Thetford Desert?

So, there I was motoring through Thetford Forest, on my way to getting my camera sensor cleaned at a place recommended by "Barker" (cheers mate) and I spot an old WW2 tank, perched atop a brick plinth. I decide to stop and have a look on my way back. Well, it transpires that it is a monument to the Desert Rats. But why - here in Thetford Forest, Suffolk? Because, during a short time prior to D-Day they were based in the Forest, the only time in their history that they were based on "home soil". You learn something ever day.

On the memorial is a quote from Winston Churchill which I like;

May your glory ever shine, may your laurels never fade, may the memory of this glorious pilgrimage of war you have made from Alamein, via the Baltic, to Berlin never die, it is a march unsurpassed through all the story of war.

May the fathers long tell their children about this tale.