Reginald ‘Titch’ Snowling with his medal last year
At 4ft 11in tall, Reginald “Titch” Snowling was almost certainly the smallest soldier to land with British forces in Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and was also unique in knocking out two German Panther tanks with a single shot.
Afterwards Snowling said: “The tanks just blew up. When our Rifle Brigade went up in their half-tracks to have a look, there was nobody left alive. The officer in charge came back and asked, ‘Who fired that shot?’ And when told it was me said, ‘Make sure he gets a Military Medal.’ But I never got one.”
The engagement occurred near Argentan as the British and American armies closed the Falaise pocket to trap the bulk of the German 5th Panzer Army and 7th Army within it in mid-August 1944. Snowling was the gunner in a Sherman Firefly tank, a standard Sherman mounting a 17-pounder gun firing high explosive or armour-piercing ammunition. His regiment, the 23rd Hussars, deployed one of these with each troop of three standard Shermans, providing the lighter-armed tanks with heavier and longer range fire power when required.
The Sherman Firefly was immediately required when Snowling witnessed the three Shermans of his troop being hit in quick succession. Suddenly his tank commander indicated two German Panthers side by side 1,000 yards away. Snowling aimed through his telescopic sight and hit the nearer Panther in the side, the tank’s most vulnerable point where the armour was thinnest, and to his amazement saw both enemy tanks burst into flames. His shell had passed clean through the first Panther and also destroyed the second one. No further shot was required.
The destruction of the two tanks was something of a fluke, but no less remarkable for that. It was not long before war correspondents heard of it and came forward to the 23rd Hussars seeking to interview “Titch”, as the gunner was affectionately known.
Later his tank, marked “Saint” on the side for easy recognition by fellow crews and supporting motorised infantry, was hit by an enemy shell. Snowling was injured, but not seriously, and after a short period of recuperation in England he was sent back to France. He rejoined his regiment, which shortly afterwards converted from Shermans to British-designed Comet tanks, which mounted a superior gun and had an engine that was more powerful than the standard American Shermans.
Bizarrely, the “two with a single shot” episode was repeated when the 23rd Hussars advanced into the Netherlands in early 1945. “We had stopped on a crossing over a canal and our tank was told to go up a track,” Snowling recalled. “We spotted around six to eight Jerries running out of a house and realised they were going to two submarines moored side by side in a canal.”
Snowling in uniform during the warEAST ANGLIA NEWS SERVICE
He fired a round at the conning tower of the nearer one and, exactly as had happened with the Panthers, the round went straight through and hit the second one, disabling both craft.
Reginald Snowling was born in Ipswich, one of the five sons of Sidney Snowling and his wife, Elsie, and was educated locally. He worked as a shop assistant until volunteering for the army in 1940. After training in Catterick, North Yorkshire, he was assigned to the 24th Lancers, which like the 23rd Hussars had been raised in 1940 to increase the army’s strength in armoured units.
He went to Normandy with the 24th Lancers in June 1944, landing at Gold Beach and was heavily engaged with the 8th Armoured Brigade from the outset. The regiment suffered serious casualties in the early battles in Normandy and was disbanded in August 1944. The survivors, including Snowling, were transferred with their Sherman tanks to the 23rd Hussars in the same brigade. During the subsequent advance towards Belgium, Snowling was relieved to see French citizens celebrating their liberation despite the damage to their towns and cities.
“They would be standing on their doorsteps and throwing things at us like bottles of wine as they were so grateful,” Snowling said. “Some of our tank commanders who had their heads poking out of their turrets were left bleeding after being hit by flying bottles.”
He had married Agnes Cox, who was from Middlesbrough, in 1942. The couple had three children: Alan, now deceased, who was a garage owner; David, who was a publicity officer for the First Group transport company, but has retired; and Kathleen, who is married to a British Telecom area manager.
On demobilisation, Snowling returned to his old job as a shop assistant in a clothing store in Ipswich. He later worked as a bakery delivery van driver before becoming assistant manager of a cash and carry.
In 2016 he was awarded the Légion d’honneur for his part in the liberation of France. Reginald “Titch” Snowling, tank gunner, was born on March 28, 1921. He died on June 30, 2018, aged 97
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