The War Office was skeptical. "Swimming tanks?" a general scoffed. "Next you'll want flying horses."
Straussler lit his pipe with a shaking hand. He gave the signal.
The rain over the River Thames was a persistent, needle-fine drizzle. In a rented hangar near the Hamble River, a Hungarian-born engineer named Nicholas Straussler watched a canvas screen sag under the weight of collected water. His overalls were stained with grease and river mud. It was 1941, and Britain was losing the war. dd tank origin
The problem was beaches. Any invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe would require landing tanks directly onto shore. But landing craft couldn't get close enough without being blown out of the water. Tanks launched too far out simply sank like stones.
But Captain John J. "Jock" McNeil of the 79th Armoured Division saw the potential. He was one of the few men who understood that breaking the Atlantic Wall would require bizarre, unnatural machines. He gave Straussler an ultimatum: one working prototype in thirty days. The War Office was skeptical
They came not as boats, but as ghosts. And behind them, the infantry followed, walking on ground that had, for one terrible morning, become solid again.
It worked.
His assistant, a young Royal Engineer named Corporal Bill Jenkins, fished him out. "It's a coffin, sir," Jenkins said, shivering.