岁的Gerry Solomon就是一个 citizen soldiers, like 24-year-old Gerry Solomon.
当我抵达这里 感觉就好像是鱼儿离开了水 因为在这里我们经常 When I arrived, I felt like a fish out of water, because there were we,more or less rookies,
被叫做菜鸟 那些人也是刚从法国前线回来 as they called them, and all these other people
不过他们的遭遇更加坎坷 had just come back from France and they were more hardened soldiers.
他们谈话的时候不会让我们加入 They didn't sort of include you in their conversations.
他是个新兵蛋子 他懂什么 "He's a new boy,so he wouldn't understand it."
但是最终 我被他们接纳了 But, eventually, I was accepted.
就当伞兵所罗门来了后 And just as Trooper Solomon was settling in,
五团被命令做好海外作战的准备 5th Tanks was told to make ready for active service abroad.
（人群欢呼） CROWDS CHEER
一九四零年六月 意大利的独裁者墨索里尼 In June 1940, the Italian dictator,Benito Mussolini,
对英宣战 declared war on Britain.
（意大利语） HE SPEAKS ITALIAN
（群众欢呼） CROWDS CHEER
他野心勃勃地要吞并英属埃及 His ambition was to conquer British-occupied Egypt
和战略要地苏伊士运河 and the strategically vital Suez Canal.
利比亚作为意大利的殖民地 为这次入侵提供了一个跳板 Libya, an Italian colony, provided the launching pad for this invasion.
一九四零年秋 第五军团的士兵开赴中东 By the autumn of 1940, the men of 5th Tanks were on their way
和原驻军汇合保卫埃及 to the Middle East to the Allied garrison, protecting Egypt.
对一些士兵来说 这一切像是一次探险 For some, it all seemed like an adventure.
我倒是很兴奋 因为可以出去看看中东 Well, I was excited about going abroad and seeing the Middle East.
我把这次行动当做了一次观光 并没想太多 I was regarding it as a sort of sightseeing tour, more than anything.
一九四零年圣诞前一天的上午 经过将近两个月的航行 On the morning of Christmas Eve,1940, after almost two months at sea,
第五坦克团在埃及的亚历山大港集结 the 5th Tanks gathered in the Egyptian port of Alexandria.
航行了很远 每个人都对远远抛在后面的家乡无比思念 Far from home, each man thought of those they'd left behind.
因为我要出征 我的妈妈非常伤心 My mother, she was very upset because I was going.
她告诉我 答应我Harry 一定要回来 She said to me, "Promise me, Harry, that you'll come back."
我说 我答应你我一定会回来 后来她哭了 I said, "Yeah, I promise you, I'll come back." And she was crying.
我安慰她说 别哭妈妈 别担心 那儿没人能杀掉我 I told her, "No, don't worry, nobody there is going to kill me,
我会平安回来 "I'll come back."
前线的一小部分守军给了来犯的意大利侵略者 At the front, a small force of Allied troops was giving
当头一棒 the Italian invaders a beating.
由于以小代价给了敌方大打击 英军扭转了被动局面 开始进军利比亚 For the loss of only 500, British forces had turned the tide and advanced into Libya.
这次胜利鼓舞了五团 News that cheered the newly landed 5th Tanks.
当我们抵达时听说了他们的战报 大量的侵略者被歼灭 When we arrived we'd heard they had taken no end of Italian prisoners.
每个人都很高兴 Everybody was very, sort of, jubilant about it all,
因为我觉得可能不需要我们上战场了 because I think it was possible we weren't going to be needed.
但如果Gerry Solomon认为他们对于残酷的实际战斗是多余的 But if Gerry Solomon thought they might be spared the unpleasantness
那么他可要重新想想了 of actual fighting, they were about to think again.
一九四一年二月 一支难缠的德军 In February 1941, a battle-hardened German force
抵达了北非 来援救他们的意大利盟友 arrived in North Africa to rescue their Italian allies.
德意志非洲军团 The Afrika Korps.
带领这支装备优良的装甲部队的 Armed with better tanks than the British, the Afrika Korps
就是彻底改变了沙漠战的 was led by a man who would change the dynamic of desert warfare...
埃尔文·隆美尔 ..Erwin Rommel.
Jake Wardrop把他描述成一个大胆邪恶的宪兵 Jake Wardrop described him as the bold, bad policeman.
但他通常被人们称为沙漠之狐 But he was more commonly known as the Desert Fox.
五团在法国就已经遭遇过隆美尔 The 5th Tanks had already encountered Rommel in France.
但在这片沙漠 这位德国名将的才华大放异彩 But it was out here that the German general's talents found a perfect arena.
他写道 机动部队和坦克战的作战方式可以 It was, he wrote, "The only theatre where the principles
在这个地方发挥到极致 of motorised and tank warfare could be applied to the full."
他对德意志非洲军抱有极大野心 And he had big plans for the Afrika Korps -
他想占领英属埃及后直取阿拉伯的油田 to conquer British Egypt and drive onwards to the Arabian oil fields.
一九四一年三月二十四日 隆美尔发动一波攻势 On 24th March, 1941, Rommel launched an offensive.
英军司令部坚信他并未做好长期作战准备 British headquarters had believed he wouldn't be ready for months.
因此当愚人节五团遭到攻击时 So when, on April Fools' Day, the 5th Tanks were attacked,
他们的上司告诉他们那只是倒霉的意大利人在放空炮 they had been told by their commanders it could only be the hapless Italians.
我们进入战壕 看到一些坦克过来了 We'd got in this ditch and we saw some tanks coming,
坦克上有很大的黑色十字符号 huge great tanks with big, black crosses on them.
我惊呼 该死的德国人 我们并不知道德国人到了 I said, "Bloody Germans!" We didn't have any Germans there.
接着我们看到了卡车载着德国士兵过来 And then we see lorries coming with Germans in them.
我立刻跑回去报告 可他们不肯相信我 So I went back and reported and they wouldn't believe me.
连长不肯相信我 那儿没德国军队 Company commander wouldn't believe me. "There's no Germans there."
我说 你自己看 第二天早晨 我们看到了德军 I said, "Well, they are." The next morning, we knew they were there.
以我们的坦克不可能战胜他们 The tanks we had against theirs was impossible.
士兵们都知道从以往战绩来看 They knew from bitter experience
曾在法国的战斗中表现的很差劲 that British tanks such as the A-13,
的这种A-13的英式坦克 which had performed so poorly in the battle for France,
不可能是德国装甲部队的对手 were simply no match for the German Panzers.
这一辆就是传说中的A-13 一辆能集中体现英国在 So, here it is - the A-13, a tank that embodies everything
二战中所装备的装甲车辆的拙劣设计 that was worst about British inter-war armoured vehicle design.
它由于对技术过于狂热地追求 It was overly ambitious in its technology
而使它在制造中显得粗制滥造 and shoddily executed in the way it was manufactured.
A-13对五团来说就像个死亡陷阱 But the A-13 was also a death-trap to the men of the 5th.
进入其中的一个是相当的难 Get inside one of these and you'll see how hard that was to do.
或者 更切中要害地说 要很快出来也是很难的 Or, more to the point, how hard it was to get out of them in a hurry.
然后装备着很薄的装甲 And that, combined with the thin armour,
你们可能期待的坦克兵的安全系数 deprived the crew inside of the sense of security
已经荡然无存了 that you might have expected them to have.
五团正面临前所未有的挑战 The 5th were now facing an enemy they simply weren't prepared for.
德军击毁他们那差劲的坦克 Their poorer tanks were struck down by German shot.
他们被德军的斯图卡式和多尼尔轰炸机从空中进行打击 They were assailed from the skies by Stukas and Dorniers.
英军的指挥系统陷于瘫痪 The British command structure went to pieces.
对一些五团士兵来说 这是他们第一次尝到战争的滋味 And, for some in the 5th, it was their first taste of action.
当你加入战斗时 你会想 不是你死就是我亡 这就是战争 Once you get into battle, you think, "Well, this is it. It's me or them."
每个人都很害怕 每个人都战战兢兢有些神经质 Everybody was scared. Everybody was sort of jittery and jumpy.
当你在坦克里的时候你就成了敌人的靶子 When you're in a tank and you're being fired at,
真的很吓人 it's quite frightening.
因为你确定在你击中他之前他会先击中你 Because you're sure that he's going to hit you before you hit him.
我在沙漠里从未祈祷过 I don't think I ever prayed in the desert.
连我都疑惑我为什么不那样做 I often wondered afterwards why I didn't.
Gerry Solomon和其他五团士兵面临的是德军的精锐坦克 What Gerry Solomon and the others in 5th Tank were up against again was
上面标着三 那就是德军的三号坦克 the superiority of the German mark three, the Panzerkampfwagen III.
它在好几个方面超越英军坦克 It had several advantages over British tanks.
它是英式坦克的两倍重 而大部分是装甲的重量 It weighed nearly twice as much and most of that was armour.
这使士兵生命更加有所保障 And it was more reliable.
三号坦克的设计非常的人性化 The mark three is very well designed from the human perspective.
坐在这个位置的指挥官有着极佳的视野 The commander, who sat in this position, had fantastic all-round visibility -
事实上 我曾经坐过的另一辆坦克的同样位置 视野也没有三号坦克好 那是叫做酋长的在冷战时期的一款坦克 better, in fact, than I did in the same slot on a Chieftain back on Cold War exercises in the 1980s.
指挥官也可以很方便地跟别的成员交谈 He could also talk to other members of the crew very easily.
举个例子 坐在我这个位置的炮手 可以很方便地跟其他人眼神交流 其他人也可以 The gunner, for example, who sits where I am. They've got very easy eye contact and all the rest of it.
还有 如果战事不利 他们可以从我身后这个安全门逃走 And, if it does all go horribly wrong, they've got escape hatches there, behind me and in the hull.
他们出来的速度比英国坦克兵快多了 They can get out much faster than the British crew could.
在德军装甲部队驰骋在英军战线上时 As the German Panzers overran the British lines,
混乱如野火般迅速传递 chaos and confusion spread like wildfire.
有趣的是 我并不害怕 The funny thing was I don't think I felt scared.
我觉得我更担心我的搭档们 I think I was more worried about my crew.
我当时告诉驾驶员该往哪儿走 And I was telling the driver where to go.
我们并没有能力给予德国人以打击 And I felt disappointed because we didn't have the power
这令我很沮丧 to knock Jerry tanks out.
在这时 In the midst of this
一个经验丰富的指挥官 只有二十六岁 was a veteran officer aged just 26.
中尉Arthur Crickmay Lieutenant Arthur Crickmay.
Arthur Crickmay比很多人都清楚这个画面 Arthur Crickmay understood this landscape better than most.
战争以前 他曾和他最好的朋友Ted来过 当时只是学生来探索而已 Before the war, he'd been out here with his best friend, Ted, as students exploring.
接着他被召到并非五团的另外一支部队 Then he'd been posted ahead of 5th Tanks to another battalion
那个部队已经消失了，就像这片荒野一样 that was already "up the blue", as the army called this wilderness.
但是他对这些在役的人的失败感到沮丧 But he was dismayed at the failure of those in charge,
在他富于表现力的信件写道 as his letters home show so eloquently.
对于正在发生的事情没有一丝消息 传言构筑了整日的生活 "There was no information about what was happening. Rumour was rife.
那是四月一日 确实是 "It was April 1 and no mistake.
像每日邮报会说到的 让我们用宽容的心态面对 "As the Daily Mail would say, 'Let us draw a merciful feel
接下来六天回到来的糊涂和困惑 " 'over the next six days of muddle and confusion,
秩序和混乱 " 'order and counter-order.'
我们的一辆坦克爆炸的画面一直在我脑海里 "My most vivid memory is one of our tanks exploding.
一定坦克里的所有弹药一起爆炸了 "All the ammo inside must have gone up at once.
我曾见到很多的坦克着火 "I've seen many tanks on fire,
但以前从未见过像这样爆炸的 "but have never seen one go off like that before or since.
接下来的几天可能是我所能记得的最令人讨厌的日子 "The next few days were among some of the most unpleasant I can remember."
中尉Arthur·Crickmay清楚的了解 Lieutenant Arthur Crickmay understood only too well
当一枚炮弹击中坦克会发生什么 what happened when a shell struck a tank.
这是这里大多数人的命运 It was the fate that befell so many of the men here.
炮弹穿透坦克一侧后 The projectile penetrating one side
就无力再穿透另一侧装甲 would lack the energy to exit through the other,
然后就会在坦克里反弹 把坦克兵撕成碎片 ricocheting about inside, tearing people to pieces.
如果炮弹击中的是弹药箱或者燃料箱 坦克会立刻着火 If it struck ammunition or fuel, a fire could soon take hold.
浓烟和火焰会在坦克里翻腾 不出三十秒 Smoke and flames would billow from the turret and, within 30 seconds,
坦克里的温度就会像一座小火炉一样高 the temperature inside could match that of a furnace.
坦克兵会被烧成灰烬 The crew would be incinerated.
德装甲军团被Wardrop称为隆美尔的蓝眼宠儿 他们在一周多的时间内 Rommel's blue-eyed boys, as Wardrop called them, had in just over a week
使英军的命运颠倒过来 reversed British fortunes
重新占领了所有意大利失去的地区 and regained all the territory the Italians had lost.
隆美尔确实优秀 Rommel was good, of course he was,
但在这次攻击中他有些不明智 接下来给你解释 but in this attack he hardly had to be brilliant. And here's why.
五团的五十二辆坦克 九辆被德军击毁 Of 5 RTR's 52 tanks, nine had been destroyed by the Germans,
两辆勉强撤到托布鲁克港 two had limped into Tobruk,
剩下的四十一辆 全部自己坏在了沙漠里 and the rest - 41 of them - had broken down in the desert.
德意志非洲军能有多强大呢 How good did the Afrika Korps have to be
当遇上只有这些坦克的英军 when the British had tanks like that?
我们已经对德军坦克足够了解了 We were quite aware of the specifications of the German tanks.
他们所有的坦克都有更长的枪筒 All their tanks had longer barrels
意味着他们对空军打击效率很高 which meant higher velocity for AP rounds.
而我们直到战争末期才抓住这一点 And we never really caught up until late in the war.
在火力和策略上的失败使五团 Outgunned and outmanoeuvred, the 5th retreated
撤退到利比亚东部的一个唯一没有被占领的城镇 to the only town in eastern Libya that Rommel hadn't taken.
托布鲁克 Tobruk.
失去了他们的坦克 Finlayson下士和他的队友们 Bereft of their tanks, Corporal Finlayson and his crew
被打发到步兵团的战壕里 were packed off to the trenches as infantry.
当时我们被包围了 We were surrounded at Tobruk at the time.
我写信给我的妻子 And I was writing a letter to my wife.
我的一个战友 应该说是兄弟 也在写信 And a mate of mine was writing -one of the chaps was writing -
写给他的妈妈 a letter to his mother.
他对我说 如果我死在这里 你会帮我把信寄出去吧 And he said to me, "If I don't come out of this, will you post this letter for me?"
我说 当然 如果我死了 你也帮我寄 他答应了 I said, "Yeah. If I don't come out, post this letter." He said yes.
于是我们各自写信 So we wrote these letters.
在战壕里写 And we were in a trench.
我们坐在那里写 We sat down there in the trench writing,
我写完后转过来看他 and when I had finished I turned around and looked at him.
他躺在那里已经死了 头上有个弹孔 He was lying there dead with a bullet through his head.
他躺在那里 鲜血从头里流出 他已经死了 He was lying there, blood coming out of his head there, he was dead.
我非常难受 Oh, it was terrible.
他的信才写了一半 And he'd only half done this letter.
我当时根本不知道怎么办 要不要把信送出去 I didn't know what the devil to do, whether to send it or not.
我心想 算了吧不寄了 寄了反而更糟 可怕的事情啊 I thought, "No, I'd better not. It wouldn't be nice." Horrible thing.
他写信的时候死了 所以我想还是不寄了 He was writing that and died, so I thought I'd better not.
后来我就没寄 So I didn't send it.
再后来我跟他的妈妈联系了 I did get in touch with the mother
告诉她在她儿子死的时候我们在一块 and told them I was with him when he died.
我说他直接被击中 没遭什么罪 I said he didn't suffer, he was killed outright.
被困在托布鲁克港几周后 After weeks of being trapped in Tobruk,
五团被皇家海军从地狱里往出救 the 5th Tanks were delivered from that hell by the Royal Navy,
从俯冲式轰炸机群的攻击下寻找逃生机会 taking their chances with the dive bombers
港口的防守交给了澳大利亚人 and leaving the port to be defended by the Australians.
等他们撤离亚历山大港外的比较 By the time they returned to the comparative sanity
完善的基地时 已经是春末夏初了 of their base outside Alexandria, it was the end of spring.
到了圣诞节 Having arrived at Christmas,
他们要经历埃及夏天的炙热的夏天了 they'd yet to experience the roasting heat of an Egyptian summer.
水在这总是个问题 Water was always an issue.
在沙漠里被定量供给 Water was rationed in the desert.
每个士兵二十四小时内用这么一瓶 Each man got about this much to last 24 hours.
如果水的供给充足—当然这种情况很少发生 That's if supplies got through - that was often a big if -
而且如果他们的坦克里没有漏水的散热器 and if they didn't have a leaking radiator on their tank
那么他们需要倒一些水进去 that they had to pour some in.
在他们穿越沙漠的第一次行军中 On their first march through the desert,
五团的一些人已经极度缺水 some of the men in 5th Tanks became so desperately thirsty
他们将车辆的坐垫撕开 that they tore the seat cushions from their vehicles,
夜里把它们放在沙漠中收集露水 left them in the desert overnight to collect dew
早晨塞进嘴里拧出水 and wrung them out into their mouths in the morning.
那种味道很恶心，但是他们有什么办法呢 It tasted disgusting, but what choice did they have?
当五团被调往亚历山大时 Some reprieve from the hardships of the desert
情况才得到缓解 came when the 5th were given leave in Alexandria.
这使他们有些沉湎于一些爱好中 This allowed them to indulge in a little of what they fancied.
Jake Wardrop 去了他最喜欢去的地方 金色酒吧 Jake Wardrop headed to one of his favourite haunts, The Golden Bar.
早上9点我们到了那个地方 "At 9am, we hit the place.
并在第二天早上五点我们决定收工 "And at 5am the following morning, we decided to call it a day.
多么美好的时光 难忘的时间 "What a time. A notable session."
Jake Wardrop居然从那次金色酒吧之旅 Well, Jake Wardrop survived that particular visit
毫发无损的回来了 to The Golden Bar without a scrap.
在他的日记里，在他略显腼腆的记述中 In his diary, he's rather coy about how many beatings
他多次在战争中幸存 he did in fact hand out.
但是我们从其他人那知道 这种概率很小 But we know from others there were quite a few.
Wardrop说他忍不住拧权威的鼻子（挑衅权威） Wardrop himself said he couldn't resist tweaking the noses of those in authority.
在他去埃及之后 And soon after he'd got to Egypt,
他因为在自己帐篷里喝酒 喧哗被军法审判 he was court martialled for a noisy drinking session in his tent.
军官意识到 Officers came to the view that
Wardrop是战场上的幸存者之一 Wardrop was one of those men best kept in the field.
Jake Wardrop是一个很好的伙伴 Jake Wardrop was a very nice fellow.
他不太好打交道 如果你知道我什么意思 But he was a bit rough, if you know what I mean.
而且据我听说 And, according to what I'd heard,
他是麻烦的源头 he was nothing but a source of trouble.
你知道 有一天他可能是一等兵 You know, he would be lance corporal one day
一周或两周后 他可能出去喝酒 and a week or two later, he'd go out and get drunk
然后哪被撞伤了 他回到一个士兵的角色 and sort of smash places up and he'd be back to a trooper.
但是 当然 他相当无畏 But, of course, he was quite fearless.
但是当Jake和他的伙伴们沉溺于亚历山大的酒精中时 But while Jake and the boys enjoyed the drinking dives of Alexandria,
每个人都明白为了打败非洲的军队 everyone understood that in order to beat the Afrika Korps,
五团和其余的英国军队 the 5th and the rest of the British forces
需要一些新的武器装备 were going to need some new hardware.
在七月2号，五团收到一些美国制造的新武器 On 22 July, the 5th Tanks received some new American-made armour.
M3斯图尔特，更广为人知的名字，蜂蜜 The M3 Stuart - or, more commonly, the Honey.
旧的汗水瞟了一眼新的美国进口装备—蜂蜜 The old sweats cast a hard eye over this new American import, the Honey.
在某些方面，它同英国过去的坦克很像 And in some ways it was quite similar to the British tanks
同样的重量 大约十二吨 they were used to. Same sort of weight, about 12 tonnes,
同样三十七毫米的枪 37mm gun also similar.
但是最核心的不同在于 But the really key difference
美国人用了现成的技术 was that the Americans used off-the-shelf technology
这使它更加可靠 and that made it much more reliable.
悬架 看看这个 The suspension - look at this -
来自美国在30年代制造的拖拉机 came from a tractor that had been built in America in the '30s.
发动机来自一个歼击机 它是径向活塞 And the engine was from a fighter plane. It was a radial piston.
现在，所有这些意味着 Now, what all of that meant was
它将会持续走的更远，而且问题更少 it would keep going for far longer and far less trouble.
气冷式发动机一个好的作用在于 And a nice side effect of the air-cooled engine,
你不需要水 在沙漠里很珍贵的水 you didn't need water - very precious in the desert -
他通过人员舱-空调-来吸气 and it sucked its air through the crew compartment - air conditioning.
对五团的人来说，蜂蜜将要受到 For the men of the 5th Tanks, the Honey was to be tested to the limit
他们目前为止最关键的战斗的考验 in one of the most visceral battles of their war so far.
十字军坦克 Operation Crusader.
一九四一年十一月十八日，在四个月的长期准备后 On 18 November 1941, after four long months of preparation,
五团穿过进入利比亚的边界 the 5th Tanks crossed the border into Libya.
作为第七装甲师的一部分 As part of the 7th Armoured Division,
他们在由七百五十辆坦克组成的部队里 they were in a 750-tank army,
是轴心国所有军队的2倍 twice that of the Axis Forces put together.
他们也有充足的空中支援 They also had generous air support.
他们的任务是雄心勃勃的— Their mission was ambitious -
夺回利比亚东部 to retake eastern Libya,
缓解托布鲁克,破坏非洲军团 relieve Tobruk, and destroy the Afrika Korps.
为了做到这一点,他们希望沿着边境包围轴心国军队 To do this, they hoped to envelop the Axis Forces along the frontier
用左侧装备精良的包围圈 with a great left armoured hook.
这将使他们接近托布鲁克驻军 This would bring them up close to the Tobruk garrison
他们将会分开迎击他们 which would then break out to meet them.
非洲军团将被困在 The Afrika Korps would be trapped
托布鲁克和埃及边境 between Tobruk and the Egyptian border.
丘吉尔表示重要的战斗即将来临。 Churchill signalled the importance of the battle to come.
他说：首次， He said, "For the first time,
德国人将会遇到英帝国军队的现代化武器。 "British and Empire troops will meet the Germans with modern weapons.
战斗将会影响整个战争。 "The battle will affect the whole course of the war.
沙漠的军队将会书写历史 "The desert army may be able to write a page in history
这将与布伦海姆和滑铁卢并列。 "that will rank with Blenheim and Waterloo.
所有人的心和你一起 "All of our hearts go with you."
在穿越边境的两天中 Within two days of crossing the border, the 5th Tanks had
第五坦克团已经绕过他们的敌人的前线和前进了惊人的150英里 bypassed their enemy's frontline and advanced an extraordinary 150 miles.
当我们得到了蜂蜜坦克 When we got the Honeys,
这是我们真正参与战斗的开始 that was when we really started to get involved in the fighting.
蜂蜜坦克的机动性极佳 The Honey was a very manoeuvrable tank,
它可以到达别人无法到达的地方 it could get in places where others could not get.
蜂蜜坦克的速度和可靠性 The Honey's speed and reliability helped the 5th rush ahead
使第五坦克提前到托布鲁克附近的 Rezegh Sidi机场 to the airfield of Sidi Rezegh near Tobruk.
英国突袭并占领了它 The British seized it with a surprise attack,
但很快 胜利让英军将领失望 but soon that success turned sour as British commanders
他们决定袭击的国人的策略 decided that the tactic of rushing the Germans,
就像轻骑队之战歌一样,可能会继续起作用 rather like the charge of the Light Brigade, might keep working.
巴拉克拉瓦命令突袭敌军 这也成为 Balaclava charges, rushing towards the enemy, were a tactic
英国坦克兵在沙漠里经常使用的策略 frequently used by British tank regiments in the desert.
对Jake Wardrop和他的伙伴那是绝对的疯狂 To Jake Wardrop and his mates, that was absolute madness.
首先 因为它没作用 其次 因为它牺牲太大 A - because it did not work, and B - because it cost lives.
决定故技重施 "It was decided to give them the good old charge again.
坦白的说,对于这个任务我没有足够的力量 "Quite frankly, I was not so strong for this charging business,
但我们仍要继续 "although we continued to do it.
我们出发了。我们冲向这些坦克 边走边开火 "Off we went. We went storming right into these tanks, firing as we went."
隆美尔不得不摆脱英国的包围或面临失败 Rommel had to break out of the British encirclement or face defeat.
Sidi Rezegh成为他所有工作的焦点 Sidi Rezegh became the focus of his efforts.
反坦克炮和坦克猛烈厮杀 Anti-tank guns and tanks slugged it out.
它就像一个启示录里的场景 It was like a scene from the Apocalypse.
我的坦克被击中 My tank was hit.
它立刻起火了 It immediately went up into flames.
一个伙伴爬出坦克，然后他... One of the crew scrambled out of the tank, and he was...
他留下的衣服还燃烧着 What little bit of clothing he had left was still flaming.
而且 And, er...
当我们找到他 接近他的时候 he, when we managed to get to him and tend to him,
他的皮肤都卷了起来 收缩着翻卷 his skin had all rolled off, curled up and rolled off.
我们想应该去看下着火的坦克 我们向下看 We thought we'd go and look in the burnt-out tank, and we looked down
那里有一个漂白骨架 就在坦克下的地面上 and there was a bleached skeleton, right across the floor of the tank.
头盖骨上只剩下一副银边眼镜 There was just these steel-rimmed glasses on the skull.
在那里 There.
Gerry Solomon得到一个有益的教训 Gerry Solomon had received a salutary lesson
in the limitations of the popgun, as he and the others
started calling the 37mm cannon mounted on their Honey tanks.
It fired one of these,
and in order to have a decent chance of knocking out a German
armoured vehicle, you had to get to within about 800 yards of it.
All the time you were trying to do that, you could be under
fire from an 88mm German gun with a range of two miles.
It fired one of these.
Desperate to avoid defeat, the Axis troops attacked again and again.
It became a grim slugging match, a battle of attrition in which
superior German guns and armour began to tell.
As regards firepower, the Honey was inadequate against the German armour,
which was three or four inches thick.
The shells would just bounce off.
By the evening of the 21st November, 5th Tanks had been
sucked into the desperate fighting on Sidi Rezegh airfield.
One of the commanders there, Brigadier Jock Campbell,
took matters into his own hands.
At the height of the battle, Brigadier Jock Campbell
appeared through a hail of shot and shell in an open-top staff car
and urged the 5th Tanks' Honeys to follow him forward.
It was an act of courage bordering on madness, for which he won the VC.
But an officer from the 5th Tanks tried to stop him,
and Brigadier Campbell drew his revolver,
telling the officer that the tank men had been sent there
to die anyway, and if he got in the way he would shoot him.
The price of this attack was heavy.
When Harry Finlayson's tank was knocked out that night,
he joined the list of those missing in action.
They just put a shell on my engine and blew it up.
That was it, we were right in the middle of the German lines,
we couldn't do anything else.
I stood on the top of the tank, put my hands out,
when they came round surrounding us, I got my crew out
and the German officer said, for you, the war is over.
After weeks of fighting, Rommel battered his way
out of the Allied trap, saving the Afrika Korps from destruction.
In early December, the British relieved Tobruk
and completed the reconquest of eastern Libya.
The 8th Army had succeeded in two out of three aims,
but Rommel's escape and the scale of the slaughter
meant its soldiers were hardly in a mood to celebrate.
Arthur Crickmay had lost his best friend.
The operation as a whole can only be described as a gigantic cock-up.
We won in the end, but at what cost?
Returning from the front, the men of 5 RTR lost themselves
in the bars and brothels of Alexandria and Cairo.
Having garrisoned the country for 60 years,
the British Army knew plenty about Egypt's brothels.
They gave the men condoms
and brought doctors to inspect the prostitutes for VD.
In the 1930s, a certain lieutenant colonel, Bernard Montgomery,
who we will meet again soon,
had insisted on medical inspections of this kind, because he said
his men absolutely required their horizontal refreshment.
Horizontal R&R and heavy drinking provided short-lived catharsis
for those in 5 RTR,
who'd come through the meat grinder of Operation Crusader.
For many in the 5th Tanks,
Sidi Rezegh marked their first real taste of the bitter reality of war.
For anyone still with the Battalion who thought the war was
a bit of a lark, illusions had been shattered.
They now wanted vengeance.
Vengeance for the 5th came in early 1942 in the form
of new tanks from Uncle Sam.
There's nothing quite like a bit of American overkill,
and this is a monster.
It weighs in at 26 tonnes, and look at the height of it.
But the most important feature was the arsenal of weapons.
It's got the same 37mm popgun up there
in the turret that the Honey had,
but the key thing is that it mounts this 75mm cannon here.
This, for the first time, allowed the British tank crews to knock
out not just Panzers, but anti-tank guns using high explosive shells.
It also has machine guns in the hull and on the turret.
One British commander described its arrival in the desert
as being like the shift from sail to steel.
Men were moving on, too - Arthur Crickmay was sent to Burma
and Gerry Solomon, the former grocer and one-time rookie,
was now a corporal commanding a tank.
Jake Wardrop, despite his longer service, was still just a driver.
The Allied front was settled on the Gazala line.
It stretched from Gazala on the coast to the old
Turkish fortress of Bir Hacheim, 40-odd miles to the south.
But this was a risky position.
The Gazala line didn't extend all the way to the impassable sands of the Sahara.
This open flank had been left
to allow the British to resume
their advance, unless the Germans went inland and used it first.
On the afternoon of 26 May, 1942, Rommel attacked the Gazala line.
His artillery pinned the Allied troops close to the sea, while his
armoured divisions were sent south of the Gazala line to attack their flank.
On the morning of 27 May, 5 RTR were told to pack up and get ready.
"The Bosch were not far away now, and we had to keep an eye on them.
"I got up, had a wash, shave, cleaned my teeth and slicked my hair up.
"In fact, it used to be quite a ritual with us to get queened up,
"as though we were going to the Plaza when we had a date with Erwin."
Throughout the small hours, reports had been flying around that
something very sizeable was going on to the south of the Gazala line.
At 7.30pm, the order came through to move to battle positions.
Five minutes later, the Honeys and the new Grants lurched forward.
In the confusion of a desert battle, your enemy could be two miles away,
and you have to scan the horizon with the utmost attention.
A kick of dust was a gun firing.
A second or two later, a sound like ripping paper announced
a high-velocity round flashing past you or overhead.
If the light burning in its tail was red, it was British fire.
If it was green or yellow, it was enemy.
Registering those fleeting sights
and sounds could make all the difference between life and death.
The hot, dry wind, which was so unpleasant that the Arabs
claimed it was enough to excuse murder, started to blow as well.
British commanders had been caught by surprise.
In the unfolding mayhem of confused close-range fights, the generals'
habit of keeping ordinary tank crews in the dark cost them dear.
It was very confusing, you could not get any definite information.
They didn't want you to have information, in case
you got captured and you gave it away.
They kept information from you.
They only told you what they wanted you to know.
On the 2nd June, the 5th Tanks suffered their worst day of the war.
Only eight Honeys and one Grant returned from battle.
Some 51 officers and men of tank crews were dead or missing.
The surviving officers decided to fortify their men by a method
used since antiquity, a rum ration.
Alcohol might have numbed them temporarily,
but the grim reality got clearer by the day.
The Gazala line had collapsed.
On 21 June, 1942, Tobruk's garrison of 30,000 surrendered.
After trying to take the city for two years, Rommel was triumphant.
The British Army was now in full retreat,
having been out-gunned, out-manoeuvred, and out-generalled.
Those in charge called it a strategic withdrawal,
but this was a disaster by any other name.
Just a few weeks before, the British had built up a huge
superiority in weapons, and were poised to mount their own
offensive, yet now they were in headlong retreat.
How had it happened? Many soldiers had a one-word explanation, Rommel.
It's true the conduct of his campaign had been brilliant.
In my view, the only one in the desert war where
he really deserved his stellar reputation.
But the real failure was that of British military leadership.
While Rommel basked in glory, Churchill was desperate.
He wrote, "Defeat is one thing, disgrace is another."
5 RTR had to be rebuilt - and quickly.
Dozens of new recruits arrived, like Bill Chorley
and fellow conscript Bob Lay, both in their early 20s.
Bill and I were in the same tank.
I was the operator and Bill was a gunner
and because of the loneliness
of the desert, your social life was
limited to your crew every day.
You knew everything,
everything there was to know about each other.
And you had a very, very good bond with them.
"Bob Lay has been with me since I joined up.
"We spent six weeks at base.
"Most of the time was taken up
"on wireless and driving courses.
"This was our introduction to the desert. It was a rough do, there."
By 30th June 1942, the British had fallen back to
the only defensible line between the frontier and the Nile Delta,
a railway halt just 60 miles from Alexandria,
El Alamein.
The geography of the North African coast offers very few places
where you can make a stand.
If you put in a blocking position on the coastal strip,
people can simply go round on the inland side and bypass it
and that's what Rommel did time and again.
This is one of the few places that's different, Alamein.
Inland, there's the
Qattara Depression, an impassable
area of sand dunes that Rommel
simply couldn't get through.
This is where the British chose to fight.
And Churchill decided that for this battle the Desert Army needed
a clean sweep at the top.
His senior generals had presided over woeful failure.
They hadn't delivered the victory he so craved
and that Britain so needed.
On 20th August, he made a personal appearance in the desert.
'We felt very proud and honoured when Churchill came
'and he was all praise for us.'
We knew very well the job wasn't done.
We had to go and make sure
the enemy was out of the desert.
Churchill was joined by
Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery.
The Times newspaper reported that,
"It may well be that historians will
"point to this date as decisive in determining the course of the war."
The one great thing that Montgomery did
was to ensure that
everybody knew what the opposition was,
what the objectives were,
so we had a concept of what was expected of us.
He was the type of man who would say, "You want me to beat the
"Germans in the desert,
"you must give me enough tanks and men to do it.
"And they are not going to do it until you do."
That was his attitude.
And so it was.
We couldn't believe the amount of stuff that was coming up there.
Monty also had a real flair for publicity.
He took to wearing a black RTR beret with the regimental tank badge
next to his general's one,
as a sort of sign of respect for men like Gerry Solomon and Bob Lay.
As to what they made of him, that was a more complex issue.
Many relished the change in atmosphere that his arrival brought,
but equally, they couldn't forget that he might send them
to their deaths and he didn't really understand tank warfare.
But what Montgomery did understand was that Rommel could be
relied upon to try the tactics
he'd used so effectively before.
And Monty had a plan.
He would secure his inland flank south of Alamein at a ridge
called Alam Halfa.
During the early hours of 31st August,
the Germans were sighted moving north.
British intelligence had pinpointed the time
and place of this thrust with precision.
Alam Halfa arose
because Rommel liked to make surprise attacks in force
and at speed.
We had Enigma then
and we prepared for it.
Rommel assumed that he had a clear desert ahead
and that he could repeat his Gazala success,
hardly imagining that it was now his turn to waltz into an ambush.
Waiting for him were, among others, 5 RTR.
And we waited
and he appeared.
We let him come on and when he was
in range, we let him have it.
It was at Alam Halfa that the
desert war reached its real turning point.
The British brigade had been deployed along this ridge,
slap bang in the path of a German Panzer division,
advancing from the south.
In a couple of hours, its integrated defence of artillery,
anti-tank guns and the Grants of 5th Tanks,
took apart the Panzer division.
Rommel had tried his old trick,
out-flanking from the inland side, and failed.
He'd been beaten at his own game.
One endeavoured to get as close to the enemy as possible,
so that your gun was in range
and could knock him out.
The Battle Of Alam Halfa lasted just over a week.
Alam Halfa was a significant battle
for the 5th RTR, because we'd
adopted new tactics
and we'd given the Panzer division a good hiding.
With his supply situation precarious
and superior Allied firepower,
Rommel fell back to regroup.
While the Afrika Korps licked its wounds,
British forces rehearsed every detail for the battle ahead.
5th Tanks, exhausted after two years of fighting,
were asked whether they were still up for it.
"A parade was called
"and we were given the choice of going to Cairo
"and missing the push,
"or staying on the blue and taking part in it.
"At the end of his speech, we were asked to step forward
"if we wanted to stay...
"..and the whole battalion took a pace forward."
Having rededicated themselves to the fight,
the 5th Tanks came back out to the Alamein position.
Montgomery had received vital strategic intelligence from
intercepted German communications - Ultra.
He also had hundreds of new tanks,
ample supplies
and substantial RAF support.
It was time for the 8th Army to take the offensive.
At 1900 hours, on 23 October 1942,
220,000 men and over 1,000 Allied tanks lined up along the front.
The long-awaited British assault to smash Axis forces
and then drive them out of Africa altogether was about to start.
To achieve this, the enemy needed
a bit of softening up.
EXPLOSIONS
The sky was illuminated by continuous flashes of light.
The whole horizon was covered.
Not good for your ears. Hearing aids.
The barrage lasted for six hours.
It could be heard all the way to Alexandria, over 60 miles away.
Once guns had been fired, German morale pummelled
and minefields breached,
it was time for Monty to let the armour loose.
British tanks, including the 5th Tank Regiment,
cut through the enemy lines.
The biggest tank battle of the Desert Campaign had begun.
We knew that this was going to be a God Almighty fight.
I think after about a week we did start to get through.
And I could see this monumental task that lay ahead of us.
Losses were heavy.
200 British tanks in the first 48 hours,
as many as the Germans had started the battle with.
But the 8th Army pressed on regardless.
They had overall superiority and they knew it.
GUNS FIRE
It became quite apparent, very quickly,
that they were making a run for it.
There were tanks burning all over the place.
And we were collecting prisoners, particularly the Italians, of course,
cos they were left behind.
"There were thousands
"and thousands of prisoners.
"If we happened to stop beside any,
"we nipped out, pinched their watches,
"binoculars, or anything else
"they had and carried on."
By the end of October,
the situation was critical for Rommel.
Having lost a vast quantity of his armour,
his position was hopeless.
On 4th November, the Afrika Korps
began a full retreat.
BELLS RING
In Britain, as the news came through,
Churchill ordered the church bells to be rung.
It was the first time that this had been allowed since Dunkirk.
On November 13th, Tobruk was retaken.
In mid January 1943, Tripoli fell.
Four months later, the Axis forces
had been overwhelmed in North Africa
and more than a quarter of a million prisoners taken.
Churchill sensed a turning point in the war.
CHURCHILL: 'Ah, this is not the end.
'This is not even the beginning of the end.
'But it is, perhaps,
'the end of the beginning.'
Churchill added, "When any man is asked what he did in the war,
it will be sufficient for him to say, 'I fought in the Desert Army.' "
Well, many in 5th Tanks took that as a hint that, in future,
others would be called upon.
No such luck.
As the 5th shared the Desert Army's triumph, they were
greeted by the news that they were now to be engaged in the fight
for Italy, piercing what Churchill called,
"Europe's soft underbelly."
GUN FIRES
After the desert,
the close-range fighting in southern Italy
came as a strain for everyone.
We thought we'd had enough.
Let somebody else have a go.
But, you see, they wanted seasoned troops
and there weren't many seasoned troops.
On 7th January 1944,
the 5th returned home at last.
They'd been away for three years and 69 days.
Most couldn't wait to get home,
but leave, like much else, was being rationed.
Men who'd been fighting overseas
for more than three years were
then given barely two weeks' leave.
That felt like an insult, because they knew that soldiers who'd
been sitting back in Britain throughout that period
got two weeks' leave every three months.
The 5th's new home was a secret military camp in Norfolk,
known as Shakers Wood.
Damp, grotty, and bitterly cold,
many of the 5th's veterans felt
they'd been dumped by an ungrateful government in the middle of nowhere.
But they'd been recalled for a reason.
Experienced, trusted and battle-hardened, they were part of
the famous Desert Rats, too valuable to sit out the rest of the war.
The fighting far from over,
who better than the 5th to spearhead a second front?
That's the way it was.
If you've ever witnessed a green regiment...
..going in for the first time,
you would understand how completely unprepared they are.
The experience of going into battle
is absolutely necessary to become competent.
And so, our heroes would fight again,
in some of the biggest battles of the Second World War.
Next episode, the 5th face D-Day...
..the battle for Normandy and the eventual defeat of the Nazis.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd