No study of the use of armour during the campaign in
When tanks are operating in close country where the
enemy has every opportunity of lurking amongst the dense foliage, they must
have the immediate protection of infantry; the need for this had been
appreciated very early by 7th Armoured Brigade. However, it is better if the
infantry are specialists, and the Bombay Grenadier battalions had been chosen
to train for this very exacting and dangerous work. One has only to read the
words of the historian of 150 Regiment RAC which have been echoed, and in some
cases quoted, by every armoured regiment which had the good-fortune to work
with the Grenadiers, to see how well they performed their role.
"They
relieved (the Regiment) of all its worries as to the safety of its tanks, acted
as its eyes in spotting targets, came with it where other infantry hesitated to
follow, and accepted casualties in safeguarding their charges which perhaps a
less loyal and literal interpretation of their duties might have avoided."
'Despite the
almost complete inability of the men of 150th Regiment and these brave Jats to understand a word of each ether's language, they
established between them that odd lingo by means of which British and Indian
troops have conversed for so long. With this lingo was also created an
unbreakable confidence in each other's abilities and friendship which eased the
hardest tasks’.
At the personal level, Colonel Critchley
of 19th Lancers, who exercised command from well forward, has told the author
that on numerous occasions he owed his life to a Grenadier whose presence he
did not even suspect.
Taken from:
Tank Tracks to
by Bryan Perrett (p. 88)