M8 Greyhound in Australia.

[Douglas Greville]

Ian

Have to disagree with you. It is a documented fact that Australian Army personnel landed on in Normandy either on or shortly after D-Day. I remember reading several first person accounts of it (many years ago) in an RSL club.

As to M8s, well, being that Australia appears not to have purchased any doesn't mean we never operated them in some sort of secondment posting. I know that officers are often posted individually on secondment, but in the case of enlisted personnel, would expect that if it happens it would be in groups, not individually? The story I was told was that it was a "Squadron".

Just as Australia is not listed as having been equipped with Chaffee, Sherman, Leo 2, FV-432, M-60: all those vehicles have been operated by Australian personnel in Australia, some vehicles remained here, others were returned at the end of the evaluation.

Strange things happen, a surprising amount never gets recorded in publically available material.

A few years ago I was talking to an RAN veteran and when I asked what ship he was on, he said "Shropshire" (IIRC). I then queried if he had been on secondment (he was a rating) and he said no, that the ship was given to Australia by the British government.
So, where as it is normal for a ship's name to be changed when it is transferred from one navy to another, in this case HMS Shropshire and HMAS Shropshire are one and the same ship.

Regards
Doug

Originally Posted by Ian Pullen

As far as I believe we (Australia) didn't have any Army units serving in Europe in WW2. We served in North Africa, Crete, Greece etc but by the time the Allieds came to re-occupy Europe the only Australians in that theatre were Air Force.
All Army units were by then in the Pacific in the defence of Australia.
As for any M8s in Australian service, I can't recall any.