Me, My Father and I

In June 1940, my father joined the 9th Battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment; he was 17. Trooper 7952180 hit the Normandy beaches on June 9th 1944 - my mission: to live his war again. The plan was simple. On my return from a road trip to France, I would write a book about his exploits, not for grand publication but for anyone in my family who cared. To retrace his journey through North West Europe, I put myself into his Tankie boots and hoped to combine historical facts with photographs, war diaries and stories from his war years. Trapped inside his body, I find myself driving a tank in Normandy and then across the battlefields of NW Europe from Sword Beach to Hamburg. And there is another problem. I must survive like he did to return to my safe, modern-day life, and I can only do this by reliving his war again. Dates and places are accurate, and some names have been changed, but my imagination was needed to fill in the gaps.