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The tanks that were painted a Sandy colour were for use in the desert and all the tanks we had were painted Green. During the Ardennes campaign, when there was a lot of snow everywhere, our tanks could be seen very clearly against thr white background. It was very difficult to move in the snow, because the tank tracks were all steel and they couldn't get a grip in the snow, not like the American Sherman Tanks which had rubber inserts on the tracks, although they weren't too good on the amount of snow which was on these roads. One day we had to move all our tanks from the valley where we were to the top of the hill about a mile away. We started at about 8 o'clock and we didn't finish until about 5 o'clock the next morning, because we had to keep digging the tanks out of the ditches which were on either side of the road. Luckily we weren't in much danger from the enemy because they were bogged down the same as us. We had our meals (K-rations) while we were moving the tanks, but what we wanted was sleep. When we got to the place we were going to stay, we were told we could get some sleep and so we fixed the tank sheets (which we used to cover the ranks with), at the side of the tank and they made a good tent, it wasn't long before all 5 crew were fast sleep. About one hour later, we were awakened by a commotion outside. It was a team of American engineers with electric welding equipment and they were going to weld steel bars onto the tracks. Of course, we had to keep moving the tanks so that the tracks, all the way round, could be welded and so we had to dismantle our tent. Then we had to paint the tanks White (I think it was to give us something to do to stop us getting bored). The trouble was, the welding was being done at the side where the painting was being done and quite a few of us had our eyes damaged by what is called 'Flash' by looking at the welding rods while it was being done. We hadn't been warned about it and we had an itching in our eyes which made us so that we couldn't see. It only lasted about a day, but as I said earlier, the enemy couldn't move and so we were safe from attack! The next day the snow started to melt and the day after we had to paint the tanks green again. You can imagine what we said about that! Still, we had the consolation of knowing that we had two coats of paint extra to stop any shells penetrating the armour, ha ha.

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