Does anyone know what happened to most of the Mark III and Mark IV Churchills after the war? I know some went to museums, some to private collectors, some probably broken up for parts, but what about the rest? Were they left in France/Germany/Belgium, brought back for scrap, sold to foreign countries?
An interesting question and I will follow the answers. Our Churchill Mk III was bought through the Swedish Defence Attaché in London in 1946, but we have so far not found any documents that can tell from whom. They payed £ 600 - was it to a scrap dealer or to the British Army? Stefan Karlsson, Swedish Tank Museum
Looking in David Fletcher's 'Mr Churchill's Tank', often the very best place to start on that machine (and, pleasingly still in print for a reasonable price). Not specific to III & IV, though theoretically most still in actual service might have entered the rework programme and technically become different marks before war's end? Sketchy notes, but may feed into more leads. Likely that entire rework and development programme was halted by the end of June '45. In 1948, when the new WO registration system came in, only 32 Churchill Xs listed in the cards relating to this shift. 85 Churchills and 3 bridgelayers shipped to India, June '45 to replace 149 RAC's Lees & Grants. No churchills fought in that far east theatre as the war ended. Possible that a total of 308 Churchills went East to SEAC The Aussies ordered 310 more (possibly as many as c.500 with later requests). 51 eventually making the journey. Some Aussie Churchills soldiered on until 1956 - replaced by Cents. Postwar belief that vast numbers of American machines would be reclaimed from the UK led to planning to bulk out losses very widely with Churchill until Cent came fully onstream. RAC Training regts were to produce no Churchill trained personnel after 29/07/46 First quarter 1946: holdings by British: V-197 VI-594 VII-896 VII-173 X-33 Two Mk.VIIs in the '46 Victory parade TA reinstated 1/1/47 Independent TA brigades slated for Churchill, unknown how many issued. Postwar scrap/sales market somewhat saturated. India maybe took Churchills, but evidence slim (A handbook). Ireland bought some from 1948 onwards foir putative armoured force, basically Mk VIs, but went through upgrades in later years. Last survivor was kept running on a firing range until ammunition ran out c.1970 and is now in the Curragh museum. 1949 - one up-armoured example subjected to a hammering from a KWK44 at 100yds... 1947 - 7thRTR having returned from India and joined the Specialised Armour Establishment at Tidworth, operating many Churchill-based testbeds. 1950, they were to take Crocodiles to Korea. Another story... A report of 1951 states that A22 would be excluded from consideration as a fighting vehicle except as an ARV. So, as stated - sketchy. My guess is that the bulk went into not terribly well recorded scrap and range disposal in fairly short order. Will have a shufti and see if anything I have on range wrecks and dump sales might have more specific info re Churchill.
Thread here on postwar disposals, mostly B vehicles though. Might have some Name/Dept leads on who was selling what, both Commercial and Government. http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/42968-sale-of-surplus-vehicles-returning-vehicles-to-the-uk/
Stefan, that's really interesting. I should imagine for that sort of money it would have been in very good condition. Depending on what index you use, £600 then would be worth about £70,000 now. It would be interesting to find out what the scrap value of a Churchill was at the end of the war - 40 tons is a lot of metal!
15 Churchills to Israel in 1955: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19551008&id=KfZOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jwAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5254,6014042&hl=en