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Someone must be trying to confuse me as according to my memory the numbering of this particular Sherman (174)was that of the Trois Rivierres regiment of the 1st Canadian Armoured bde which landed with the 1st cdn Div on the beaches of Sicily and supported them to Ortona when the recently landed 5th Cdn Armoured div took over for a short spell until Monty fired them - the 25th and 21st British Army Tank bdes then took over for the Hitler/Gustav and Gothic Lines until all the Cdns went on to Belgium in the Jan./feb of '45.
I distinctly recall that number as when the Cdn 1st Bde were at the Florence end of the Gothic line we were involved in a decoy move towards Florence before doing a 180 back to Fabriano then on to Jesi to start the advance over the Metauro with the Seaforths of Canada - the night before that - would be 24th Aug '44 - we had to change all our numbers to that of the Cdn 1st Armoured regiments and we in the 145th RAC were given the 174 with their colours (Peterg's web has the numbering system) - we could only shake our heads at the time but it seemed to work as it took Kesselring three days to figure out that two Canadian Divisions were tearing his 71st Division apart - then he woke up and sent in his 1st paras and 26th Panzers with 29th PG's - it was fun !
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