Corporal Clutterbuck
Henry (Corporal) Clutterbuck was born in the suburb of Bushbury some time in the 1900s but little is known of his early years. As an adult, he worked as a tool setter at several engineering concerns in and around Wolverhampton rising from the shop floor to managerial positions at each of them. After demob, he worked at Guy Motors, Wolverhampton were he remained until his retirement. When the War broke out Henry was one of the first to join up and after completing his training, true to form, was transferred to – what was then termed as “Specialist Duties”. The Specialist Duties in this case was a chauffer to the commanding officers.
We must now move on several years to the time when the Americans joined the war and Sir Winston Churchill became Commander in Chief. A top secret meeting had been arranged between General Eisenhower and Sir Winston to determine a strategy for the Allied forces for the duration of hostilities. So secret and so important was this meeting that it was decided to hold it several miles into the Sahara desert. There are no prizes for guessing who was chosen to drive the British leader to the rendezvous. Corporal Clutterbuck of course. This is his account of the meeting as told to the Maintenance Department of Guy Motors:

“I collected the gaffer [Churchill] on the morning and we drove for hours into the desert. He didn’t say much but spent most of the time writing in a large notepad marked ‘War Office’. Eventually I saw in the distance another vehicle and knew that was General Eisenhower. In around another fifty minutes we reached them and as the two leasers held their meeting in a tent erected for them, I chatted with his driver, Scott Bright, from Montana. 

“Do you know what the meeting’s about?” I asked.