Tank Fatigue

After engine servicing and prop refurbishment, we suffered a bit of tank fatigue.

A visit to Normandy, amazing countryside where history was made in 1944, and where it seems there’s a tank on a plinth every couple of kilometres, even some in car parks…it’s usually (but not always) a Sherman of some description. Sherman:

And another…

Ooh! Not a Sherman! Technically not even a tank. A Churchill AVRE (Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers). This one helped to bridge an anti tank ditch at Juno Beach…

A Sherman…

Shermanesque, but not even a tank (Thank you Patrick)…M10 Tank Destroyer:

And a Churchill Crocodile flame thrower tank, minus its trailer full of fuel:

Centaur at Pegasus Bridge…

Aha! Another Sherman:

And another. This is one of the DD (Duplex Drive) swimming versions which made it to shore on Juno Beach:

This next DD Sherman didn’t reach the shore – recovered off Omaha Beach and now in the Museum of Underwater Wrecks…

Stuart light tank which was salvaged:

As was this Sherman bulldozer…

And….another Sherman. At Utah Beach this time.

Self propelled artillery on a (Sherman based!) tracked chassis. Still counts.

German Hetzer tank destroyer at Bayeux museum:

And another Sherman, at the Airborne Museum in Sainte-Mère-Église. You can just make out the reconstruction of US paratrooper John Steele hung up on the church steeple:

Stuart light tank at Saint-Côme-du-Mont. Fascinating German paratrooper museum here as well as the D-Day Experience museum.

Another M10 tank destroyer…

Yet another Sherman…

And a final Sherman to finish…

It’s not all organised museums and tanks on plinths. Every little village seems to have a plaque or memorial somewhere hidden away. This one is in plain sight. The Great War memorial in Trévières was damaged by a shell (from a Sherman!)  a few days after D-Day, and during reconstruction the town elders decided to leave it.