Greetings all,

Does anyone know which Royal Engineer units were with 79 Armd Div for the Rhine Crossing and any in particular that might have used the M32BI Sherman?

Cheers

Al

'Wot' - all the Engineers and history buffs on holiday???

Any thoughs folks???

Cheers

Al

Hello Al,

as i know was the task of vehicle recovery performed by REME Corps. In each division was a central repair workshop and light workshops were asigned to the different units. The used ARV's depended on the tanks used in the supported units. So, the Sherman ARV MK I and MKII were used as well as the Churchill ARV's. I haven't heared anything about the use of M32's .
The following units of the 79 th armoured division took part at operation plunder :
7 RTR, 141 RAC and 1 fife and Forfar Yeomanry. ( Churchill Crocodile )
Westminster Dragons, 22 Dragoons and 1 Lothians and Border Yeo ( Sherman Flail )
44 RTR and Staffordshire Yeo. ( Sherman DD )
82 Sqn 6 ARRE and 26 Sqn 5 ARRE ( Churchill AVRE )

I hope this will help you for further research.

Happy modeling
Harald

Hi Harald,

Thanks for that additional information, that will be very useful.

BTW - 1st Northamptonshire Yeomany were one of the units converted to LVTs for the crossing.

For my project I'm thinking more of the staging areas, and I can look at the make up of the various Unit LADs, Bde Wksps to see if any might have been lurking about in that general area.

Many thanks

Al

hi

ok
26 assault squdaron was udes in towing the ferry pontoons and winchs to the rhine, then the AVRE's were used as acnchours for the winches.
( tank museum bovington have pictures )

82 assault squadron was the first to cross the rhine by ferry and all carried Fascines ( tank museum also have pictures of the tanks building fascines prior and teh line up before the crossing)

77 assault squadron was used this squdron was in buffalos and had been since D Day +7 due to the hammerimng the squadron took on D Day.
terrapins & weasels were also used.

hope this helps
ossie

Hi Ossie,

That's great, very helpful. I'll check for the photos in Bovington Tank Museum.

Many thanks

Al

Hi folks,

Here's an interesting email I received from Brian Baxter at the REME Museum, I thought you might like to read:

Quote

Thank you for your enquiry. As far as I am aware no British Army units in the North West Europe campaign were issued with the M32. A small number of these ARVs served with British units in Italy and after the War with some units stationed in Libya (before we were asked to leave following the revolution which installed Colonel Gaddafi). Others, postwar, are recorded in Palestine and in the Canal Zone of Egypt with British units or under repair in workshops. .

During the war most ARVs were on the written establishment table of armoured regiments, not those of the attached REME Light Aid Detachments. Despite this many of them were crewed jointly by regimental tradesmen and REME. Up to about August 1944 the only REME units officially entitled to ARVs were the Armoured Brigade Workshops. It soon became clear after D Day that in the jumble of battles Infantry Brigade Workshops were also likely to be asked to recover tanks as might other recovery units which up to then had only been issued with wheeled recovery vehicles or unarmoured Caterpillar D8 tractors. This started a scramble in France to convert captured armour into improvised ARVs until the powers that be authorised ARV issues to Infantry Brigade Workshops too. In these circumstances it is remotely possible that a unit somewhere scrounged an American M32 or recovered and repaired one the Americans had given up on but I have never heard of such a case.

In general the Americans were keen to repair any repairable specialist vehicles they could as there were never enough replacements on demand like there were basic tanks and trucks.

It might be worth checking with the Tank Museum at Bovington but I think if they knew of any such circumstance I would have heard about it from David Fletcher.

I hope this answers your question. All the best, Brian Baxter, Technical Historian.

End Quote

Looks like the only realistic setting for a British/Commonwealth M32 would be in Italy. I have pictures of Polish ones in Italy so that will most probably be the setting, although I stil need to check with Bovington Tank Museum.

Thanks to Brian for his reply and cheers to all.

Al

Gidday Alan,
Just dug this up M32 in Italy The photo, unfortunately not very clear, shows an M32 with mine rollers - I'm more intrigued by the New Zealand Sherman further down in the photoset... :-) :-)

Cheers

Jeff W.

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the link. I believe the ANZACs and The Polish had M32's in Italy, but I'm not fiting a mine roller to mine!!!! :-) :-) :-)

I'll have to look into some units as I have a couple of M4A1s that are going into and Italy type setting so finding out a bit more abou the Polish and ANZAC armour is another line of enquiry I'll have to follow.

Bovington confirmed that the existance of a British M32 in NEW is highly unlikely.

Do you know of any ANZAC units that used the M4A1's in the Italian Campaign?

Nice picture of the Sherman, any more details?

Cheers

Al

The M32 was in service with quite a few Brit units in NWE. A picture of one belonging to LAD 4/7 (a Cromwell equipped unit) exists in Black Bull by Patrick Delaforce. From previous posts I have seen on this (ML about three years ago) it appears the Brits go M4 and M4A2 based M32's.
The M4A1 76 was used by 2 RTR and the 6th AD (South African). The Poles and Kiwis had mainly M4A2 with M4 (welded and hybrid) and M4A4 fireflies in Italy.
50 RTR and a few other RTR regts had M4A1 mid production 75mm vehicles and photos exist of these but are not numerous.
The best bet is to do a search on the IWM photocollection database:
http://www.iwmcollections.org.uk/

Cheers
Al

Only M32 i've seen photo of in NW europe with LAD 15/19 hussars recce regt for 11th Armd Div after they were re-equipped with Comets in April 45 (Black Bull Normandy to the Baltic Patrick Delaforce pg 215 ) M32 was known as sherman ARV mk 3. At this stage of the war we carried out 4 river crossings Elbe Aller Weser& Leine 79th provided support for these crossings too. not sure if this helps .Pat

Hi Al and Pat,

Thnaks for that guys I'll see what else I find. I haven't got the book but I'll try and track down a copy.

Thanks

Al

hi

want some of the books, like Geof futters , funnies, d day now and then, signed 79th original histroy + lots of others
look here

http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZossie262

ossie

Hi Ossie,

Some great looking books there. Sorry the Widows Sale got all my spare cash for now, but thanks for the link.

Cheers

Al