Maj. Preston John Hurman MID,
British Army 536 General Transport Coy. (DUKW) Royal Army Service Corps
from:London
Preston Hurman enlisted the in Royal Army Service Corps and did his training in Woolwich and Dulwich. In May 1940 he was at the Officer Producing Centre, RASC at St Lawrence College, Ramsgate. He was commissioned on the 18th May 1940 into the Royal Army Service Corps (emergency commission). Until Septemeber 1940 he was with the Workshop unit RASC at Faringdon, Oxfordshire, and Eaton Hall, Cheshire. He then volunteered for the Middle East and in Sept 1940 took passage on the Duchess of York to Port Said via Cape Town and was posted to Abbassia 10 miles from Cairo for 6 week acclimatisation. From Nov 1940 to Nov 1941 he was with 345th Lines of Communications Company RASC in Egypt and North Africa, they moved to Tobruk and were put under siege by Rommel's forces, losing 2.5 stone in weight during the coming months, he was evacuated in late 1941 by HMS Hero and disembarked at Tel Al Kebir. From Nov 1941 to June 1942 he was with 7th Armoured Division. From June 1942 to Oct 1942 he joined the Sudan Defence Force and served with Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) & Special Air Service (SAS)) he was Mentioned in Dispatches for his participation with the LRDG and SAS in a raid on Jalo, North Africa in September 1942. Between Oct 1942 and Dec 1942 he contracted malaria and was sent to Sinai to recover.
From Dec 1942 to Nov 1943 he was Brigade RASC Officer (BRASCO), 231st (Malta) Infantry Brigade involved in the preparation of the invasion of Sicily Operation Husky and landed on Amber Beach, southern tip of Sicily, on the 9th Jul 1943 he took part in the landing in Pizzo Italy. From Nov 1943 to Apr 1944 he was Brigade RASC Officer (BRASCO), 5th Army Group Royal Artillery in Scotland. Apr 1944 to May 1945 he was Officer Commanding, 536 DUKW Company RASC in preparations for Operation Overlord. They were attached to 50th Infantry Division tasked with landing on the Eastern edge of Gold Beach (King Beach) to take the villages of La Riviare and Le Hamel. 6th June 1944 They landed in Normandy at 0730 Hrs, Preston was injured by the blast of an anti-tank mine on D+1, and was evacuated to a Canadian Field Hospital then back to the Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot. On 18th Aug 1944 he rejoined his unit. In Sep 1944 he saw action in Operation Market Garden (Arnhem) and in Mar 1945 during Operation Turnscrew (Rhine crossing). He was Town Major of Seelze, Germany and then returned to the Nijmegen area, the Netherlands. In May 1945 he was posted back to UK and demobilised. (From the Full War Memory transcript held by The Imperial War Museum)
