Worthington Park Stuarts

[Jason Ginn]

I was looking into the M5a1's at CFB Borden and I have been presented with a question that I can't seem to find an answer to.

Does anyone know when the Stewart's were added to the Worthy Memorial? He was interred there in late 1967 or early 68 but were the M5A1'a part of the base collection and added at the time of his burial, or were they a later addition?

Does anyone know if the tanks are stripped internally or basically complete?

I have copies of the MDAP documents from 1954 that show our "immediate desire" to divest ourselves of the Stuarts, and the subsequent Portuguese requests for the 96 we had listed in Inventory, but these two tanks remain questions. They are on Peter Fords 1946 list of 90 serial no's transferred to Canada but also appear to have been held back from the 1955/56 transfer to Portugal. In Portugal it is generally accepted that they received 90 M5A1's from Canada so 6 would have been held back.

I have read on one of the old MLU threads that these two tanks may have been recovered by DND from Levys yard for inclusion in the memorial, but i have no solid source for that claim. If they were reduced to spares prior to the MDAP transfer one would imagine that they had given up some of their internals by that time to be used in the spares program by DND or the one Levys was running.

Of course the other surviving Levy/ Elliotts M5A1 poses other questions as its recorded serial does not appear on the 1946 list of 90.

I've attached a 2005 pic by Bruce Forsyth to illustrate the memorial.

Thnx. J