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Landships II -> Landships WW1 Forum -> Tanks -> Home Guard Mk IV or V
Post Info TOPIC: Home Guard Mk IV or V
Centurion


Legend

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Home Guard Mk IV or V
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Some time ago I saw an article, with photo, about a WW II Home Guard unit that renovated a WW1 tank (possibly one of those  distributed as a form of memorial to many town centres in 1919) and 'scrounged' some old 6 pounders from the Navy and put it into service guarding ( I think) some dockyards. This was in either 1940 or early 1941. I have since been unable to locate anything about this vehicle. It would be interesting as being a Mk IV or V with long  6 pounders. What use it would have been in the event of a German invasion is difficult to imagine although it might have had some chance against lightly armed (and armoured) Pkwz I or II and at this early date German paratroops had releatively light anti tank weapons.


Does any one out there know anything about this tank?



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Centurion


Legend

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I've found a litle more detail on the web, this appears to have been a WW1 tank restored by a special weapons development unit staffed by military and civilian  members (and popularly known as The Wheezers and Dodgers) based at HMS Excellent (a shore esablishment). The unit developed such interesting things as floating roads (for Mulberry), pneumatic, steam and rocket based weapons, flame throwers etc etc (they were also known as Winston's Toy Shop) . Neville Shute (author of On the Beach etc etc and one time assistant to Barnes Wallis) was a member of the unit. I understand that the vehicle's main 'action' was when it was used as transport to a local pub and demolished a car on the return trip. Finding this jogged my memory - I read the original article in a frame on a wall in a pub (probably the same one) during a civil service secondment many years ago when I was doing some computery things for Admiralty Weapons Establishment. It seems that there is a photo somewhere and I'd like to find a copy.

-- Edited by Centurion at 12:34, 2006-05-16

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