THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — www.findonvillage.com  created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

THE LAST TANK

(grid reference TQ 072 121)

Copyright Valerie Martin 2003

Various remains are to be found on Kithurst Hill to the north west of Findon.  Some artefacts are ancient like a Romano-British farmstead/villa dating from 1st - 4th centuries (Grid reference TQ 0712).  No systematic excavations have taken place on the hillside but there have been fascinating discoveries of Roman pottery, bones, oyster shells, coins and brick and flue tiles of the period.

Other mysteries of Kithurst Hill are more modern and a little more tangible.... and I am not referring to the odd rave and travellers depositing themselves at the beauty spot.   I am talking about the surprising strange sight of the remains of the Second World War tank deposited on the southern side of the South Downs Way on Kithurst Hill.  (The South Downs Way is an ancient drovers' flinty track following the chalk-land ridge from Eastbourne to Winchester).

I have seen this tank  silently rusting away in the corner of a field over the years as I have walked Kithurst Hill on a footpath from the South Downs Way near Findon — and it has quite a history to relate. 

The story of the wartime tank on the Downs goes back to the autumn of 1940 when the 14th Canadian Army Tank Battalion descended on southern England.  They were posted for their basic training to Bordon Camp in Hampshire and were  issued with their first tanks — antiquated French Renaults and a pocketful of British Matildas.

By the summer of 1941 the 14th Canadian Army Tank Battalion (or the Calgary Regiment as it had become known), had moved on to Seaford in East Sussex and formed part of the 2nd Canadian Army Division.  They had now lost their obsolete training vehicles and had entered the ranks of the armoured units of the Free Polish Army and British Army and were issued with up to the minute Mark I Churchill tanks.

A few months later, at the beginning of 1942, the Mark I Churchill tanks had already been superseded by Mark II Churchills.   In all the Canadians had received some fifty-four Churchills by the 15th May 1942.  These were allocated throughout the nine troops of the three squadrons, as well as the various Headquarters, Squadron Command Troop and some other support units. 

O.K. Gerry..... you can't expect a mere girl to know everything.

The Calgary Regiment was now in the process of practicing tactics at the deserted  old village of Tidemills near Seaford (a once thriving tidal mill complex and village) in readiness for the intended incursion on Dieppe. 

During the Canadians' training for the all important Dieppe raid, 'A' Squadron discovered they had been lumbered with a 'dead-head'.... i.e. a tank with a crucial breakdown. Due to the imminent Dieppe attack and the anticipated forthcoming supply of the up and coming Mark III Churchills on the horizon, the unfortunate 'dead-head' was considered a white elephant and subsequently withdrawn from service. 

The Calgary Regiment met with disaster when landing their tanks at Dieppe during the planned raid.  They were scheduled to follow an air and naval bombardment and were put ashore some fifteen minutes late.   The infantry were subsequently left without the expected support during the initial vital minutes of the landing.

When the tanks eventually came ashore, they met a barrage of fire and were brought to a sudden stop — halted in their tracks by the German guns and immobilized by the shingle banks and sea wall facing them.   The tanks that eventually managed to get round the sea wall discovered their way to be impeded by concrete blocks sealing off the narrow streets of the port of Dieppe.

The immobilized tanks continued to fight the enemy and supported the infantry and contributed to the withdrawal of many of them.   The tank crews became prisoners of war or died in the ensuing battle.

Meanwhile, the Mark II Churchill "dead-head" was unceremoniously passed over to the infantry units of the 2nd Canadian Army Division who had a use for it.   They transported the reject to the infantry training grounds above nearby Storrington in West Sussex.  The offending vehicle was sited on the downland and its only use was to suffer the indignity of target range practice — to be aimed at by PIAT anti-tank weapons.

At the end of hostilities, the Canadians returned once more to their homeland.  The "dead-head" had survived being fired upon and stood abandoned on the Sussex downland.   A Storrington resident (who was a member of the clearing-up operations team after the war), recalls that they did not know what to do with the bullet ridden tank and so tipped it into a nearby bomb crater and then shovelled earth over it in an attempt to hide it.

It would have been a good idea to bury the offending eyesore — but over the years some enthusiasts seeking wartime memorabilia attempted to exhume the rusty tank from its grave.   Imagine the difficulty encountered in digging up a tank.

It was not until 20th November 1993, that the tank was finally retrieved by the R.E.M.E.  Even then they only rolled the corroded relic to the surface at the edge of the field.  That is where I last saw the Mark II Churchill tank forlornly standing on top of the world on Kithurst Hill in August 2004......

Andy Robertson emailed me in October 20076 and done his own investigations into the missing turret of the tank...

Continue if you would like to read More On the Tank on our Downland.

THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — was launched by Valerie Martin in January 1999 and will grow to be a historical record of life in Findon, West Sussex, U.K.