[John Tapsell]

Mark, No I haven't read the document - it's on my list to peruse on my next visit to PRO (to trace the context of the quote that Hayward uses).

I'd dispute the idea that the tanks are sitting on the tank deck. They've far too high when compared to the hull sides. If they were on the tanks deck, the sides should extend as least as far as the turret sides and these clearly finish somewhere around track/sponson level.

Maybe the exact purpose of the CB teams varied from unit to unit. Whilst they were all tasked with bunker-busting, maybe it was left up to the regiments exactly how that "busting" was carried out. Alternatively they had TWO roles - to fire at the beaches on the way in and then to carry out specific tasks once ashore.

Whilst AVREs make much better bunker busters, their effective range was only around 80 yards. The Fireflies provided a long-range, high velocity alternative.

On the other hand, contemporary acounts of 13/18 Hussars activities around the 'Hillman' bunker complex indicate that tank fire (75mm and 17pdr) made little impression on the defences (and that's stationary and at close range, not the wallowing deck of an LCT).

Perhaps the planners were overly optomistic about the value of 17pdr guns as assault weapons? According to John Brooke's account, neither 13/18 H tanks fired their guns on the way in, despite that being the plan. Why else would you put them on a raised deck when they could sit on the normal tank deck perfectly adequately?

If the two tanks in the photo are FGH, the pattern continues. So far, all the CB Fireflies discussed belong to DD Regiments (FGH were a DD Regt?). However, I'm lacking any records for Gold beach, so it's not possible to assess whether all DD regiments used them.

Cheers,
JOhn