21 February 1942. Nottinghamshire, England.
Brigadier Roy Jerram (CO 33rd Army Tank Brigade) watched the march past of the three Battalions of Churchill tanks. On the review platform was the man that some said had given his name to the A22 tank. The Prime Minister, with all due humility, always gave the credit to his ancestor, John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, the victor of Blenheim.
The noise of 178 Infantry Tank Mark IV passing was almost deafening, even at a distance, and the reviewing stand was vibrating as the mass of the vehicles made the ground shake. The Prime Minister was beaming with delight, with General Alan Brooke (CIGS) standing a few paces behind him, grimacing.
As the review came to an end, Brigadier Jerram led the VIP party back to an impromptu Officers Mess. Churchill and Brook had arrived just after 10:00hrs, and had watched various demonstrations of gunnery, tanks manoeuvring, meeting the men, climbing all over one of the tanks, finishing with the review. It was now 17:00hrs and although Churchill was physically tired, he was enthused by what he had seen.
There was no doubt that a tank Brigade was a powerful force, but the Prime Minister, over a large brandy, picked up on something that had been bothering him for much of the day. Jerram, and Brooke, were obviously less impressed by what they had witnessed. Always direct, the PM asked Jerram why he wasn’t happy.
Jerram, had commanded a mixed Squadron of Infantry Tank Mk I and II at Arras, and reflected on that battle and the enormous difference between 7th Panzer Division’s Czech built Pz 38s and the British Infantry Tanks. Jerram knew that the First Army Tank Brigade had been very lucky at Arras. The speed of the panzers hadn’t been a factor, whereas the 2-pdr gun Matilda II and 2-pdr pompom of the Matilda had managed to defeat, not only the tanks, but the anti-tank guns and other artillery that could well have made mincemeat of the British tanks.
Every single one of the Churchills in his Tank Brigade had the 2-pdr gun in the turret and a 3-inch howitzer in the hull. Neither of which completely fulfilled the needs of an Infantry Support tank. The lessons of North Africa were that the 2-pdr was becoming obsolescent, and the position and accuracy of the 3-inch howitzer left a lot to be desired. Although the Brigade had tried swapping the two guns around, it was clear to Jerram that his tank needed one good dual-purpose gun in the turret, and at least one, if not two machine guns, one co-axial and one in the hull.
General Alan Brooke found himself in agreement with Jerram. The French B 1bis and the American Grant, like the Churchill, tried to do too many things in one tank. The word coming back from Malaya, like that in North Africa, was that infantry supporting tanks needed a good High Explosive capability, but also needed to be able to protect the infantry from enemy tanks, for which they needed Armour Piercing ammunition. Although an Artillery man through and through, Brooke was constantly dismayed at the decision-making process about tank guns. The Director of Artillery had been dead set against the pompom in the A11, but Jerram’s experience was that the 40mm HE was crucial in suppressing the enemy artillery and anti-tank guns. Now, the same Director of Artillery was doing everything in his power to undermine Vickers attempt to create a good dual-purpose gun with their 75mm HV.
The 6-pdr and new 17-pdr were very good AP guns, but still lacked a completely effective HE shell. They were now working on a replacement for the 3-pdr Close Support gun in the hulls of the Churchills’ with a new 95mm howitzer. This design was a concoction of part of a 3.7-in AA gun barrel, with a 6-pdr recoil mechanism and a 25-pdr’s breech mechanism, firing modified shells for the 3.7-inch Mountain Howitzer. It was meant to fit a tank that carried the 6-pdr without needing a different mounting. This was what had been done with the 3-inch howitzer fitted for 2-pdr mountings. Unfortunately, so far, unlike the 3-inch, this had proven impossible. The new howitzer needed a different turret mounting from the gun tanks, complicating production.
As far as Brooke could deduce this had been born in the minds of people who’d studied the Panzer IV’s 75mm KwK 37 L24. Everything that had been learned up until now pointed to an end of the Cruiser/Infantry Tank distinction. The Valiant I and I* had proven that there was no great difference between the two, and the either could be used in Tank or Armoured Brigades. The Victor was, once armed with the 75mm HV, designed from the start as a ‘universal tank’. Mobile, well protected and with a dual-purpose gun was what was needed. The 178 Churchills were very well protected, not terribly mobile (at least in regards to speed) and carried two different guns, complicating matters for the crew.
Ultimately that was what Jerram wanted for his Brigade, the best tank available. 178 Victors would make today’s demonstration look a lot more like 1942 than 1918. The Prime Minister’s reply was along the lines of a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. It was better to have reasonable tanks than have nothing while waiting for something better to come along. Jerram agreed, but if he found himself up against a German Panzer Division, he didn’t think he’d be as lucky as he’d been at Arras. He could see a place for these Churchills against Japanese opposition, and perhaps as a successor to the Matilda IIs they would come into their own. He knew full well that the Soviets, in a knife fight with the Wehrmacht, had no inclination to take the Churchill, not while they could get Valiants. That spoke volumes about the Churchill tank.
Brooke wrote in his diary later that the drive back to London with the PM had been tense. It was as if Jerram’s ‘complaints’ as the PM called them, was somehow ungrateful. Brooke disagreed, any soldier going into battle had to be confident in his equipment as well as his training. The design of the Churchill tank was a relic of the past, it could still be of limited use. Brooke reminded the PM that previous visits to Armoured Brigades with the Crusader cruiser tanks had thrown up the same basic complaint. The Crusader wasn’t bad, but the Valiant and the Victor were good tanks. The Valiant had proven itself in North Africa, but opening a second front against the Germans would need a tank that at least matched, if not outmatched the German tanks that were no doubt in development. If, as suspected, the Germans had a long 75mm tank gun, even an 88mm gun, on a well-protected tank, then the Royal Armoured Corps needed something that could beat them. The Crusader and the Churchill, even the planned Cromwell, wouldn’t fit the bill. The Victor probably would, at least for the next two years. By 1944 Brooke hoped that Carden’s design for the follow on to the Victor would be replacing them in front line units. Brooke noted that the PM went a bit quiet in the last part of the journey, and as yet, he couldn’t read the PM’s mind, only he knew that something was being chewed over.