From the little looking I've done the Churchill AVRE was prevalent at Normandy, but I'm just checking to make sure these vehicles continued to be used through the remainder of the war in Europe -- or were they withdrawn after D-Day like the Centaurs?
Thanks in advance

Churchill AVRE's were used for demolition of bunkers right up to the German border. As for the "Funnies," the only ones that saw fairly regular useage was the small box girder bridge and its development, the folding small box girder bridge, and the Churchill Crocadile that was based on a regular converted gun tank. I.m not sure, as I haven't seen any actual pictures of the beast, but I believe that the latter required the removal of the turret for carrying the mounted bridge.
With all of the bridge destruction prior to and post D-Day, the sbg's were widely used to provide routes for armor to cross streams and canals as well as bomb craters.

The Churchill AVREs served into the 1950s. The most dramatic version of any Churchill variant, was the GREAT EASTERN, which was a rocket launched (yes, rocket launched) obstacle crosser, simply imagine a bridgelayer which fired its bridge using massive rockets, no honestly, I'm not making it up.....Jim

Hello
Ive got two pictures of the churchill in in engineer drag.
1. is post war carrying a 10ton fascine with 165mm low velocity gun, the mk #
is fv-3903 i cant read the bumper #.
2. is a avre at d-day with wading equipment,carrying the girder bridge the
vehicle # is 3 there is a turrent but no main gun , the turrent is of the mk
III version. The avre was used in the northern front til the end of the war.


ponysoldier

was the centur removed from the front after Normandy I'm not sure I've seen a picture of it painted O/D seving with an army unit I thinks some one commented that they were used for bunker busting or something any one help me out here?

dont get 95mm armed cromwells confused with centaurs.
many cromwells had the howitzer fitted, and are mistakenly labled as centaurs, because of the similarity.
centaurs did fight in normandy for a while, even though they had been ordered to return to britain.
centaurs were also supplied to greece and israel post war, in both 95mm and 6-pdr versions, but saw limited service.

dont know much about post war use of churchills though, ive seen pictures of them in korea, but thats all

cheers
joe