4PARA 4×4 Rally

A 4PARA team will be taking part in the H4H 4×4 European rally in June to raise funds for The Parachute Regiment Charity. Support them by donating online.

‘Team Parachute Regiment’ will be Car number 1 out of 50. The team, still to be announced, will include at least one injured soldier. The vehicle has been kindly loaned by LandRover.

You can follow their route and track their progress on the online tracker

A team from Bedworth PRA will again be taking part as they did last year. They will be in Vehicle 40, also kindly loaned by LandRover

George Duffus & Robert Thacker took part last year and assisted in raising some £10,000 for the Para Charity and £3,000 for 4PARA Battalion. This year  a younger crew Mr Ian Thacker (Son of Robert EX 3 Para & 4 Para) & Alan Panter will represent the Branch and the PRA and raise funds for the Para Charity.

You can also donate here

The award winning HELP for HEROES 4×4 EUROPEAN RALLY has raised over £300,000 since its launch on Armed Forces Day 2010. The route follows the path of the Allied Invasion through Europe through locations in the fabled Band of Brothers book and TV series.

As young men who knew extraordinary bravery and  fear, the Allied Forces landed in France early on D-Day morning – 6th June 1944. The liberation of Europe had commenced. That history will unfold as our journey progresses; some parts of the route will also include areas of the ‘Western Front’ of WWI.

The event will start at 11:30am on Saturday 16th June 2012 at Littlecote House Hotel in North Wiltshire. After using byways on Salisbury Plain we will then travel to Portsmouth to embark on the ferry over to France. This 2000mile / 3200km expedition will encompass 6 European countries over a period of 12 days; concluding in Bavaria, Germany.

This non-speed touring assembly, with a maximum entry of 45 teams, will be part military history tour (including museums etc), fun activities, part off-road driving and part club-type social, open to road-legal 4×4 vehicles. The whole focus is the raising of funds for charity.

In addition to Normandy, the H4H 4×4 Rally route will visit The Somme, Ypres, the ‘Market Garden’ and ‘Rhine’ offensives at Arnhem; where on 17 September 1944, in the largest airborne operation ever seen, thousands of paratroopers descended from the sky by parachute or glider up to 150 km behind enemy lines.

Our route moves south, to Bastogne in Belgium where in the coldest winter for decades, the Germans made a final push – ‘The Battle of the Bulge’.

Towards Germany, the rally routing is via the Alsace region of France and its Maginot Line fortifications, then onto Dachau and its horrors of war. We end our journey at Hitler’s “impenetrable” Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgaden