Holly Roller - general appearance during wartime?

[jdmcm]

Can't speak to the markings but a combination of different road wheels is very common, you can see lots of pictures of vehicles in service with two or even more styles of wheels on them, when you needed a replacement wheel you replaced it with whatever was available. My own opinion is it is correct and much more interesting as it is

[maple_leaf_eh]

(As a former member of the Sher H which perpetuates the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment, whose tank Bomb has a more storied past that Holly Roller, it pains me to even contribute.) However, if you look for wartime pictures of Shermans, they are filed by a code number in the National Archives' photo collection. With that code sequence, you can trawl through the files and look for other units' vehicles or even Holly Roller to see what would be applicable.

I have found a number of fascinating shots of tanks in Holland winter 44/45 with genuine lived-in appearances. Men in one-piece suits, tanks in hides or of crews preparing their meals. All interesting images with many clues that the texts seem to miss or just never understood.

Good luck. I'll post the code if I find it sooner.

[Jack Geratic]

Gentlemen, thanks to you both for responding.

I think I've found some codes, but finding the right site to input them seems to be a bit of rabbit hole, in that I only get errors or nothing is found.

http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discove...8_EN-final.pdf

regards,
Jack

[Jack Geratic]

Though not a regimental tank, will have to rely on this photo of Major-General B.M. Hoffmeister brigade command vehicle. Looks to be a pair of 8 foot aerials, plus the usual 20.5" for the B set.

inedite88%20%283%29.jpg

regards,
Jack

[Perry Kitson]

Jack,

Holy Roller landed on D-Day, covered 2,500 miles to V-E Day. At Apeldoorn, was hit by an A/T gun that damaged the track and suspension on the left side. Last action was at Godensholt, Germany. I will see what else I can dig up. At the last D-Day parade the regiment held, they interviewed the gunner, William Reed, who vividly remembered backing the tank up to a German casement on the afternoon of D-Day, hooking up pipes to the exhaust and sticking them into vents on the casement to gas out the occupants.

Perry

[Jack Geratic]

Perry, thanks for that - the first tidbit surely explains the different return roller type was a replacement due to combat damage.

regards,
Jack

[maple_leaf_eh]

http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Pages/home.aspx

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/l...ent&mediaType=

This query was for 'Sherbrooke' and 'Regiment' after a few attempts gave nil responses. The MIKAN number is the code I couldn't remember. I hope I was not too misleading or vague. Once you find the terms that work, keep going. However, author Hal Skaarup states the cataloguing is not as complete as we would hope, so persevere and see what turns up.