None Had Lances p52 - mentions that their first Shermans were M4A1 - petrol - Sherman Vs. Then p53 - "more Shermans arrived" - as well as the "M4A1s there were M4A2s" diesels - which the British knew as the Sherman III. P55 - They converted some Sherman 75mms to Command tanks - taking out the gun and replacing it with a wooden barrel and extra W/T sets. And p60-61 got the Mayfly / Firelies after that.
That's the thing with Shermans, with the PzKpfws each variant/up grade (for want of a better word) came out one after the other, whereas the Sherman variants/models are all over the place! I read somewhere that it had something to do with the fact that so many factories were churning them out, and each one made them to their own specifications...don't know if that's true, but it would make sense. I also remember reading that the factories/companies had enough clout to delay the M26 Pershing entering service, not wanting to lose their M4 orders.....
As there isn't much going on at the mo, here's a 24 Lancers-inspired t-shirt design, kept me busy for a week or three...no doubt there are loads of mistakes, spelling most likely, although I think the place names are ok.., Sherman bits 'n' pieces, but I tell myself it's symbolic, more that technical!
Apart from the reference to Operation Perch, all looks fine to me Note: Villers Bocage was in the 8th Armoured Brigade plan but, as we know, things didn't turn out that way. Operation Perch was the failed attempt by 7th Armoured Division to capture Villers Bocage.
24th Lancer related insignia, personal collections etc... And a 24th L badge on the back? ;-) Though care taken to avoid the numerous online "fake" 24th L designs etc. There's also a lot of "24th Lancer" comments brought up on google to the Polish 24th Lancers / 24th Uhlans - 24th Uhlan Regiment (Poland) - Wikipedia - also in Normandy and nearby, so if someone has "never heard" of the British 24th L - there is a lot of potential confusion / pitfalls. Even: 24th Regiment of Foot - associations get made - re. badges etc. South Wales Borderers - Wikipedia Battle of Rorke's Drift - Wikipedia
I really need to start looking into 24 Lancers more, so far I've concentrated more on 3RTR, thanks for the info!
I like the idea of the badge...mind you, it's taken me three weeks almost just to do the tracks...don't know if I can face it yet! My comet design came out ok, did it through Spreadshirt, only problem, I have to start slimming, t-shirt a bit tight..
I've got a 24th Lancers badge graphic - based on the version on the front cover of None Had Lances - if you're interested. Like my avatar but a lot better quality
Well, I took the bull by the horns (sort of) and, traa-laa...version 2 with badge.. thanks for the badge image offer, I'd already made it! Mind you, I used a photo of an enamel badge as a guide, sans colour in the crown....oh well......
Apart from white, you need a French Grey version (24th Lancers colour and ostensibly the background colour used on the dust jacket of None Had Lances.
Brain-picking time again... while I was looking through the Montgomery book to see whether those numbers referred to its pages (which they don't), I noticed one of my grandfather's annotations, referring to 29 July '44 and the splitting up of 24 Lancers, and that his Troop was transfered to 3RTR..(which I believe someone did say that keeping Troops together was the standard practice), so I went through the transfer list making a note of all those sent to 3RTR. I came across a candidate for Charlie (yep, him again), 3499542 L/Cpl Barton C. A. . Does the name ring any bells? Also, I noticed that he was L/Cpl and my grandfather was W/Cpl, please forgive my complete ignorance, but what's the difference? Is L/Cpl Lance Corporal? W/Cpl Wireless Corporal??!! Hopefully not 'Walloper' Corporal' ( I thought I'd get that in before Andy did). EDIT: just came across this : War Substantive Corporal, so now my question is, what is a War Substantive Corporal? I got the info from this page: Banstead War Memorial WW2 Casualties , which has some interesting info on 24 lancers who were sent to 3RTR, including Troops. I was checking up on 7928067 A/Sgt Remane C C and it says: The Roll book also records the names of the other three members of his crew as Lance Corporal Oliver, Trooper Butler and Trooper Bernstein. All of whom appear in the transfer list. The page also goes into the events surrounding their deaths on 29th August.
http://ww2talk.com/index.php?search/6091741/&q=War+substantive&o=relevance War substantive = for the duration of the war & war substantive rank - Google Search With... Military rank - Wikipedia For instance...having... "After a war, regular serving members of the military holding war substantive or temporary rank often revert to their former, substantive rank and all others often end their service. However, the holder may be granted permission to permanently retain the rank they held when the conflict ended."
Cheers, I guessed it would be something like that, just never heard the term before. Just been reading some other ww2talk threads about war substantive / local / acting ranks...and I thought Sherman variants was confusing......WS I can understand, although I suppose the tankie concerned had no intention of continuing on after the war....'acting' I guess means pending official promotion, or temporary until the post is filled.....what the heck is local??? ''Ok, Barton, you're a Corporal while we're in this field.'' Unless it refers to just before last orders and chucking out time, and the tankie in question's memory has been impared by his liquid intake and his rank has suddenly shot up the scale... EDIT: I was going over ranks, etc, and it occured to me that perhaps my grandfather's rank was due to his being a specialist (he'd passed the wireless training course at Bovington in '42 with a P1 - if I've read it right), hence W/Cpl, and maybe Burton was in fact a tank commander. From what I've read, corporals were expected to lead a section. How am I doing?!
Re. British army ranks at : British Army ranks | National Army Museum C - Squadron - 24th L - at around D-day - With Tank Commanders - Officers, troop Sergeants and troop Corporals, and there are other details added in the earlier posts in this thread. I have a working draft of the 24th L transfers to the 3 RTR - which is currently only in a very rough state and still has a lot of complexities / typical fog of war type of stuff to work through / on. It looks like this one - 24th Lancer transfers to the 2nd Fife and Forfars
Speaking of transfers, while having a look at my grandfather's tracer card, I wondered what all those references were that come after each entry, for example: (RAC/144/42), etc..what documents do these references refer to? Can they be viewed?
Might have to post it, as a specific query in a thread relating to tracer cards Frank, the first set of numbers being the date, the last numbers, in the next set, i.e. - 42, then 44 and then 44 again - though look like just the year? The number(s) before that a bit trickier though...
I think you're right..the last number of each entry must refer to the year, but it's the one before that stumps me..could refer to daily orders, transfer orders, or something like that. I'll do as you suggest, see if anyone out there knows for sure. Cheers!