THE D -DAY
TV favourite Guy Martin loves a challenge, especially if it means moving at high speed.
A straight-talking motorbike racer, he has won legions of fans with his engineering projects in which he often puts his own safety on the line.
Guy has set world records for the fastest gravity- powered snow sled, soapbox racer and wall of death motorcycle speed.
A truck fitter by profession, he first showed his need for speed d in the Isle of Man TT races. But there e is something special – and deeply personal onal – about his latest challenge.
Guy aims to jump from m a Dakota plane at 12,000ft on to a Normandy beach, inspired by his grandad ndad John Martin’s wartime heroics. s.
Buster
His feat is also to honour our all those servicemen in the Allies’ es’ invasion of France before its 75th anniversary. nniversary.
Guy, 37, said: “He landed nded on Sword Beach. He was 20 and it was two days after D-day. Because of f this I’ve always had a fascination n with the Second World War.” ”
The D-day paratroopers opers had to destroy a German n gun battery to stop British tish soldiers arriving by sea being eing massacred.
He said: “Last time I went to Normandy was with him and my dad and d my uncle for the 50th D-day -Day anniversary.”
Guy, named after fter
Dambusters raid hero o Guy
Gibson, was filmed ed by
Channel 4 completing ng three months of training ng with the Parachute Regiment Training raining Company at RAF Catterick, North orth Yorks.
The gruelling schedule dule made Guy appreciate there was far more to the whole operation in June une 1944.
He said: “The paratroopers atroopers arrived six hours before any boat arrived to lay the foundations for or the battle – yet we don’t hear that much uch about them.”
Guy completed five ve practice jumps
and said of t the training: “It’s hard – it turns boy boys into men.”
He also did a tough assault course called a Trainasiu Trainasium.
Guy explained: “It teaches you how to follow orders. If so someone says ‘get across this plank 40ft in the air’ you have to do it and not hesitate hesitate.
“Many obstacle obstacles are high in the air so if you fall off you you’re f***ed. It’s like an oddball warehouse warehous but ten times the size.”
Guy, who has twice broken his back motorbike raci racing, is no stranger to competition but n nothing like the course’s boxing matches, known as milling.
He said: “You stand toe to toe with another trainee and batter each other in the face to show controlled aggression, so you can just turn it on.
“They put me in with a Para boxing champion and I got battered. I gave him a bloody nose but he put me down a few times.” On D- Day, bad weather and navigation errors meant many paras were dropped in the wrong places. And Guy’s project did not go to plan.
A year ago he joined a team refurbishing Night Fright, a Dakota that took part in D-day drop.
But two months ago, the team decided it would not be ready in time for his jump. So they decided to use another Dakota, called Drag Em Oot.
He said: “Night Fright will be done. But the quality they are doing it t make it the best Dakota in the wo we didn’t want to rush it.” Drag E has seats at the front and a floor back to the door where troops ju
By doing the jump, Guy said: connected to the history. It gave m of respect for the current paratr and what those boys went throug war. It wasn’t easy at all.
“They laid the foundations to m beach landings a success.”
Despite his successful and nu thrill-seeking Speed series and tra shows, tea-loving Guy still regard a lorry mechanic as his job.
He is based near his home