ARMOURED VANGUARD FIRST TO LAND
Before the first assault waves hit the Normandy beaches, they were preceded by an array of brilliant and wacky tanks. John Ash tells how the strangest of them all – the brainchild of an émigré engineer – was the charge of a unit ejected from France in 1940.
“The spirit of the Regiment would remain the same whether mechanised or horsed,” explains the official history of the 13th/18th Hussars when converting in 1939. However, few anticipated that in five years this regiment would go from equines to an altogether stranger beast – a tank that, bizarrely, could float.
Formed in 1922 by the amalgamation of the 13th Hussars with 18th Royal Hussars, the 13th/18th Royal Hussars (Queen Mary’s Own) had spent much of the interwar period in Egypt and India and only became mechanised on return to England. Unit histories recorded: “Many felt keenly the loss of their horses and the final break with the age-old traditions of the mounted arm. But they knew cavalry could not fight tanks any more than rifles could repel bombs.”
Conversion began from January 1939 at Shorncliffe, Kent. The 13th/18th was to be the mechanised cavalry of Major-General Harold Alexander’s 1st Division. However, Sh…
