Empire & Allied Armoured Vehicle Census Numbers

[kevinT]

Richard,

Please post the soft skin WD census numbers on the Soft Skin forum as you say I am sure there are others who would be interested to see them.

Cheers
Kevin

[Roddy de Normann]

Richard -

Many thanks for carrier Nos - can you give me the source - NA File of War Diary ? I have yet to start looking through the Gunner War Diaries at the NA - the same goes for the Inf Bns. But that said, carriers are a big hole in my attempts to date.


Kevin -

Ref B Veh listings. Enormous undertaking to publish any list as they are generally huge. Best just to give accurate references.

Roddy

[Richard Farrant]

Originally Posted by Roddy1011

Richard -

Many thanks for carrier Nos - can you give me the source - NA File of War Diary ? I have yet to start looking through the Gunner War Diaries at the NA - the same goes for the Inf Bns. But that said, carriers are a big hole in my attempts to date.

Hi Roddy,

The source was the son of a war veteran that served in the 143rd Field Regt. R.A., 49th Infantry Div. The original copy of the weekly returns on vehicle status in the unit. If they were not to Class I or Class II, then they had to be classifies to Class III, IV, V, etc and the amount of hours work shown to bring them to Class II standard. It is several sheets of large paper typed out and signed by the Unit O/C, not something I could scan unfortunately. Probably unusual to come across, but I thought the Census numbers should be recorded in the rare chance that someone may have a vehicle beraring one of these numbers.

The Unit had been stationed in Iceland prior to this, but were brought back to UK in 1942 when the US took over. This unit were then training and preparing for the invasion of Europe.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Not sure if this is of any help: derelict Sherman T211936, Eindhoven, Netherlands, 1945.

[Roddy de Normann]

Hanno -

Thanks for this - spotted it myself this evening while looking at the same site ! Unfortunately I have no details of that aprticular veh.

Meanwhile on the same site, there is a pic of a Sherman racing into Eindhoven on 18 Sep 44. The WD no appears to be T-232394. I hold this as a Sherman Firefly that in Apr/May 45 was KOed. The Wright & Harkness Veh Cas Report stated:

Germany - Veh creeping fwd when likely hit R-43 mine. RH front suspension unit blown off & track broken. Crew unhurt - Wright & Harkness RAC Cas Study, Jan 1946

Obviously the Sep 44 pic shows a standard Sherman V, so I am not sure if it was converted and, if so, when ?

Hope this helps

Roddy

[Roddy de Normann]

Hanno -

Doh !!!! Forgot to mention that T-232394 was 2nd (Armoured) Battalion, Irish Guards !

Apologies...

Roddy

[Mike Cecil]

Tony Smith wrote many moons ago 'I had started to sift through the info relating to carriers, but have not found them all yet!"

And neither you will Tony, because not all of the carriers produced were recorded in the ledgers, only those issued at some time with C or AIF-T numbers. Once the carriers switched to their hull numbers as the registration (circa late 41/early 42), and carriers were transferred from both the C system and AIF system to carrying their hull number, all those carriers produced subsequently were not listed anywhere in AWM126. Likewise the 'imports' that retained their home country number (but usually with the prefix, like 'USA-W' removed. The T17E1 Staghounds are a case in point: they used the US Army number less prefix as their Aust registration. Matildas are another: T-XXXX became just XXXX as the Aust registration)

AWM 126 is a bit of a mixed bag: the C system commenced in 1939, and only those vehicles then on the Army's inventory with current DD registrations were transferred to the new C system. Hence, there are, to my knowledge, no WW1 entries, for example. I think the earliest are the tanks and A/C of the 1920s, which were still in use in 1939.

Also, the books only list Army, not Navy & RAAF. More importantly, there are some small blocks of C numbers missing from the Army entries that photographs show as being issued, but they don't make the lists. Engineer plant is a particular case in point, as are a number of post-war purchases. The books also have post war entries mixed in with wartime blocks - when Army went back and filled in the blanks, so to speak, so the issues are not strictly chronological - higher rego number does not always mean later issue.


Mike