[Bob Carriere]

I would be pleasantly surprised to hear that it would be the engine that came out of the bridgelayer in Ottawa.....

From what I can see it looks like a V type engine. I beleive that the Churchill was a pancake 12.... with 6 cylinders opposed to each other..... two 6 cylinder engines sharing a common crankcase. The engine bay was packed tight but it was a huge engine... mind you the Chruchill was a huge tank. Once inside you had room to move...particularly the bridge layer who had the turret removed..... the extra space on each side within the tracks made it appear even bigger. The back wall of the fighting compartment, separating the engine compartment was holding two huge solid mounted fire extinguishers..... behind the driver and within the track sponsoon was the firing mechanism for launching the forward ramp and dropping the rear ramp.
It was explained to me that the large brass buttons firing system looked similar to naval installations for firing large naval guns. The forward ramp was deployed by setting of 3 naval rockets on each side of the folded ramp. It was strong enough to raise and swing the ramps forward a full 180 degrees against a seawall. Externally, at the rear was a container of empty tubes for storing the 4 to 5 feet long rockets. The armpored external cabling for the connections was about 2.5 inches in diametre. The rear ramp was held cocked up at about 45 degrees with heavy cables. It was deployed by n means of explosive bolts which allowed to drop in place. The front ramp was folded on top at about a 30 degree angle. When fired it pivoted up and forward which created a steel bridge for following tanks to drive over. I understand that it was meant to allow tanks to breach concrete curved seawalls in continental Europe. They never did see any action and were deployed in displays/testing only. Why did two of the 11 or 13 ever made reach Canada is hard to explain. There was some files in the National Archives which seemed to indicate they were sent here then to the USA for testing then brought back to Canada. By then the D Day had long passed.
The two on them, complete, were found in a junk yard outside of Kemptville.

The CWM bought one for $1000. plus delivery by Hurdsman to the Annex on Sussex drive and left in the curb of the traffic lanes at 4 pm on a Friday afternoon in December 1972 with two safety cones marking its presence. The musuem had made no provison to move the tank when it arrived. he long float was unhooked, the wooden blocks holdingit in place were knocked off and it rooled by itself into the street. The following week Long branch sent a team with crane from Montreal to lift it bodily and position it in the small paved parking lot next to the Annex. It stayed there for years slowly sinking its massive weight into the pavement. It had taken two days, and a large bulldozer, to get it out of the ground in Kemptville where it had sunk to the belly pan. There was a newspaper article in one of the weekend editions of the January 73 Ottawa Journal newspaper. That is about the time I got infected with OD green.

The side vents on these Churchills had the extended snorkel duct work necessary for sea trials/landings.

Bob C.