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This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Susan and Terence Sedgwick of the Lancshomeguard on behalf of Brian Joseph Scott and has been added to the website with his permission. Mr Scott fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

In 1940 when the war really started I was 13 years old. I joined the ATC at a garage on Bucannan St Blackpool. One meeting night we left the garage at 10pm and at 11pm it was bombed. The bombs were on Seed St and Blackpool North Railway Station.
By 1942 all my friends, who were older than me, had joined the forces, so I joined the army cadets and in 1943 I altered my birth certificate and said I was 17 and a quarter and joined the Grenadier Guards.
I was 12 months in the training for infantry and tank crew, as a gunner/wireless operator on Sherman tanks. In March/April 1944 I joined the Squadron at Brighton as a spare crewman. We completed waterproofing the tanks and the first doodlebugs came over.
My father’s regiment (4th Loyal Regiment) had been converted to light anti-aircraft and were covering the invasion fleet in the Falmouth area. On the same night that we moved from Brighton to Gosport his regiment moved from Falmouth to Brighton and so our paths crossed in the night without us seeing each other!
We were due to land in Normandy as one of the three armoured divisions, who would hopefully break out once the bridgehead had been achieved but the advance wasn’t making the progress anticipated due to the bad weather and the nature of the Bocage countryside. So we did not land until 29th June and our first action was Operation Goodwood on 17th-19th July. I went up on 1st August and I joined the tank called
“ Leader” which was the lead tank of the Liaison Troop of the 5th Guards Armoured Division and was commanded by Capt Ferguson Cunninghame (known to all as “The Boy Wonder”).
As we were going along the road, down a hill at the side of a wood we came across a reconnaissance armoured car of the Sherwood Rangers. “The Boy Wonder” got out of the tank and spoke to the Rangers officer and came back and told us that they had been fired upon so they had stopped and done what they were supposed to do and reported that there were Germans there. So “The Boy Wonder” said that we would fix them so we pulled onto the road, beside the wood to the top of a small hill and he said, “ Can you see them Hullins (the gunner)?”Hullins replied “No sir”. I said, “Yes I can see them sir”. Now, I’d already loaded the HE (high explosive) so he said, “Right, change over.” So I got into the gunner’s seat and Hullins took my place in the wireless operator’s seat. I looked through the periscope and the Germans were hurriedly throwing their machine guns and weapons into their truck, so he said “Fire when ready”. So I fired 3 or 4 rounds of the HE and a belt of machine gun ammo (250 rounds). After the 1st shell exploded there was nothing left. They were wiped out, we thought. We couldn’t check as we were called away. Then we rejoined the squadron. We liberated Brussels on 3rd September 1944.

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