We came around a corner and there was a member of the Volksstrum [a civilian militia army set up by the Nazi party in the final months of the war] armed with a Panzerfaust. In response to an attack from a Tiger, Wardaddy yells: “It will end soon. Link to video: Fury: watch Brad Pitt in the trailer for the World War II tank thriller. To be honest we were more worried about it sinking than we were about the German gunfire coming from the other side of the river. With its canvas skirt it looked like a ladies stocking when it was deflated. Set over 24 hours in April 1945, Fury follows the fortunes of a Sherman tank commander called Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Brad Pitt) and his crew as they find themselves behind enemy lines, outgunned and outnumbered, in a desperate last pitched battle to the death. I saw people being blown up and burnt alive. We struck up a conversation about the war and over time became firm friends. The M4A3E8 Sherman is a variant of the M4 Sherman. They quickly took my radio and my sten gun and I saw my tank head up the beach without me. In reality they would have been battle-hardened and fanatical troops who would have easily taken out an immobile Sherman tank using Panzerfausts (an anti-tank bazooka). He had quite good English and showed me pictures of his wife and two sons, who had both died in the war. But they were better disciplined than those in Fury. The prisoner pleads for his life and shows both of them a photo of his wife and children. Within six weeks of being repatriated to Britain, Bill was back on the front line, fighting his way into Germany in a Sherman tank. Much of the movie tracks the evolving relationship between Wardaddy and Norman “Cobb” Ellison (Logan Lerman), a fresh recruit shocked by the reality of war.Bill was also the youngest in his tank and had a very close relationship with his crew. That will stay with me forever. Bill revisiting the beach where he was shot on D Day. For Bill, the scene in which this Tiger tank takes on three US counterparts was the most realistic part of the film. The Sherman weighed 33 tonnes and had a 75mm gun, compared to the Tiger’s 54 tonnes and a 88mm gun. Though Oxfordshire doubles for Germany in terms of location, Ayer was able to use a real German Tiger 131 tank, the only working model in the world, captured from the Germans on the secret orders of Winston Churchill (and currently housed at Bovington). This was the only part Bill felt lacked credibility. Bill played dead, his colleague slumped on top of him. I remember a very near miss where an eight cm shell from a Tiger tank went within inches of our turret and we decided not to stay around too long after that. The soldier next to him was killed. The start of the Hayfield Battle in Fury. In March 1945 he was one of the first people across the Rhine in a floating “Duplex Drive” Sherman. His leg bears the scar to this day. It was only because we could call up air strikes and had many more tanks than the Germans that we eventually won. • Fury is on release now• The Tiger and the Sherman feature in a new exhibition at the Bovington tank museum. It was heart-breaking because I trained for D-Day for so long. Looking back, the fact that I was injured so early on probably saved my life. Ours was called Beverley and her name was written on the turret. Fury accurately portrays how superior the German tanks were. Aged 21, he was one of the first ashore on D-Day, tasked with firing at a German gun emplacement defending the village of Le Hamel, before rejoining his tank. One scene from Fury shows Wardaddy attempting to toughen up Norman by forcing him to shoot a German prisoner in the back, against his will. A Sherman tank only does five miles to the gallon so I think they would have run out long before the final showdown. The Germans seemed to be used as canon fodder. It still amazes me that it floated at all. A Sherman provided you with protection against most enemy fire but against a Tiger it could easily become your coffin. A Tiger also had 3.9 inch thick armour, so shells from a Sherman literally bounced off it. I lay there on the beach in a pool of my own blood for 10 hours. We trained our browning machine gun on him and were just about to shoot him when he laid down his weapon and surrendered. A Tiger also had 3.9 inch thick armour, so shells from a Sherman … The Sherman weighed 33 tonnes and had a 75mm gun, compared to the Tiger’s 54 tonnes and a 88mm gun. Director David Ayer has spoken of the lengths gone to for maximum verisimilitude, with computer graphics eschewed save for the laser beams used to show tracer fire. As the film makes clear, a Sherman tank was a lightweight in comparison to a Tiger. In open combat we never had a chance. Bill was called up in 1942 and joined the Essex Yeomanry where he trained as a radio operator, later being assigned to Sherman tanks. Though the film can’t go far enough. Going to see Fury you don’t get that dreadful, nauseating smell of burnt flesh. Nonetheless, they were significantly weaker than Heavy tanks such as the Tiger I, accurately portrayed in the movie. The corpses certainly mount up in Fury, particularly in the final scene. I thought the film showed accurately how tough life could be in a tank, but the final scene where the crew hold out against a battalion of Waffen SS troops was too far fetched. So, like in Fury, we always had to be one step ahead. I later learnt that he’d been shot. All the crew were from Essex except me. But before it does, a lot more people gotta die.” Again, says Bill - quite right. We fought along side the Americans in their Sherman tanks and I found them to be very brave. Within 45 minutes, he’d been shot by a German sniper hiding in the adjacent field. Bill Betts, now 91, was a radio operator on Sherman tanks during the second world war. We didn’t write the name of our tank on the barrel like they did in Fury or plaster the inside with photographs but we were just as proud of our tank. I looked at him and he must have been at least 55 and his hands were shaking uncontrollably. Fury shows just how vulnerable you were fighting in a Sherman tank. He talks about the memories reignited by Fury, which stars Brad Pitt as a Sherman tank commander leading his team through Germany in 1945This article contains mild spoilers, Last modified on Wed 18 Jan 2017 12.43 EST. Recently widowed, he sat in the corner on his own, nursing his pint. It took us a while to get along but then I trusted them implicitly with my life. (Like the Tiger, Bovington tank museum - which supplied tanks for Fury, and hosted the press junket - is also home to the only surviving one.). The M4 Sherman, officially the Medium Tank, M4, was the primary battle used by the United States and the other Allies in World War II, and proved to be a reliable and highly mobile workhorse. I was in the Essex Yeomanry, a territorial regiment. I first met Bill about five years ago in his local pub following a Remembrance Day service in Wellesbourne, Warwickshire. So many people died liberating that tiny stretch of beach. Not being able to leave him there he climbed on the back of our tank and we gave him a lift into the town. I liked him because he reminded me of my own father. This brought back memories for Bill of the end of his own war, spent in the German port of Kiel. They also seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of ammunition and fuel. There is a lot of blood and gore in the film but nothing can really come close to the true horrors of tank warfare.

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