THE Second World War Sherman tank had stood outside the National Liberation Museum in Holland for more than 30 years, a powerful symbol of the battle to drive the Nazis out of the country.

It was put there by the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry (SRY), which played a key role with the 4th Armoured Brigade in the Allied advance from Normandy in June, 1944, to final victory in Germany nearly a year later.

Time of liberation: A Sherwood Rangers tank on parade in the liberated German town of Einbeck.
Dedication: Above, The restoration team with the refurbished Sherman tank. Left, Arthur Hinitt, now 90, from Retford, And right, The memorial plaque presented by the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry to commemorate their wartime links with the people of Groesbeke, in Holland.

During the hard winter of 1944, men from the Sherwood Rangers were billeted for many weeks with local families, establishing a relationship that exists to this day.

Sadly, owing to the passage of time, the effects of the weather, and the unwanted attention of vandals, the tank began to rot from the inside out, much to the dismay of people living in and around the town of Groesbeek, where the museum is located.

After inspecting the decaying tank in 2009, a Sherwood Rangers officer working in Holland urged the regiment to take action.

Next month and nearly a year later, the National Liberation Museum will unveil the fully-restored Sherman, appropriately named Robin Hood, watched by a contingent from the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry.

The VIPs will be led by Brigadier Michael Browne and the Rangers' honorary Colonel, Col Murray Colville, supported by Col Newton Asbury, CO of the Royal Yeomanry, regimental trustees chairman Col Jonathan Hunt plus several majors and captains.

But they will all stand aside for 90-year-old ex-trooper Arthur Hinitt, who was there when the Rangers were fighting for their lives in 1944.

The Retford-born soldier set out with the Rangers for France in 1939, on horseback, and then fought his way from Tobruk and El Alamein to Normandy and Arnhem, driving iconic tanks like the Grant, Sherman and his favourite, the Stuart.

Holland, and the Dutch people, hold a special place in Arthur's memory.

"The bridge at Arnhem was still in Jerry's hands and they had flooded all the surrounding fields... it was not great tank country," says Arthur, who remembers being billeted with a Dutch family over the harsh winter of 1944-45.

The Dutch had been starving due to the Nazis' cruel regime of taking all the summer crops and leaving them with nothing, knowing that our boys would give them our rations, such as they were.

The Dutch were so grateful for what the Allies did that even today children from the area place flowers on the large Commonwealth military cemetery at Groesbeek on their Liberation Day each September.

Groesbeek is only four miles from Nimijgen and two miles from the German border, so Arthur will be going not only to Holland for the first time since the war, but also to Germany to view the scene of the Sherwood Rangers' Rhine crossing and the Commonwealth war cemetery at Kleve.

"I don't know how I will feel about that," said the old soldier.

The renovation of Robin Hood has been carried out, free of charge, by TEI Ltd, a Wakefield engineering company, through employee Bob Gregory, a well known Second World War military vehicle collector and restorer, who lives in Southwell.

The tank will be officially rededicated at the National Liberation Museum in Groesbeek on Friday, September 17.