Author(s): Noel Botham

Military/War

With exclusive access to private diaries and dozens of photographs, this is the incredible story of one of the most dangerous and thrilling secret missions of World War II

Unleashed by Hitler in 1942, the German Tiger tank was by far the most powerful tank ever built at the time--the 60-ton monster could destroy any Allied tank from more than a mile away. Desperate to discover the secret technology used in its manufacture, Winston Churchill chose a brilliant young army engineer, Major Doug Lidderdale, as his special agent. In a late-night briefing in the subterranean war rooms under Whitehall he ordered him "Go catch me a tiger." By February 1943, Doug was facing Rommel's desert army. After several hair-raising efforts to bag a Tiger on the battlefields of Tunisia, Doug and his team put their lives on the line in a terrifying shoot-out with the five-man crew of a Tiger, capturing the tank intact. The morale boost to the Allies was such that both Churchill and King George VI flew to Tunis to examine the Tiger firsthand. But the Germans were not finished with Doug--constant attacks by the Luftwaffe and U-boats pursued him and his men on the journey back to England. But by October 1943, the Tiger was gifted to Churchill, who had it placed on London's Horse Guards Parade. Lidderdale went on to use some of the Tiger technology to develop war machines for the D-day landings and was promoted to Colonel. Tiger 131 is now kept at Bovington Tank Museum and is the only working Tiger in the world. The full extent of Doug's adventures only came to light after his son, Dave Travis, revealed the existence of his father's diaries.