Tommy, from Éire, was HQF Troop's stand-up comic. His and our favourite, hilarious story was about his bicycle which had a BESA, co-axially mounted on the handlebars, belt-fed from the saddle. Unfortunately, the irrepressible Tommy committed some misdemenour, for which he was court martialled on 25th April, earning him a sentence of 84 days detention. More of him later.

Earlier in the month, the NIH was visited by its Honorary Colonel, The Earl of Shaftesbury. The Regiment marched in review with each Squadron, at the appropriate moment, getting the command, "Eyes Right."

On 10th May, tanks of 'B' and 'C' Squadrons were loaded on flat-cars of the Great Western Railway for transportation to Tavistock, Devon. Once there, the Squadrons moved to the south side of Dartmoor for a period of field training, 'B' Squadron working with the 9th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment. The order of the day was that the field exercises were to be conducted with utmost realism. One tank commander, who shall be nameless, took this order much too literally. On being told that the 'enemy' was located behind a row of houses at the foot of the slope leading up to the moor, the residents were treated to the astonishing sight of a Churchill tank ploughing its merry way through their front gardens. Apparently all was forgiven when the War Department agreed to restore the gardens to their pristine condition.

During a break in the exercises tank crews were issued with miner's type helmets with built-in head sets. In the absence of Sgt Burns, Bangor was commanded by a 2/Lt whose name, also, shall not be revealed. Espying a dead tree, over the intercom, came the order for L/Cpl Dion (Dick) Hayward, our driver, to knock it down. This would have worked out fine but for a branch falling down landing atop our temporary commander's head. He was stunned for a while fortunately the helmet saved him from serious injury. The helmets were not a success consequently, they never became standard issue.

While training much time was spent climbing up steeper and steeper slopes, almost to the point where our tanks would almost topple over backwards. Many of us crewing Churchills wondered why, particularly while the British Army was a doing battle over the virtually flat terrain of the Western Desert. Some eight months later we found out why!

At the conclusion of the exercises, on 24th May, we proceeded to Perranporth, Devon, for further training with the infantry units. We were comfortably billeted in the Promenade Hotel from which, as the name suggests, could be seen surf from the Atlantic Ocean rolling onshore.

On 31st May, the exercises came to a premature end following an unfortunate accident. The infantry were given lattices to line the walls of slit trenches to strengthen them sufficiently to not collapse should an enemy AFV drive over them. Whether it was due to the great weight of the Churchills or, more likely, to the soft sand in which they were dug, one slit trench collapsed killing its occupants. The powers-that-be decided not to let it be known which tank it was that caused the accident. Thus three enjoyable weeks in the field ended on a sad note.