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Old 07-10-20, 23:29
kevinT kevinT is offline
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Location: Wolverhampton, England
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MicS View Post
Many thanks to Alex for posting the photos with the name. I agree that the name is AVALON. Eventhough the second and third letters are not absolutely clear, what few parts we can see of them leaves not doubt about their being V and A respectively.

I finally found the time to look up the Westminster Dragoons War Diary, and found the following AFV Casualty State as of 30 November, where T147955 is mentioned. This is all the luckier as AFV Cas States are a very rare occurrence in War Diaries. The Westminster Dragoons itself has them for only a couple of months.

This State reads:
A Sqn, T147955, Crab V, X Casualty, located at STOKT 9021, Transmission unserviceable, with the additional note (also applying to 3 other tank casualties) "recovery probably delayed owing to conditions":
Attachment 116598

The War Diary for 30 Nov states that "Cas one CRAB transmission jammed by heavy mine explosion". This Crab belonged to 2 Tp A Sqn:
Attachment 116599 Attachment 116600

A previous mention of a new type of damage by Riegelmine 43 mines had been made in the War Diary for 13 Oct regarding the attack on OVERLOON, where it was noted that "All mines in this area were R Mi 43 and not the usual Teller or Holz mine. They had less effect on tracks and bogies but two rotors of C Sqn CRABS were bent by blast. This had not been previously experienced." This explains AVALON's bent rotor.
Attachment 116601

On 1 Nov, an attempt was made to recover the tanks, during which Lt GS COOPER was killed by a Schumine. One may presume that this was one of the reasons why AVALON was abandoned rather than recovered, together with the extent of the damage it had suffered:
Attachment 116602


Michel
Hi Michel,

Thanks for these I have added to and cross checked against my census number database and found a couple of things.

I had T212594 as belonging to 22 Dragoons turret No. 47 via Vanguard To Victory by David Fletcher (details must have been forwarded to me as i do not have this book).

T147892 appears in a 27th Armd Brg workshops return ( sent to me by Tom O'Brien on WW2Talk)

Cheers

Kevin
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