"John Sheppard, who has died aged 99, was the first British soldier of the Second World War to knock out a German tank. As the Platoon Sergeant Major commanding his battalion’s mortar platoon, John Sheppard landed at Andalsnes in Norway with 1/5 Leicesters (TA) in the spring of 1940. After moving some 50 miles inland by rail to secure a road and rail junction at Dombas to prevent the Germans from reinforcing Trondheim, the British forces made contact with the Norwegians, coming under the latter’s authority. The British thereby lost operational control and were split into detachments to cover a wide front. This pre-empted all possibility of a co-ordinated movement, so when the battalion had to consolidate to defend Faaberg, they had no transport and had to discard equipment they could not carry. Under German attack Faaberg had to be abandoned and it was at Tretten, some 10 miles north of Faaberg, that the Leicesters made their stand. It was St George’s Day and, as one present later recalled: “All hell was let loose.” The battalion was outflanked, sniped at and mortared, then attacked by armour from the front, including three tanks. Creeping into the open and lying in the snow, Sheppard fired his 0.55 in anti-tank rifle, destroying two German light panzers. Having been ordered to protect an exposed flank and remain in position until 21:00 hours, they were attacked at 18:30 hours but fought on for a further hour and a half. By this time their ammunition had been expended and the surrounding buildings and woods had also caught fire. According to the citation for his DCM, Sheppard had “set an example of courage and devotion to duty and his action helped the remainder of the battalion beyond measure”. Sheppard himself was captured, however, and spent the rest of the conflict as a PoW in Germany, Poland and Bavaria. His citation for the DCM makes no mention of his knocking out German tanks. When, in 1999, he wrote to The Daily Telegraph about doing so, he ended his letter with “until now, it had never occurred to me that I may have put the first dents into Hitler’s panzers”. Leslie Gaius John Sheppard was born on August 6 1915 in Hertfordshire and educated at Leighton Buzzard. He later worked in Market Harborough before lying about his age in order to join the 5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment (TA) Following his release, he joined the now Royal Leicestershire Regiment as a regular." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11552551/John-Sheppard-obituary.html
