WWII mission to capture a deadly Tiger Tank

“Major!” barked Winston Churchill to the brilliant young military engineer. “I want you to go and catch me a Tiger.

“I want you to bring me a Tiger tank. Park the bloody thing outside my front door. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly sir,” replied Major Douglas ­Lidderdale.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/the-heroic-wwii-mission-to-capture-a-deadly-820143

I've seen this book and I understand it's heavily dramatised, and not an accurate historical account. I flicked through it and it just read like 'Boy's Own', comic book stuff.

In real life, the book's central character was indeed the officer responsible for recovering and bringing back to England Tiger 131 after it was damaged and captured. But he wasn't involved in its capture.

The dialogue with Churchill quoted in the article and mentioned above, for example, is really highly improbable. And that's putting it mildly.

The account of the British who 'captured' the tank later using the Tiger's gun from the ship transporting it home, to scare off an attacking U-Boat, is also pretty preposterous.

This book seems to be fun fantasy, to put it politely; it's rather sad that that newspaper is treating it as an accurate account.

woofiedog wrote:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/the-heroic-wwii-mission-to-capture-a-deadly-820143

This story is interesting scenario for the movie, though I think it's possible to implement into SF mission also.

33lima... This book seems to be fun fantasy, to put it politely; it's rather sad that that newspaper is treating it as an accurate account.

As stated in Wikipedia... rejected by the Bovington Tank Museum as inaccurate. The story as told in the book contradicts Lidderdale's own letters and papers written in the years before his death, in which he stated that he was not personally present when the Tiger was captured.

Yes the newspaper story has a more fictional tale quality to it. Back a few years ago in the mid 80's I read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's book "August 1914" and the "Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev".

I followed them up with, which I thought at the time would be and interesting different look at WWII, with the book "The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union". Now that was quite the tale, and in present day I would fully recommended it for a Starship Trooper's movie script. I can picture now, Stalin leading the front lines, single handed against those dastardly Arachnoid's with a sword in hand.  

lockie... Yes, it would make for a interesting Churchill vs Tiger match up in the desert sands.  

http://northirishhorse.net/articles/25-b-2.html



http://liberationtrilogy.com/books/army-at-dawn/maps-from-an-army-at-dawn/images-of-maps-from-an-army-at-dawn/