Michael,
Excellent job at identifying the location of the wrecks
We can try and find out whose tanks those were.
From the 27 CAR War Diary [I highlighted the more relevant part in
bold characters and added my notes in italics inside square brackets]:
27 CANADIAN ARMOURED REGIMENT(SFR)
Diary of events of "D" Day and D plus 1 by Sgt. T.C. Reid,
No. 2 Troop, "C" Sqn.
"D" Day"D" Day and we have hit the beach at last, we move off the beach and into our respective convoys, so far its exactly like any one of numerous schemes in England and we are on our to our assembly area where I join my Squadron, also my own troop [this means Sgt Reid's tk was in a different LCT from the rest of his Tp]. On the way I catch my first glimpse of the foe and these are prisoners and they are not so unhappy about it. The convoy has reached the assembly area at last; I meet Cpl. Quinn and Lt. MacLean and he hurriedly attempts to give us some of the score as to what's happening ahead. The Sqn convoy then gets under way to move up and the day soon fades into night and our Sqn Cmdr. gets us into a battle formation in a field, where we hear some scary reports about Jerry tanks forming up. What a bastard of a night, no time for sleep, no time to eat, no time for anything but looking into the dark and wondering what's ahead.
"D" plus 1Day No. 1 at last. We hear over the air about some of the exploits of our assault Sqns. "A" and "B", and with what I hear, I'm not afraid to admit I'm a wee bit glad my Sqn is in reserve. We move on late in the morning, my troop No.2 in the lead. We no sooner get going than down the road comes Mr. Thompson walking in a daze, Mortar fire quickly put him out of the picture. We go on a little farther and we take a Jerry machine gun crew prisoners. The next thing I hear is Major Walsh tell my troop leader to go with his troop and help "B" Sqn. We go and for one hour we are in the centre of the heaviest mortar fire I could ever imagine and I was glad to once more hear my troop leader order us back to a small orchard, where he quickly outlined our next job which was to assist "C" Company, I believe of the N.N.S.H., to clean out the towns codenamed Rhine and Danube. I believe the proper names were Authie and Buron; however just as we were set to go Mr. MacLean severely damaged his right wrist caused by catching it with the counter balance of his gun. It was badly swollen and painful looking, I believe it was broken so he put me in point tank position. We blasted all the houses holding up the infantry in the first town and put two machine gun positions out. Then on to Buron. I no sooner get going than they opened up with terrific small arms fire, we answered with our co-ax and they shut up. Mr. MacLean and Cpl. Quinn were deploying to my left and knocking off fleeing infantry who kept popping up in front and instead of surrendering, just either shot it out or ran. Mr. MacLean came up on the "B" set and told me to halt and take out an enemy hornet which I couldn't see, but pulling up a little farther, I discovered two of them at about a distance of 8 or 9 hundred yards. He instructed me to take the one on the left and my gunner Tpr. Gilbert, L.J. lifted the ring cupola into the air with his first, his 2nd & 3rd shots burned said tank up. In the meantime either Sgt. Cathcart [of 1 Tp C Sqn], who had come and joined us or Lt. MacLean, I couldn't truthfully say, blew the other hornet up. We then carried on and I saw a "B" Sqn troop had also joined us. We were running line abreast and although at the time I hadn't noticed Lieut. E. Spafford [Tp Ldr 1 Tp C Sqn] had pulled into the show on our right. The first house we came to at Buron gave forth Machine gun fire so I lobbed H.E. in the windows. Those that ran out to the road got smacked down by Mr. Spafford's guns and those ran to left were caught by Sgt. Cathcart., Mr. MacLean and Cpl. Quinn. We shoved on again and it was a breeze, nothing but infantry until we were fire on by A/T guns to our right. Mr. MacLean quickly dispersed us and instructed us as to the guns we were to take out. I believe the gun crew on my particular target had deserted the gun, however we took no chances and quickly dispatched same. The "B" Sqn troop, commanded as I later found by Lieut. Steeves [Tp Ldr 1 Tp B Sqn] and the remainder of the tanks were taking out their guns when suddenly, out of the blue we got it. I, myself, felt a jolt in my tank, looked back and found my blanket box shot through. The next shot unseated my L.O., Tpr Galley, and I then saw what was hitting us. There were 12 hornets lined up in hull downs about 2500 yds. away and the had us cold; their third round went through my engine and quickly after that they struck Lieut. MacLean's and Lieut. Steeves' almost simultaneously. They both burned up and then I saw Mr. Steeves and his gunner both frantically struggling to get out of the turret. Mr. Steeves fell back in and the gunner fell out, Mr. Steeves then reappeared and he was pretty badly burnt, also his co-driver whose hatch was caught by the gun being traversed over it. About Mr. MacLean and his Gunner and L.O. I can't say I saw them get out although driver William Redmond claims the turret was empty as he looked. The remaining tanks, Cpl. Quinn, Sgt. Cathcart, 1 Recce tk. and Sgt. Fisher all scooted behind a large barn where Sgt. Fisher decided to make a run back. He started down the road and they struck him three times and burned his tank up, his L.O. burned up with it.I and my crew report to the C.O. at ELDER.
The end of part I, part II in the future.Signed: Sgt. T. C. Reid.
The above narrative fits almost perfectly with the photos of the wrecks and their turret numbers:
1 Tp B Sqn
Tp Ldr - Lt K.L. Steeves - Sherman Vc 'BLITZ' T148475 - No.11
2 Tp C Sqn
Tp Ldr - Lt I.A. MacLean - Sherman Vc 'CHASER' T212703 - No.21 most probably
Tp Sgt - Sgt T.C. Reid - Sherman III 'CHERRY' T147129 - No.22
This confirms what can also be inferred by the rest of the War Diary regarding the organisation of 27 CAR around D Day:
Four tanks in RHQ
Four tanks in SHQ
Four troops of one Sherman Vc (Tp Ldr) and three Sherman III each
Turret numbering = Sqn symbol + 2-digit code made up of Tp No. + Tk No. within Tp. Thus, using 2 Troop as an example:
2 Tp Ldr - No.21
2 Tp Sgt - No.22
2 Tp Cpl - No.23
2 Tp Cpl - No.24
Although the turret number on CHASER is very faint because of the fire, one can just about guess the top of the digits '21' on this attached photo showing the rear of the turret (for the original large size photo click here
CHASER - No.21, then on the downwards pointing arrow and select "original"):
One must then assume that the "blanket box" on CHERRY mentioned by Sgt Reid is not the turret box, which shows no sign of being "shot through", but another box carried on the rear of the hull. Apart from this remark, the various impacts seen on the photos of CHERRY all match the narrative.
To further check this identification, we can see that CHASER bears the LTIN 1716, which carried Lt MacLean and only one Firefly, which was the only tank of C Sqn on board, so the match is confirmed (original size
CHASER - LTIN 1716):
Full size doc of following extract here
T-12758 - 1064 - 27 CAR - War Diary - Jun 44 - Appx 5 - Org & Adm - Craft Serials giving details of Loads:
27 CAR - Veh Allocation to Craft - 22 Apr 44:
From the last document above we can also verify the possibility that No.22 C Sqn CHERRY might have been a different LCT than his troop leader. The LTIN on the photo below is difficult to make out, but it definitely starts with 172x:
CHERRY - LTIN 172x
Tweaking the negative of the last picture of CHERRY in Michael's post I would say that the LTIN is 1723, and the loading code therefore reads:
1044/1/LCT
......1723
There is however one dissonant note in all these matching facts, in the form of one puzzling remark by Sgt Reid who writes "
Mr. Steeves then reappeared and he was pretty badly burnt, also his co-driver whose hatch was caught by the gun being traversed over it". Firefly No.11 BLITZ's gun is
not over the co-driver's hatch, and there is
no co-driver in a Firefly...
Michel