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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

A Tank named CRUSTY


johnboy

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There were esentially only 3 types of sponson on the Mk IV - Male, Female and Supply. Male had a 6 pounder firing forward and a Lewis in the rear section, Female had two Lewis guns in each sponson and Supply was just a big steel box to hold supplies. The Male sponsons were handed in that Port was slightly different from Starboard but this was mainly involved in the positioning of the vision slits in the gun shields. All 3 sponson types on the Mk IV were retractable to make railway transport possible. To achieve this on the male sponsons short barrelled versions of the guns were used and these along with the shields could be slid backwards before the sponson was retracted. This facility was also used when driver/gearman training and on approach drives to jumping off points to avoid fouling the barrels of the guns if the tank tilted forward. The photo of Crusty tilted downwards has the guns and shields pulled back suggesting that the tank is not in action and is either doing driver training or a demo for the photographer's benefit.

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The only C24 I know is 2021 Crusty before mid November 1917. There is no documentation I'm aware of to support the existence of any other C24, so while I accept there's doubt whether the C24 in the photo is 2021 Crusty or some other, otherwise unknown C24, I think it probable that the photo does show 2021 Crusty. The fact that it's Male narrows the odds somewhat.

Fortunately we are not restricted to photographs to know which tank had which serial number, crew number and name. There are extensive (though still incomplete) records at the National Archives, Bovington and elsewhere. Rob Martin has made a lot of this material available via his website https://sites.google.com/site/landships/home though there are a few errors that will eventually be sorted out. The gaps in the records are more difficult, obviously. His notes are also referenced.

The idea that tank names should follow battalion letters was introduced in June or July 1917, after Arras but before Third Ypres. Any names before that date that did follow the battalion letter are just coincidences.

Gwyn

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I think you miss the point - is this 2021 Crew number C23 still Crusty? Or has the tank been renamed with a change of crew and perhaps some other tank is named Crusty(or Crusty II or Crusty III) ? There was only one 2021

post-9885-0-32950600-1384112669_thumb.jp

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I think you miss the point - is this 2021 Crew number C23 still Crusty? Or has the tank been renamed with a change of crew and perhaps some other tank is named Crusty(or Crusty II or Crusty III) ? There was only one 2021

attachicon.gif2021.jpg

Yes, that tanks is still Crusty.

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How do you know?

Because until a tank crew change the name of the tank it retains its original name.

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I wasn't talking about the tank C23 at Cambrai, but the top photo of the tank in post #15, i.e. C24. I accept there's doubt but I believe that to be 2021 Crusty for the reasons given. I am also prepared to accept that there's room for doubt that the tank 2021 C23 at Cambrai (that's the one with the painted figurine) was called Crusty, but only because I can't presently find the C Battalion battlegraph and I won't be drawn unless I have some evidence. The areas of doubt you identify are fair enough, but when it comes to tank names etc we don't always have the perfect proof and as long as we remember doubt exists I'm happy to believe that C23 2021 was still Crusty at Cambrai. After all, just because a new junior officer appears on the scene doesn't mean his tank is automatically re-named, especially when the Section Commander would doubtless have approved the names of the tanks in his Section.

Gwyn

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...After all, just because a new junior officer appears on the scene doesn't mean his tank is automatically re-named, especially when the Section Commander would doubtless have approved the names of the tanks in his Section.

Gwyn

Nothing to do with 'Crusty' but these extracts from The Tank in Action by Capt DG Browne, MC (given as around mid July 1917 prior to participation at 3rd Ypres), with a replacement tank (a MKIV he mentions elsewhere), new commander & crew, but the name of its predecessor, being transferred (as, apparently, Gina, not Gina II) do nothing - at least to me, unless it was intended that the original commander would retake command of this tank on his return to duty at some future date - to clarify the name/crew number situation:

...And, as it happened, one of the original tank commanders in my section fell ill about the middle of July, whereupon I stepped into the vacancy.

His tank was also hors de combat with a broken-down engine. It being impossible to repair it in the time available a new machine, with two or three others required by the brigade, was on its way from Erin to replace it, and this I was to take over on its arrival...

...The following morning I marched my crew down to the new tank. I decided naturally to take with me my own men, with whom by now I was well acquainted, in preference to the strange drivers and gunners whose officer I had replaced. The latter, I think, were as disappointed as my own crew was pleased by this translation; for throughout the battalion the spirit in the ranks was admirable. Most of the N.C.O.'s and a large proportion of the men came from the original F Company of the Heavy Branch, and very few of them (in my crew, for example, none at all) had ever seen a shell burst until they came to the Salient; and while it is true that soldiers often look forward to their first battle with a confidence born simply of ignorance, and deteriorate in moral as their experience of horrors increases, the personnel of the Tank Corps maintained to the end a conspicuously high standard. And to go into action in a tank, as I hope to show, is not the bed of roses some rash people used to think it. I put this consistent excellence down in part to the class of man which the corps attracted.

There was plenty of work to be done when I took over G 46, whose more intimate name—transferred from her disabled predecessor, and none of my choosing—was "Gina." (The tanks and each battalion were christened with names beginning with the initial letter of their unit. Thus we were all "G's." "Gina," appropriately enough, was a female; but in fact it seems natural to speak of all tanks as feminine, as if they were ships.)

'Gina' did not survive for long, becoming disabled in a shell hole on 1st August near Kitchener's Wood (there's a later photo - quite well known I believe - in the book of her in a very derelict state)

NigelS

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I don't think there are many hard and fast rules in all this, except that serial numbers never changed. Best not to be dogmatic about things - it's more likely someone will find an instance when you're wrong.

Gwyn

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Best not to be dogmatic about things - it's more likely someone will find an instance when you're wrong.

Gwyn

That is certainly true......

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have a large framed picture of Crusty tank with name showing in which my father served in first war he was born in 1889 and was wounded in action about 1917 and survived until 1945 when he died as a result of war injuries. I was only 3. He was only a private but like so many, served and fought for their country and us. I have just joined the forum and so pleased to learn more about Crusty who has been part of my life for so long and which I knew little about until now. Thank you. (Archiebald)

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Welcome to the Forum Archiebold.

Could your give us the name of your father?

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  • 3 years later...

Archiebold - Goodness I must have missed your post! My Grandfather was Henry Wilson Ashforth who was 2nd Lieutenant and he was the tank's commander. There is a post from myself back in March 2009 about my Grandfather and how at the battle of Cambria on the 20th Nov 1917 - 100 years ago tomorrow! Crusty was hit by German gunfire and disabled. If you search under this link you find my original post.

I'd love to hear from you as your father may well have served with my Grandfather.

 

Edited by Neilash
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