Dennis Sear only fired his Sten gun once. And that was to kill a pig.

Dennis was an army cook attached to the 210 Field Company Royal Engineers 30 Corps, and he drove his Guy cook wagon, which he named Maud after his new wife, all the way from Normandy to Hamburg.

“The pig weighed about 50 – 60 pounds,” he said. “So, with 60 men in the troop, that provided a good meal for everyone.

Dennis had no qualifications for being a cook. He was just told that was what he had to do. “In North Africa, Monty came into my tent, picked up a dirty old cup, and said: ‘Got any char?’ I said: ‘Don’t use that old cup Sir, let me get you a clean one.’ But he insisted on using the dirty one. I suppose it was his way of showing he was one of the men.”

The engineers Dennis cooked for followed the Guards during operation Market Garden, building bridges and filling shell holes during the tortuous advance along “Hell’s Highway”. At Rees, they built the bridge across the Rhine, which became known as Lambeth Bridge.

“We lost 21 men building that bridge,” he said. “I have visited their graves on many occasions.”

“At Ravenstein, they brought out 2000 troops who had been in hiding since the Battle of Arnhem. Our chaps brought them across in canvas boats. It was a terrible night, and everyone was drenched. My part in all this was to make sure every man had a hot cup of tea.”

Dennis went on to witness the horrors of the Belsen concentration camp. His engineers supervised the reburying of the dead, in a more respectful manner, than had been carried out by the German guards.