In his diary for Sept 1944 , my father, a fitter in 3rd King's Own Hussars wrote: '[SIZE=medium]1,2 September 1944[/SIZE] It is now evident what our special training here consists of- Valentine X's with Prop. under a special RAC training team are housed in 2 of the old seaplane sheds. We've been doing D and M on them for 2 days and expect a trip out in the lake tomorrow. Plenty of swimming- including a reveille dip- and boating. Squadron footer match this afternoon and we lost 3-1 3 September 1944 On an elecs class till noon after which went out on the lake in a tank- a new experience and quite a good performance. On a night exercise from 8-11 pm the tanks were on the water for 2 hours one of them breaking a support when about a mile out and sinking, 2 of the crew (FC and PAR) being drowned.' This was on the edge of Lake Bracciano. Please be patient with my ignorance, but did tanks go on water? Can anyone show me a picture please?
http://www.britishempire.co.uk/images4/buffslakecomacchio.jpg And then there were Fantail amphibious tanks: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/03/a2310003.shtml Ron
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-14465431 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine_tank#mediaviewer/File:IWM-H-35169-valentine-dd-gosport-19440114.jpg http://www.iwm.org.uk/embed/?id=1060020321&media_id=238531
I doubt that the tank mentioned was really a Mark X. All the standard reference works I've seen report that only the Mk V, Mk IX, and Mk XI Valentines underwent DD (duplex drive) conversions. The Mk XI was very similar to the Mk X except for the main gun (75mm in Mk XI, 6 pdr in Mk X).