on 8 March 1941. In May 1942 the brigade transferred to 42nd Armoured Division, and then in October 1943 to 79th Armoured Division under Major-General Percy Hobart. This division was equipping with specialist armour ('Hobart's Funnies') for the planned Allied invasion of Normandy (Operation Overlord), and 30th Armoured became the Flail tank brigade of the division. The Germans planted over four million mines along the French coast to hinder the Allied landings in 1944. To break through these defences at the start of the Normandy Invasion, the British produced a number of novel armoured fighting vehicles under Hobart's ingenious direction, including the Sherman Crab. The Crab bore a rotating drum with dozens of chains attached; these detonated mines in its path to produce a beaten passage through the thickest of minefields. On 1 January 1944, then under the command of Lt-Col W.Y.K. Blair-Oliphant, the regiment moved to Thorpeness in Suffolk to begin flail training, though no flail tanks had yet arrived. In the meantime it received a draft of men who had experience with the Scorpion flail, and some tanks equipped with anti-mine rollers. By February the regiment had a mixed roster of tanks for training: 19 Sherman V, 17 Centaur 1, 4 Cromwell, 6 Valentine II Scorpions, but only 3 of the Sherman Crabs that they would take into action. The slow, unsafe Scorpions were too unlike the Crab to be much use for training. The regiment practised driving on and off a concrete mock-up of a tank landing craft (LCT), the entrance of which was only wider than the rotor of the Crab. It also practised indirect gunfire techniques controlled by a Forward Observation Officer (FOO). In March the regiment received its orders to mobilise, and training intensified. The last major exercise ('Fabius') was held in early May, but there were still too few Crabs: the regiment collected more Sherman V 'Quick Fix' gun tanks that could be fitted as 'pilot' roller tanks, but in the event these were used as command tanks. Later in the month the regiment concentrated in camp at Stanswood in Hampshire, ready to embark for Normandy with 56 Crabs, 26 Shermans, 3 Armoured recovery vehicles (ARVs) and 13 Scout cars; it still had 6 Scorpions on charge, but these were left behind, as were the 'Rollers'. D Day For the assault landings the Westminster Dragoons were under the command of 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry