Sherman Crab T147955 “Avalon” Overloon. Regiment? Damage?

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Jakko Westerbeke

Last year, Alex shared photos of Avalon’s interior with me, and looking at them, I see spall scars around the penetrations and rounded, slightly bulged areas in other places where I suppose a round didn’t make it all the way through.

To me it looks like someone fired an automatic cannon at it, ±20 mm calibre. Perhaps a German AA gun, perhaps an aircraft? The slight downward angle would point to the latter, but whether it was German or British is anyone’s guess, I suppose.

While I am not an ballistics/munitions expert, comparing the hits on Avalon with other Panzerfaust hits I would be more inclined to think these are projectile hits. Like you say, around 20-mm?

If it is 20-mm, it could be the British captured a German 20-mm AA gun (there were plenty of those around), and tried it out on one of their knocked out tanks? Just like the American soldiers did with the Panzerfausts in La Gleize. This sort of activity would not be reorded in war diaries, but another may well have been. It is a distant possibility, but if it happened it was must have been recorded in the test records somewhere:

The Skink AA tank did not go into production, but two of the three prototypes were shipped to Europe in 1945. On 4 Febrary 1945 one was assigned to the 6th Canadian Armoured regiment (6CAR/1st Hussars and saw action in an infantry support role near Kalkar. It was then passed to the 22nd Canadian Armoured Regiment (22CAR/Canadian Grenadier Guards) in the battle of Hochwald gap.
Roger Lucy noted: "From 6 February to 11 March 1945, the Skink visited all but one of the Canadian armoured regiments - from Nijmegen to the Cleve area - frequently engaging the German army. All units found it to be a valuable asset but no enemy aircraft presented itself to the Skink's guns and its main function was to flush out stubborn pockets of enemy infantry and force their surrender."

Now, seeing that Kalkar and Kleve are aprox. 50 kms (north-)east of Overloon, the 6CAR may have passed through the Overloon area and did some test firing on one of the many tank wrecks in the area?
Firing the quad 20-mm Polsten guns at the Sherman Crab would coincide with the "very shallow downward angle hit" which Alex described. It is a long shot, maybe even very speculative, but it may be worth looking into?


Photo of a Tank AA, 20 mm Quad, Skink at Lulworth Army Camp, GB, Fall 1944. Notice the 20mm Polsten guns and T54E1 VVSS Sherman tracks and sprocket. Note: I do not know whether this is the actual Skink deployed to NW Europe, but it is very likely as having regular medium tank type tracks, rather than CDP track, would not cause supply problems while in NW Europe.

Skink at Lulworth Art. School 1944.jpg