Comet tanks - fault

; charactersitics of Comet tank; story of parking Comet in warehouse and warning against revving up engine from Rolls Royce representatives; initial gear box problems;
'Warehouse' or workshop I wonder.

Forget the semantics; one persons warehouse is very quickly someone else's workshop! This totally vindicates your Dad's view. Just now need to figure out why the 21AG Report is so way off !

 

Group of four fitters taken at Armentieres (inscribed 'Armatieres' [sic] in Dad's writing on the reverse). Frank Grimshaw (Dad) is extreme left, Jack Lee is second from right:

 

That's a very interesting picture Grimmy. Your Dad and the chap next to him appear to be wearing 37 pattern BD and they all appear to be wearing collars and ties!! I suppose this is dated late '44?

 

That's a very interesting picture Grimmy. Your Dad and the chap next to him appear to be wearing 37 pattern BD and they all appear to be wearing collars and ties!! I suppose this is dated late '44?

He did say it was early during their stay in Armentieres, so December 44 would seem likely.

I'm in the process of adding Dad's photos to my album - a mix of Allied and German pics. More to come yet.

 

Question answered!

Peter Brown has located the 3RTR War Diary at Kew complete with appendices. These confirm that, in the case of 3RTR, and I assume the same would have applied to 23H and 2F&FY, the Final Drive Gear had to be replaced with the 'latest' version as already fitted to Cromwell. This all happened in February 1945. There is no mention of any fault with the front Tensioner Wheel.

The 'fault' is mentioned in the War Diary and in an Appendix marked 'Top Secret'.

 

I'm hopefully meeting a 23rd Hussars veteran in March who served in Comets as a gunner and will have been one of the very first to receive his Comet. He is the gunner in published photographs of 23rd Hussars Comet on the ranges at Gravelines. I'll ask him if he remembers anything about the Comet 'fault'.

Met Reg yesterday in London. He has a good memory but does not recall the Comets being declared unfit etc before the Rhine crossing.

I believe this all adds to Grimmy's Dad's view but, bearing in mind what Peter Brown located at Kew re 3RTR (ref my previous post), it appears reasonable to believe that the fault with the final drive gear/bearings was limited to only the first batch of Comets produced at Leyland (because the 3RTR document includes a schedule of 'T' numbers which are all 'early' and in the Leyland contract 'T' numbers schedule.

 

Finally! This from TAURUS PURSUANT - A HISTORY OF 11TH ARMOURED DIVISION:

It was March 28th, two days after the assault crossing of the Rhine, that the 11th Armoured moved up from Belgium for its last battle in Europe and the pursuit which was to take it to the borders of Denmark. The gunners had gone earlier to support the crossing: in fact, 13 RHA had never come back to Belgium; not having been with us for the battle between the rivers, they had concentrated in Asten under 8 Corps. The move forward was accomplished with no difficulty and only one excitement. This was the discovery three days before we were due to start that the driving sprockets of all the new tanks needed a certain modification before they could be pronounced dependable. The necessary parts were eventually flown out from England just in time for them to be fitted before the tanks were loaded on the transporters and the column set off [to the Rhine crossing at Wesel].


The timeline is still a bit vague - anyone reading the above would think that the problem was sorted in a couple of days, yet I counted 62 Comets delivered to 23H between Jan 15th and Mar 14th (the very day they moved out of Ypres). Dad says the fitters were split into two teams, each fixing one tank per night. Even working flat out I make that a month at least to complete the job (Dad says it took longer).