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Tank Commander: From the Fall of France to the Defeat of Germany: The Memoirs of Bill Close by [Bill Close, Christopher Dunphie]

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Bill Close

Tank Commander: From the Fall of France to the Defeat of Germany: The Memoirs of Bill Close Kindle Edition

by Bill Close (Author), Christopher Dunphie (Foreword) Format: Kindle Edition

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A remarkable World War II survival story and combat memoir by “an indestructible wartime tank commander” (The Telegraph).

In campaign after campaign, from the defense of Calais in 1940 to the defeat of Germany in 1945, Bill Close served as a tank commander in Britain’s Royal Tank Regiment—and he survived.

His tanks were hit eleven times by enemy shellfire and he bailed out. He was wounded three times. He finished the war as one of the most experienced and resourceful of British tank commanders, and in later life, he set down his wartime experiences in graphic detail. His book is not only an extraordinary memoir; it is also a compelling account of the exploits of the Royal Tank Regiment throughout the conflict. As a record of the day-to-day experience of the tank crew of seventy-five years ago—of the conditions they faced and the battles they fought—it has rarely been equaled.

Print length

203 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Pen & Sword Military
Publication date

19 Aug. 2013
File size

1207 KB
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About the Author

Major Bill Close joined the Royal Tank Regiment as a trooper in 1933 and was posted to the 3rd Battalion RTR in 1934 where he held every non-commissioned rank up to regimental quartermaster sergeant before being commissioned in the field in 1942. He served in France in 1940, in Greece in 1941, in North Africa in 1941-3, and in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany in 1944-5. After retiring from the army he was assistant bursar at Bryanston School and a manager at the electrical engineering firm Racal Redac. He married twice, had three sons and a daughter, and he died, aged 91, in 2006. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00GS8A3UA
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pen & Sword Military (19 Aug. 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1207 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 203 pages

Best Sellers Rank: 67,689 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 8 in World War II Alamein
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An astonishing true story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 August 2019

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There are many books on the strategic and tactics used in the decisive land battles of World War II, as well as accounts by relatively senior officers of their experiences. This account is unusual in that it is by an ordinary soldier (albeit one who was - very deservedly - promoted from the ranks to become a commissioned officer). And it is well written: there are no flowery phrases or attempts to impress the reader. Rather, the language is plain and unvarnished, which results in a more compelling and convincing narrative of the many battles Bill Close went through, surviving numerous close calls. He really puts you in the thick of the action, depicting the noise and confusion found on the battlefield.

Hard to put down and competely enthralling, I highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in tank warfare or just wants an idea of what it's like to go into battle. Thanks to Bill Close and his comrades (many of whom, of course, did not survive), those of us reading this book will never have to find out in person.

8 people found this helpful

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Ian Oakshott

Good read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 September 2018

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Thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author writes with the reserve with regards to his own exploits and bravery so typical of his generation. Having served from the fall of France to the fall of Germany, in almost all the major armoured battles the British Army fought in. Having won the Military cross with bar he was denied a regular commission in the post war Armoured corps. He was without doubt one of the most experienced and no doubt skilled tank commanders in the Army. If nothing this book highlights the nepotism and old boys net in the Army at that time. All the pre war officers who managed to get safe staff jobs at the outbreak of the war flooded back to their former units so as not to miss out on commands of Thier own. RTR's loss! A highly recommend read.

12 people found this helpful

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Authenticity

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 July 2020

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One of the real problems with reading memoirs is the problem of autheticity because there are plenty of books purporting to be personal histories which are anything but. This is inevitable due to the increased interest in WW2 but does mean you have to really be sure you are reading something. Some books are obviously fake and some are true but not entirely. I put the book 'Tank Action' into that category which, was very well recieved but when I read it I was unconvinced that the book in it's entirety was fully authentic. Certainly the writer Stuart Tootal had over-egged the pudding in places and used the usual cliches about Sherman tanks.

The reason this book is real is because it does not read like a boys own adventure. Bill Close has written a book that shows the mundane reality of most of the war with periods of fast moving fighting and of course the randomness of death. He also does not go down the path of the usual 'Tiger vs Sherman' top trumps because it didn't happen very often.

Bill Close has written a book that is genuine and is all the better for it. Yes, there could be more detail but he wrote this well after that time and did not put in information for the sake of excitement. He wrote of what he remembered which, makes this all the better for it.

Overall one of if not the best of the books written about tank fighting from the British perspective.

4 people found this helpful

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Good

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 September 2019

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The writing is basic, and it's very much a simply told story. There's not much on strategy or how the war was won, if that's what you're looking for. But it's a gripping piece of work, all the same. The writer started in the ranks - he was in the BEF in 1940 as a sergeant - and got a battlefield commission, ending up as a squadron commander. So you get a very wide-ranging depiction of the experience of British armour in WW2, complete with passing comments on so many subjects, from shell-shock to the liberation of Belsen.

Fascinating history.

2 people found this helpful

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Edoardo Albert

Fighting through

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 December 2019

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These are the astonishingly laconic memoirs of Bill Close, who fought in the 3rd Tank Regiment from the fall of France in 1940 to the end of the Nazi regime in 1945, with stints in Greece, Crete, North Africa, Normandy, France and through Germany. I lost count of the number of times Close had his tank shot out from under him, with men in his crew either injured or killed, yet every time he got back into another tank and continued fighting. In our therapeutic times, he would have been invalided out of the army for stress but Close just kept on going, only stopping when he was physically incapacitated through injury. But once he recovered, he got back in his tank. There's also an appreciation of another astonishing tank commander, Bob Crisp, Test cricketer and, according to his <em>Wisden </em>obituary, the most extraordinary man to ever play Test cricket. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/mar/05/the-spin-bob-crisp-amazing-life">Read Crisp's obituary and you will agree</a>, but Bill Close was not far behind.</p>

2 people found this helpful

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Michael Oliver

The story of a remarkable career in a single tank regiment in WW2 but short on insights.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 July 2020

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Bill Close had an extraordinary career in 3RTR starting as a prewar NCO and rising to the rank of major in command of a squadron. He must have been both lucky and a skilled tank commander to have survived five years of tank action. The book describes these events in in a matter of fact style with modest amounts of detail, so that despite his involvement in many of the major actions and campaigns the book is on the short side. Perhaps the most interesting parts were his accounts of the intensity of major actions at Sidi Rizegh in the desert and Operation Goodwood in Normandy.
My disappointment comes from the singular lack of insights into leadership, tactics, personalities in a tank crew or in the wider regiment, morale or even his own feelings when his tank is hit killing two of the crew. For these I strongly recommend the accounts by Bill Bellamy, Stuart Hills, David Render and Stanley Christopherson.

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