In the Osprey book on the Churchill tank, a picture of a Mark I (the problem version) was depicted as a training tank. What about Mark III's, or did they all go to the front?

Canada used Mk.I's, II's, and III's for training.

Thanks. I had thought of a Mark III used for training, preferably in Britain. But I wouldn't know how they were marked, or how were they deployed. The Crusader book did show a couple of pictures with tanks going into an empty village in Britain.

During the war, in units in the UK, training wasn't generally done by specific training units. Line units received new tanks and then trained with them as opposed to having specific training divisions, etc.

The Canadians of 1st Army Tank Brigade, ferinstance, received their Churchills as replacements for the Matilda's they had been using since receiving them after arrival in the UK. They trained with these Churchills (Mks I, II and III) until the time of Dieppe and then the Calgarys took their "training" tanks into battle. The Three Rivers and Ontario Regiments continued to train on their Churchills until they were replaced in 1943 with Shermans, which they trained on until shipped to Sicily and used them in action.

As such, the bulk of tanks used in "training" were used in line units and marked as such, There were some small training establishments of vehicles at the various schools where the very rawest of squaddies learned about tanks prior to being assigned to line units. If you want to depict these units knowledge of their markings are a tad thin on the ground. Some of our British friends may have more info on those school units.

HTH

Paul