218418 Trpr. Albert Edward Bowden Royal Armoured Corps B Squadron 1st Lothian and Border Regiment from:Bristol As a 7 year old, I inadvertently changed the whole direction of my father's army service during WWII. Born in 1905, Bert Bowden was called up at the age of 35 and trained with Lothian and Border Regiment as a tank driver in Shermans, up until D Day. He was home on embarkation leave in May 1944 and I went down with chicken pox. Upon his return to his unit and immediately prior to D-Day he developed Shingles and was sent to an isolation hospital, missing all the excitement of the invasion day. He never caught up with the Lothians again and was bitterly disappointed to lose touch with all his mates from those 4 years.
He was posted to the 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry and went to France with them in the August. Wounded on 29th August that year when a sniper threw a hand grenade into his Sherman tank in North West Europe. He was hospitalised with burns at a Field Hospital in Ghent. The rest of his war, he rejoined Fife and Forfars and progressed to Germany via Niemeghen in the winter of 1944. He was happily discharged from Hoy in Germany and had a long and happy life until he was 80 in 1986.
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