Is this a tank?

My grandfather served with 147th Essex Yeomanry RA in NWE. His rank was Gunner but his service records also mention him being a signaller. He said he had a tank and he’d painted his wife’s (my grandmother) name ‘Alice’ on the side. Apparently at some point one of his tanks was incapacitated and replaced.

I was recently watching a documentary which showed an abandoned vehicle by the roadside with ‘Alice’ painted on the side. But is the vehicle a tank? I have no idea and it was only on the screen for a matter of seconds.
The prog was: Yesterday’s Channel, Battles of Europe, Battle of Caen.
My grandfather did not arrive in NWE until around 10th Aug so couldn’t have taken part in Caen, but I noticed that the prog did use a lot of stock footage.

I realise it’s unlikely to be my grandfathers but can anyone advise whether it’s actually a tank? Apologies that the photo lacks much detail.

 

It looks like the top of a Cromwell (or even a Centaur) tank turret Susan. That slit is non-standard I think and appears to have been welded over the vehicle census number which would have begun with a T for a tank. Not welded, actually a storage bin lid - see #7.

 

According to wikipedia, the Essex Yeomanry were equipped with Sexton self-propelled guns. Those were Canadian-made open-topped vehicles based on a tank chassis and tracks, but no turret and little armour, which were equipped with a 25-pounder gun for long-range artillery fire. That was the standard gun used by British and Canadian artillery units, but put on a vehicle to make it faster to move around.

It's not surprising that your grandfather referred to it as a "tank" because the English language doesn't have any simple word for such a vehicle. Technically no, they weren't tanks.

wikipedia has a nice picture of a Sexton at the Dutch Calvary Museum:

Sexton (artillery) - Wikipedia

 

Thank you Richelieu and Chris C for taking the time to reply and for the info. I’m a novice with all this and on a steep learning curve at the moment.
Regards.

 

Possibly a Cromwell OP.
. Some of these with the gun removed were used as artillery observation vehicles by Sexton batteries

 

Thank you Robert-w, that’s interesting.

 

This particular tank is attributed to 4 County of London Yeomanry - the Sharpshooters - and was one they left just outside Villers-Bocage. They were operating with 5 Royal Horse Artillery at that time, though the Essex Yeomanry were not far away with 50 Div at the time.

The census number has been obscured by the lid of one of the stowage bins that the Germans have been rummaging through. If the memory's holding up, this was one of the tanks that was torched in an orchard after they'd been cut off, rather than a battle casualty.

Our member mkenny has been through a lot of the IWM film material with a fine tooth comb so he may have an idea what - if any - footage exists for the Essex Yeomanry. He will also correct any errors in the above, for which I apologise in advance.

The good news is that signallers were used in the observation post (OP) tanks to relay the fire orders from the battery or troop commanders who acted as the observers. Being part of the OP team was quite dangerous as they were usually forward with the leading tanks or infantry, so he would have had an 'interesting' war. Have you any idea of any officers' names he worked with?

 

idler - thank you.
So not my grandfathers tank (as I rather suspected - just a bit of wishful thinking). Essex Yeomanry may have been around Villers Bocage at that time but I don’t think my GF was, he only arrived NWE around 10 Aug ‘44.
I’m afraid I don’t have any officers names or his battery. My GF rarely spoke about the war - he said he had a tank named Alice / he was with his brother in law when he came under sniper attack / he went to a concentration camp / he mentioned 8th armoured brigade. Thats all I know. I have his service records and his Soldiers Release Book. He didn’t even collect his medals. I’m piecing it together bit by bit.
Thanks for the info about signallers, I didn’t know any of that and it gives me some insight into what he was up to.

 

he Essex Yeomanry seem to have been equipped with Sherman tanks as well as Ram SP (sextons) There is a page on this website with a listign of every vehicle and person employed in a Field Regiment equipped with 25 Pounder SP Guns Field Battery - Self Propelled

Here are the war diary entries from 9 August to mid September
T

 

I’m going to have to get those war diaries.
Thanks to everyone for sharing your time and knowledge.

 

Years ago I spoke with General Tony Richardson, then a young officer in 147th Field Regiment. He said that he came ashore on D-Day in a tank, presumably an OP or command version.

 

Just a thought re the name in case it eventually means something!

The name of the Tank in the photo in post #1 is Alice II, this means there was an ALICE (which would have either been knocked out or replaced for some other reason), followed by ALICE II. That being knocked out etc then leads to ALICE III and so on. This convention was fairly standard practice, indeed I knew a chap (since passed away) who 'chugged around Normandy' as he put it in a tank named DEATH IV.

 

Yes SDP, I did wonder about that. Also, maybe the name Alice was very common then so quite a few soldiers used it for their tanks.
I found (online) an ‘Alice’ tank in the Wright Museum, Wolfeboro, USA - although the Alice looks stencilled rather than hand painted. I’m new at this so initially after seeing that I thought ‘Alice’ might be a model of tank - like Sherman, Challenger etc.

As you can see, I’m on a very steep learning curve.

 

I wonder if he might have been an OP tank driver. The big thing about being on the OPs is that it was jolly dangerous.

Your grandfather joined the Essex Yeomanry after 10 August - at the end of the Normandy campaign. 147 (Essex Yeomanry) fought from the beginning, firing from landing craft and landing on Gold beach on D Day. Most of the people in his unit had just fought a hard campaign and seen a lot of casualties among OP parties. The tradition in most regiments was to man the OPs with volunteers. Officers could be ordered to become an FOO, their crews had to volunteer. By the end of the campaign the volunteer spirit might have worn thin. Your grandfather was a newbie. Maybe he was enough of a mug enough to volunteer?

Naming a tank is the prerogative of the commander or driver, the men who signed for the equipment. Yup it is on a signature and if you lose anything you pay for it - if it isn't written off. (If he drove a tank when did he learn? It is different from driving a car)

 

There were perhaps instances when crewmen 'named' their own stations, as distinct from the tank's name. At least one of the halftracks left at Villers-Bocage had multiple WAG's names on it.

 

Yes, he was late in joining them and I did wonder how he would have fitted in. Very interesting. Maybe he made up the bit about naming the tank ‘Alice’ to please my grandmother.
Prior to NWE he was with 62nd S/L Regt for 4 years.
He was then posted to Ballykinler NI, with 150th LAA for a year.
Although his rank was a Gnr, his ‘reference’ said he had ‘done good work for the Regt as a signaller’. Also, his service records say he was an ‘artificer class iii’. There is no mention of tank driver training on his records.

 

Hello and welcome to the forum. I've been enjoying this thread. I had to look up what artificer means but it would seem that it might fit with the Sexton Self Propelled Guns mentioned earlier. They are very tank-like.

Armed-forces artificer, a service member skilled in working on artillery devices in the field

 

An RA glossary I have has some more detail (paraphrasing): responsible for guns and instruments (sights, clinometers, etc), "first line" repair problems (as opposed to in rear areas such as a divisional workshop). Candidates received instruction in trades ranging from metalwork to (wood) joinery to electrical work. Eventually the trade was split into different trades - fitters, vehicle mechanics, etc.

Signallers on the other hand were trained in telephony and radios (wireless) and older communication systems. The RA in WW2 were still using telephones and the signallers were responsible for laying cables, which often got cut by enemy artillery fire. I think they would also have operated the radios?

 

Oh, one other thing - "Gunner" was a basic rank, like "Private". I am not sure if an RA signaller who hadn't been promoted would be a "Gunner" or if they had a different specialized name for signallers? If they didn't, then there would be no conflict between him being both "Gunner" and signaller.

 

I was puzzled about these. So we have a man with two very different trades.

Someone sent me the other week some artillery service records for as man who was a vehicle mechanic his service records had lots of dates for course for different sorts of technical training. Have all the service record pages been uploaded?

Artificer is normally for someone with expertise in maintaining electro-mechanical equipment. There was quite a lot of that in a searchlight and Light AA Unit. He was an artificer class 3 which I would interpret at first glance as a basic standard. The sort of chap who could maintain a generator and the electrics for a searchlight, not someone trained to dismantle and repair a radar or a gun sight. (Though he might have been. Maybe someone has the training standards.). This did not automatically make him an expert on bore wear, or the recoil system and sights of a 25 pounder gun howtizer.

You can see where the artificer travels in a battery in the extracts from Organisation and Deployment of a field battery #3 here Field Battery - Self Propelled

The artificer is supposed to travel in a half track that is labelled "TLA" for A troop (maybe labelled Alice for A troop?) ) It is a tin can on tracks with a pair of wheels at the front. maybe it became a "Tank" for family consumption but that does not fit with a reference as a good signaller.

Signalers also transmit and received morse code. The radios of the time had a much greater range using morse code over CW than voice communications. Even without a detailed knowledge of field artillery procedure, a good morse operator would be an asset.

OP Signalers could be found travelling in one of six tanks in the regiment labelled RA...RF