British Battle Tanks: Post-war Tanks 1946–2016

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1. CENTURION

Chapter 2. VICKERS BATTLE TANKS

Chapter 3. CHIEFTAIN

Chapter 4. CHALLENGER

Chapter 5. CHALLENGER 2

AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

FOREWORD

BY MAJOR GENERAL PATRICK CORDINGLEY DSO OBE D.Sc. FRGS

As a cavalryman, it has always intrigued me that the British should twice in their history have produced the weapon that diminished and finally eliminated the role of the horse on the battlefield. At Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt, English archers caused slaughter among the French mounted knights; then gunpowder superseded the longbow on the battlefield. During World War I, at the Somme, Cambrai and Amiens, the appearance of the tank consigned cavalry to history.

In the 1930s, the British Army successfully undertook the transition to mechanization but tragically did not have sufficient tanks to create a coherent armoured doctrine to thwart the Blitzkrieg tactics of the German Panzers during the campaigns in France and North Africa. In the early war years, British tanks were woefully lacking in firepower, armour protection and reliability until the arrival of the American Sherman medium tank in 1942. Warfare in North-West Europe in 1944–45 was determined by the mass of materiel from West and East leading to the defeat of Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, there emerged a tank that was to epitomise the very ethos of British tank design after six years of bitter conflict.

Centurion served the British Army with distinction and was the progenitor of the main battle tank concept, which emerged with Chieftain and its powerful L11 120mm main armament. Thereafter the British adopted a policy of evolution rather than revolution with Challenger and Challenger 2, which fought in two Gulf Wars. On both occasions the British concept of tank design, with the emphasis on armour protection and firepower over high-speed mobility, was successful in the particular circumstances that prevailed.

Within days of arriving in Saudi Arabia with the 7th Armoured Brigade Group in October 1990, I decided to command it from a tank. My Challenger was crewed by members of the Royal Scots Dragoons Guards and a Royal Anglian officer, and we named it ‘Bazoft’s Revenge’. For nearly six months, I lived, worked and slept either in or near to the tank. It became a reliable friend but I cannot ever claim it was comfortable.

On 25 February 1991, we crossed the line of departure into Iraq leading the US VII Corps, the largest Corps in the history of warfare. It was a cold overcast day and we were nervous because none of us had done such a thing before. But we felt confident in our tanks and this was not misplaced. Challenger was exceptional. Its firepower was devastating, with enemy tanks quite commonly being destroyed at 3,000m range. We advanced 302km in four days and destroyed some 350 Iraqi tanks and APCs. As we arrived north of Kuwait City 92 per cent of my 117 Challengers were fully fit – and that figure is remarkable. I am proud that I lived for six months and then fought for a brief time in my tank. I always thought that Challenger was built for war and not competitions.

This volume by Simon Dunstan describes in considerable detail the design route from Centurion to Challenger 2. Despite serving for many years in Chieftain, being involved with the termination of MBT 80 and then the requirement for Challenger 1, I learnt fascinating aspects about these ‘workhorses’ of the Royal Armoured Corps. The stories of their deployments in wars since 1945 are also remarkable. They have fought with the British Army in Korea, Suez, the Rafan, Kuwait and Iraq. With other armies they have been used extremely successfully in the Indo-Pakistan Wars, the Arab-Israeli Wars, in Vietnam with the Australians and in Angola by the South Africans. Their stories are told here by many of the participants in a truly engrossing way. This excellent and most readable volume makes one feel proud of our tanks and their designers and above all of the men who served in them.

As Colonel Commandant of The Royal Dragoon Guards, Major General Patrick Cordingley poses in front of a Chieftain Mark 5C with a Guard of Honour and the Regimental Colours.

INTRODUCTION

BY MAJOR GENERAL SIR LAURENCE NEW CB CBE

I first met Simon Dunstan on 16 February 1978, when I was Colonel (OR) 17 in Whitehall. At the time he was undertaking research into the Centurion tank for an excellent book that was published in 1980. To this day, it remains the standard reference on that exceptional British tank. It is thus some 41 years almost to the day as I write the introduction to this thoroughly researched book on British battle tanks since 1945. I identify with it closely, having been intimately involved with the events and tanks described for most of the years from 1952 to 1985; latterly as Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff (Operational Requirements) Land Systems and as a Colonel Commandant Royal Tank Regiment from 1986 to 1992. It was axiomatic that the failures of British tank designs during World War II, of inferior firepower and inadequate armour protection, would not be repeated in any British post-war tank.

This review of the development of our main battle tanks from Centurion to Challenger pinpoints many of our successes and equally some failures. The former explains our achievements in battle, notably in the Gulf; the latter go some way to explaining our poor showing in international competitions and our failure recently to sell our tanks abroad, while the German Leopard 1 and 2 have been sold to numerous nations. By contrast Chieftain, despite its excellent protection, firepower and cross-country mobility, was sold to just six nations, the principal reason being its mechanical unreliability. The inclusion of an untried and inadequately developed horizontally-opposed two-stroke multi-fuel L60 powertrain was disastrous. In August 1968, I was stationed in Germany as Brigade Major of 20 Armoured Brigade. We had three armoured regiments including the recently amalgamated Blues and Royals that was the only one equipped with Chieftain. On their first foray to the Soltau Training Area they suffered the breakdown of 40 tanks in ten days, eventually leaving only three operational. If it was not cylinder liners, piston failure, overheating of the TN12 gearbox or failing air cleaners, it was something as simple as stripping fan belts. In 1972, as the CO of 4 Royal Tank Regiment, I commanded the first Battle Group to train on the extensive BATUS live firing and manoeuvre training area in Canada. The sick joke emerging from the subsequent Medicine Hat exercises was that they were not so much to benefit armoured battle group training as for the REME to refine their sustenance of Chieftain.

A tank must have a balance of protection, firepower and mobility, but none of these qualities matter if it does not also have availability. Mechanical unreliability, as Simon makes clear, has been our Achilles heel for most of the period under review. It was not always so; we produced some 4,423 Centurions in the years 1946 to 1962, with almost half being sold to the USA, Australia, Canada, India, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, New Zealand and most notably Israel. One of the additional features of Simon’s book is his explicit description of how the Centurions sold to Israel were upgraded into their spectacularly successful Shot Cal. In 1973 these tanks enabled the IDF to defeat a Syrian armada on the Golan Heights equipped with some 1,200 Soviet-made main battle tanks, including the latest T-62. Initially there were some 50 Syrian tanks for every Shot Cal and at no stage less than 15 to one. I spent three years in Israel as Defence Attaché immediately after the Yom Kippur War and I can assert with some authority that Simon’s explanation of those extraordinary events is the most comprehensive in print. The IDF enhancement of these Centurions, reminiscent of the Soviet practice of making incremental improvements, is surely worthy of this study.

Fundamental to the IDF success on the battlefield was the standard of gunnery within the Israeli Armoured Corps; a legacy of General Israel Tal. This superiority was in large part due to the superlative L7 105mm gun that was one of Britain’s finest contributions to armoured warfare in the late 20th century. Indeed, the 105mm gun remains in frontline service to this day; some 60 years after its introduction. Another was the development of Chobham armour that has markedly improved survivability of MBTs on the battlefield. The lead engineer on that project was Julian Walker at MVEE whom I had got to know and he impressed me greatly. However, the FV4030/4 Shir 2 did not meet the General Staff Requirement for our new main battle tank, notably in protection and reliability, both being thought to be capable of enhancement. In the event they remained a weakness in Challenger 1 but were solved in Challenger 2. Commercially it would provide employment for the Royal Ordnance Factories which had lost the Shir contract through no fault of their own. There was significant reluctance to abandon years of work on MBT-80 and there was an informal lobby within the Royal Armoured Corps to purchase Leopard 2. We in OR17 and the RAC hierarchy were against the foreign buy for predictable reasons, not least that we would have lost the British L11 120mm rifled gun which optimised a HESH round and had a higher chance of a kill at longer range than the smoothboretype gun fitted to German and American MBTs. The government was against a foreign buy for commercial and ‘national’ reasons. The hitherto time-consuming insistence that we should work with our allies to produce a multi-national tank was mercifully abandoned because the Americans, French and the Germans were now beyond that point in their MBT development cycle. Very significantly the brilliant Master General of the Ordnance, General Sir Hugh Beach, (in effect the military Head of Procurement) could see how a tank based on Shir 2, but heavily modified, could be procured effectively and speedily. The decision was taken in July 1979 to commit to the newly named Challenger programme. Even so, both the Americans and Germans fielded an MBT protected by a variation of Chobham armour before the British Army.

From the 1960s onwards, the Royal Armoured Corps retained its faith in the concept of rifled tank guns in the belief that they could fire a wider range of ammunition than smoothbore weapons. In particular, the British favoured the High Explosive Squash Head (HESH) round that remains a highly effective battlefield HE projectile against troops in the open and under cover; field fortifications; soft-skinnned targets; as well as having a useful capability against AFVs. Here, a Challenger 2 MBT of 1st Royal Tank Regiment engages targets during a Firepower Demonstration on Salisbury Plain in April 2009: the Chinese Eye symbol on the turret side originated in the Great War and became the insignia of 4th Royal Tank Regiment: the regiment commanded by Lt Col (later Maj Gen) Laurence New

One of my lasting memories was the acquisition of thermal imaging or TI for Challenger. Over the years, Royal Tank Regiment has produced several technical geniuses such as Major Ralph Bagnall-Wild who was the guru on gun control systems. In the summer of 1978, we were comparing the GSR for MBT 80 with that for Shir/Challenger. Ralph had by then been lured from the Army by the leading optical manufacturer, Barr & Stroud. One evening we both happened to be at Bovington at HQ DRAC for a planning meeting. At that stage almost all night-vision equipment relied on image-intensification technology and we were committed to that for MBT 80. Ralph asked me to see a project that he was working on; he had set up a demonstration model on the roof of the building to demonstrate his idea of a thermal imager incorporated into the gun sight. It was very impressive, and I recall dragging DRAC out of his office to come up and see it. The cost would be huge but it was so superior that we persuaded DRAC there and then to put his weight behind it. To cut a long story short, once we had come to terms with the likely cost it was included in our stated requirement for Challenger and in due course became the Thermal Observation and Gunnery System or TOGS.

In December 1982, I was promoted to major general and went back to the fraught world of operational requirements as ACGS (OR) and later ACDS (OR) Land Systems. It was said to be one of the most grindingly difficult jobs in the MOD, with a budget that was ever-decreasing and an imposition to talk constantly with our allies, especially the French, Germans and Americans, in the pious belief that we could thereby secure economies of scale. The irony for me personally was that I was confronted inter alia by each of the programmes I had struggled with as Colonel (OR) 17. Challenger was brought into service in 1983 prematurely, following a dangerously brief trials programme and consequently suffered some unreliability problems, compounded by insufficient spares backing. It had a good power-to-weight ratio derived from its Rolls-Royce Condor CV12 TCA turbocharged diesel engine, developing 1,200hp. It also had significant improvement in protection from its Chobham armour. It had the extremely accurate L11A5 rifled gun with an excellent laser rangefinder giving a high first-round chance of a kill with APFSDS ammunition out to well over 3,000m and a very effective HESH round out to 5,000m. During Operation Granby a Challenger destroyed a Russian-built tank at 4,100m. Only 420 Challengers were built and it was phased out of service in 2000.

Its successor Challenger 2 was procured in even fewer numbers, yet it represents the culmination of British tank design, a lineage that stretches from the first Mark Is that lumbered into battle on 15 September 1916 during the battle of the Somme until today. Like its forebear the Centurion, Challenger 2 has combined the essential attributes of any tank – firepower, protection, mobility and reliability – to an exceptional degree. Tragically, it is the last main battle tank to be definitively designed and manufactured to the specific requirements of the British Army. Tragically, because there is no longer a tank industry in the United Kingdom, we are now beholden to foreign suppliers for any future battle tank for our armed forces.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the teams, military and civilian, who have been involved in the hugely complex process of the procurement of AFVs for the British Army. As Simon Dunstan recounts in this splendid history of British battle tanks since World War II, it is testimony to the versatility of those British tank designs that they have more often fought in sand-coloured camouflage than the green-and-black adopted for high-intensity warfare in North West Europe within NATO. Beyond the peculiar circumstances of the Korean War, British post-war tanks have gone to battle in the Suez Canal zone; the Indo-Pakistan wars of 1965 and 1971; the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967, 1973 and the Lebanon; with the Australians in Vietnam; the Iran-Iraq War; in Angola; and the Gulf War of 1991 and Iraq 2003. It is a remarkable record that no other Western tank-producing nation can emulate.

Throughout my military career, there have been repeated clarion calls that the tank is dead due to the emergence of numerous anti-armour weapons, from the bazooka to the attack helicopter. Yet apart from the battle tank, what other weapon system can negotiate broken ground while delivering devastating direct fire in support of other arms while protecting its crew against enemy fire? In the 70 years covered by this history, fewer than a dozen tank crewmen of the Royal Armoured Corps have been killed by enemy action in the tanks described in this impressive book. Should we again be called to take part in another high-intensity all-arms close-quarter battle we shall be reminded most forcefully of the crucial need for such a weapon system. Let us hope it will not be too late.

FEAR NAUGHT

Three generations of British battle tanks thunder down a track at the Long Valley proving ground in 1982, showing the evolutionary development of MBTs from Centurion via Chieftain to Challenger.

CHAPTER 1

CENTURION

PROLOGUE: BLACK BESS ON THE HOOK

The 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards (5 INNIS DG) deployed to Korea in late 1951. As the armoured regiment assigned to the 1st Commonwealth Division, the ‘5th Skins’ replaced the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars who had won lasting fame at the battle of the Imjin River in April 1951. By the time the regiment arrived in Korea, the war had become static with the opposing armies deeply entrenched on barren hills that stretched from coast to coast across the devastated peninsula while protracted political negotiations were conducted to bring an end to the war. In the meantime, hostilities continued, with the tanks positioned on commanding heights to provide direct fire support to the infantry.

In general, a single squadron of tanks supported a brigade of infantry, thus two squadrons were in the line at any one time since the Canadian brigade was supported by its own armoured formation – Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) (2nd Armoured Regiment) equipped with M4A3(76)W HVSS Sherman tanks. The 5th Skins were equipped with the Centurion Mark 3 that had gained an enviable reputation for its hill-climbing abilities and the formidable accuracy of its 20-pdr main armament. During the course of 1952, the regiment conducted a number of armoured raids into enemy territory, but the results rarely justified the expenditure in resources. Thereafter, the tanks remained in their hilltop revetments dominating no-man’s-land by day and providing intimate fire support to infantry fighting patrols at night; often within 25 yards of friendly troops.

On the night of 18/19 November 1952, 4 Troop B Squadron was in support of the 1st Battalion The Black Watch commanded by Lieutenant Colonel David Rose. The troop of four Centurion Mark 3 tanks under the command of Lieutenant Michael Anstice was split into two halves, comprising Callsigns Four and Four Baker together with Four Able and Four Charlie. Both were sited on Point 121 beside C Company, with a fifth tank, Callsign One Dog, capable of firing in support located east of the Samichon River. Behind the troop position were ammunition bunkers and underground ‘hutchies’ or ‘bashas’ to protect the tank crews from artillery fire when not inside their vehicles. The task of the troop was to provide defensive fire on enemy forming-up positions and on the spur feature known as Ronson that was one of the main approach routes to the Hook.

Prior to the battle, it had been established that a tank could be driven to the top of the Hook in daylight but the track was narrow with a precipitous drop to one side

that allowed no room for manoeuvre. In fact, when trying to get his Centurion to the top Lieutenant Anstice shed a track on the difficult terrain and was shelled whilst repairs were undertaken. As Lieutenant Anstice stated: ‘There was doubt as to whether a Centurion tank could manage such a climb on such a narrow track cut into the side of the hill. We tried in daylight, lost a track and retired having replaced the track under shellfire. Exercise over or so we thought.’

In the peculiar circumstances of static warfare in Korea, tanks were perched on the tops of hills to engage enemy positions by day or night in support of the infantry companies on the frontlines.

At 2100hrs, heavy shelling fell on the Hook and the tank positions followed by a ground attack from Ronson and Warsaw against A Company on the summit of the Hook. Using their searchlights, 4 Troop returned fire on Ronson but the smoke of battle was such that no enemy could be seen. Lieutenant Anstice recalled:

On the evening of the 18 November 1952 I was sitting on the turret of my tank BLACK BESS [Callsign Four] enjoying a can of self-heating oxtail soup when the ground erupted all around me. I remember saying ‘This is it!’, jumped inside the tank closing down as I did so. The Chinese barrage was intense and largely directed at us. They feared the Centurion with good reason. We started firing on fixed lines with our secondary armament using the illumination of our searchlights. These lights proved useless in action as they reflected off the smoke from our own guns. It was but a short time before they were destroyed by enemy shellfire as we were hit many times by Chinese artillery with the trackguards and bins shot off.

Trooper Brindley in Callsign Four Charlie recalled:

4 Troop were sitting it out with the Black Watch just behind the skyline in our dugout with a wireless extension from Centurion Four Charlie and we soon realized we were for it. Running the few yards to our tank we survived many mortar bombs bursting among us and we were soon on the move, myself driving with headlights on and still unaware if small arms directed at us was from our lads or the Chinese. We received many Tokyos [direct hits] – just like being in a bell.

Inside Callsign Four the crew were suffering as Lieutenant Anstice continued:

Due to being closed down the fumes in the turret were excessive and the auxiliary generator extraction fan could not cope with the gas generated by both the main armament and coaxial machine gun. I was violently ill and my loader-operator [Trooper Bob ‘Ollie’ Scot] rendered unconscious. I sent for a replacement and Corporal [Peter] Williamson was brought out by jeep from squadron headquarters.

Lance Corporal Peter Williamson takes up the story:

Up till 2100hrs I had been on duty in the Gin Palace [squadron headquarters radio truck]. I knew it was going to be a long night and that I would have to be back on duty by 0100hrs. After a quick drink I hit the sack. I was soon woken and told to report to the squadron leader. He told me the radio-operator in 4 Troop leader’s tank, a Trooper Bob Scott, had been overcome by fumes and that I was to take his place. The squadron leader’s jeep was waiting for me but in my hurry I left my cigarettes behind though I did have my Sten gun. By the time I reached 4 Troop they had finished replenishing and had gone back up the line under the command of the troop sergeant, Sergeant Bob Nunn. Only the troop leader’s tank was there. As soon as I climbed aboard and began firing I could see why Trooper Scot had collapsed. The fumes in the tank were terrible when closed down. The extractor fan was useless and as radio operator I had to stand over the Besa machine gun to put in new belts of ammunition and to clear any stoppages.

A Centurion Mark 3 of 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards is dug-in on the skyline on Point 355 or ‘Little Gibraltar’ with the tracks and suspension protected with earthworks against enemy artillery fire.

Lieutenant Anstice related:

By this time the Chinese had overrun Ronson and Warsaw and were clambering on to Hook. The Black Watch retreated into their tunnels and the divisional artillery decimated the Chinese caught in the open. They were driven off taking their dead and wounded with them.

During the initial clash both the Chinese and Allied artillery were bombarding the Hook; the latter concentrating on the ground between both Ronson and Warsaw and the Hook. The Black Watch had in the meantime gone to ground in a series of tunnels they had dug into the hillsides leading off from their communications trenches: an effective tactic against massed artillery bombardment copied from the Chinese. The heavy fighting continued until approximately 2145hrs when the enemy attacked in great force and occupied the A Company position. At 2150hrs, an Uncle Target was unleashed on the Hook by the complete divisional artillery, supported by American heavy weapons, with devastating effect and the Hook was reported clear of the enemy at 2225hrs. Lieutenant Anstice recalled:

There then ensued a brief lull until the fun started again. We had got through a lot of ammunition and withdrew to replenish. Once again the Chinese attacked from Warsaw and Ronson. There were no longer any outposts to hold up the attack and the enemy were once again on the Hook. It was at this stage in the battle that Colonel Rose asked for a tank to lead a counterattack.

The Black Watch plan was for the tank to climb on to the Hook and then form the centre of a counterattack by A Company along the top of the ridge. The Regimental Signals Officer of the Black Watch, Lieutenant David Arbuthnott, was in charge of all communications within the battalion. He was in direct contact with both the supporting artillery and the tanks:

When you get into battle people like the artillery are vital and we were incredibly lucky with the support we got from them. It was almost instantaneous when you wanted it and able to switch around wherever it was needed and it produced an enormous number of shells on one piece of ground if there’s a crisis. The tanks were used very strangely in Korea. Normally you think of tanks in large numbers dashing across the desert with dust flying. Because it was a completely static war the tanks were used as long-range snipers. They climbed up on to the hills and then with their 20-pdrs which were incredibly accurate, they could shoot straight through the aperture of an observation post. The other thing was they had very powerful searchlights so at night they would switch them on and we could see what was happening in front of us. It wasn’t their kind of war but it was good for us.

The troop leader lodged a protest since the plan seemed highly impractical as Lieutenant Anstice attested:

I had already tried and failed to get up the Hook in the daylight rehearsal losing a track in the process. Tanks are highly vulnerable at night and normally form close leaguers and only sally forth at dawn. They do not drive blind into enemy infantry. I objected to the order [to Major Bill Garnet, OC B Squadron 5 INNIS DG] on the grounds that we probably would fail to reach the objective and would likely be destroyed by infantry. My objection was overruled. It was I who had attempted to reach the top and failed, so it was I who had to try again, but in the dark this time.

BLACK BESS, the mount of Lieutenant Michael Anstice, fires the 20-pdr main armament during a fire mission by day, showing the damage to trackguards wrought by enemy artillery.

At 0110hrs I set off having first handed command of the troop to Sergeant [Bob] Nunn, my troop sergeant. We soon reached the bottom of the path and started to climb. Approximately halfway up my driver, Trooper [Taffy] Lewis, said over the intercom that our way was blocked. Indeed it was by a 15-cwt truck and a Jeep both belonging to the gunner OP. I wirelessed for instructions and was told to drive over them. This we did. The tank felt as though it was trying to climb a wall and then subsided as it crushed the two vehicles completely flat. We continued up the path and reached the top, turning left at the company command post. We started to move forward along the ridge firing our Besa when there was the most almighty flash and a thump heard through my headphones followed by a call from Taffy Lewis that he had been hit. We could not see forward as the mantlet cover had caught fire and to add to our difficulties we were being subjected to heavy machine gun fire.

From the gunner’s seat, Trooper Ron Marks had a restricted view of the battlefield through his sights:

When we got to the top we had to move along a ridge where the Black Watch were dug-in. I think it was the only time that the infantry were pleased to see a tank driving over their trenches – all the while under heavy Chinese fire. I was busy returning fire with the 20-pdr and the coax by the light of the searchlight. We had to be careful not to illuminate the Black Watch. The enemy were so close I was able to see their padded jackets. There were hundreds of them coming up the slopes. The Black Watch must have been absolutely terrified. The Besa jammed twice and Pete had to release it each time but we managed to take out quite a few of them. It jammed a third time so Pete put HE up the spout and tried to clear the machine gun. The next thing I knew there was a blinding flash. I saw flames through my gunner’s sight and heard Taffy groaning and swearing. The searchlight then failed as the flames burnt through the connecting wires. Bearing in mind I was just 19 years old at the time I did not feel any fear at all – that came later. Everything was happening too fast. Over the net I heard the colonel of the Black Watch telling Lieutenant Anstice to turn off the searchlight and he replied ‘The searchlight is out, the tank’s on bloody fire. Wait out!’ Pete Williamson then grabbed a fire extinguisher and opened his hatches to lean out over the turret roof and fight the flames but it was just one of those hand pumped Pyrene extinguishers and while the flames subsided the canvas and lubricating grease for the trunnions was still smouldering. I traversed the turret so that we could get access to the driver’s compartment and Pete dragged Taffy back into the turret with great difficulty because of his size and his wounds. We could only give him basic first aid as Pete had to drive the tank and I had to fire the guns but I couldn’t move the turret as this would have bashed into Taffy.

The Royal Artillery Willys Jeep and Morris Commercial 15-cwt truck that were in the path of BLACK BESS lie crushed on the track up to the Hook position.

Corporal Williamson’s recollections were equally vivid:

When we reached the top of the Hook the Black Watch put in their counterattack. We started firing in support. We got off one belt of Besa and were half way through the second belt when there was a loud explosion. Smoke and flames poured into the turret. The driver Trooper Taffy Lewis started screaming that he had been hit. We had been penetrated by a 3.5-inch bazooka rocket fired at very close range. The gunner Trooper Ron Marks yelled out that we were on fire. My reflex action was to grab a fire extinguisher, open my hatches and climb out. I managed to put out the fire and climbed back in and closed down. Lieutenant Anstice looked across at me and said You crazy bastard there were Chinese all around us and firing at you. Every time I tried to open my hatch the bullets kept pinging off it.

Williamson continued;

Our next concern was to see to Taffy Lewis. Ron Marks traversed the turret round so that it gave me room to drag Taffy into the turret. I did what I could but the boss asked me if I could drive. I told him my second trade was driver so he told me to take over. I scrambled into the driver’s seat. I found Taffy’s headset and though they were wet I put them on. I quickly realized they were wet with blood. The boss came over the intercom and guided me in reverse down the hill.

Lieutenant Anstice remembered the battlefield being bathed in an eerie blue light:

The scene on the Hook was like Dante’s inferno. Chinese infantry were again caught in the open and being subjected not only to our shells but theirs too. We were stuck in the middle of this – immobile and wondering what to do next. The Chinese had witnessed our failed attempt to get a tank up the hill and rightly deduced that we would try again, so sent an ambush party with a 3.5-inch rocket launcher to intercept us. We were hit at point blank range and holed through the glacis plate. Fortunately the rocket failed to burn through the last fraction of an inch and on bursting blew the remaining metal into Trooper Lewis. We pulled Lewis through into the turret where he lay on the floor, his body preventing the turret from traversing. Corporal Williamson scrambled into the driver’s compartment and then with me directing and him driving we reversed all the way back down the track, finishing off the jeep and truck en route.

All the while, the searchlight of Four Able commanded by Sergeant Bob Nunn illuminated their path down the treacherous track. Trooper Brindley in Callsign Four Charlie recalled:

Williamson was driving Four down the hill and poor Taffy Lewis, the driver and my best friend, was badly wounded. At the bottom of the hill there was a long pause while Taffy was evacuated and the battle raged around whilst I cowered lonely behind my episcopes wondering what was going on.

On the day after the battle, B Squadron Second Captain, Captain Bob Walters RTR, inspects BLACK BESS for damage. The bazooka round caused the canvas mantlet cover to catch fire and burnt through the connecting wires of the searchlight above the 20-pdr gun.

Lieutenant Anstice continued:

Mortar fire was still heavy as we stopped outside the Black Watch regimental aid post which was conveniently on the way back to our original action station. Trooper Lewis was a big man lying inert on the turret floor. I have never forgotten the effort for Marks and myself to lift him through the turret hatch and off the tank on to a stretcher. We tried to carry Lewis into the aid post. A loaded military stretcher is normally a four-man job. We dropped Lewis twice as we tried to run through the mortar fire.

Trooper Marks recalled:

We started carrying him to the RAP but dropped him a couple of times. On the second time Taffy got up on his own and said Fuck you, I’m walking! He staggered to the RAP holding his guts in with his hands. He was a strong lad, built like a gorilla and just as hairy.

Once inside the RAP Lieutenant Anstice observed:

The interior of the aid post is an everlasting memory. The yellow light of the hurricane lamps lit shadowy figures moving around inert bodies some covered by blankets with the continual noise of exploding shells outside. It somehow seemed like a scene from the Crimea and not the 20th Century.

The bazooka round strike that severely injured Trooper Fred ‘Taffy’ Jones is visible below the driver’s hatch. Repair was undertaken by inserting a track pin in the hole and cutting it to length with a welded patch on the exterior.

Lance Corporal Williamson remained in the driver’s seat of BLACK BESS:

Once down the hill Lieutenant Anstice stopped me so that he and Ron could get Taffy to the regimental aid post of the Black Watch. I don’t think that they were away for many minutes but to me it felt like hours. There I was sitting in a dark tank, no lights on, engine switched off and Chinese shells still landing near us. The driver’s hatches had been distorted by the bazooka explosion and every time a shell landed nearby they opened slightly and dirt would dribble on me. I cannot describe the relief I felt when I heard Lieutenant Anstice say driver start up.

The troop leader recalled:

We then returned to our original position and continued the battle from our hull down revetments. A relief driver [Trooper Bill Ward] was sent out from squadron headquarters. At about 0800hrs I received a message saying that the Chinese were about to attack again. All four tanks had withdrawn from their fire positions to replenish ammunition and fuel as necessary. The threatened attack never materialised. The extremely brave Chinese bazooka team was found dead the following morning on the Hook battlefield. I like to think we shot them but I shall never know.

Trooper Ron Marks holds aloft a 3.5-inch bazooka hollow charge projectile of the type that hit BLACK BESS. It was found on the body of a dead Chinese infantryman on the day after the battle.

At 0200hrs A Company of the Black Watch again counterattacked and retook the Hook position. Fire support by 4 Troop was severely compromised because the tanks were being silhouetted by a searchlight shining from the rear and as a result they were heavily shelled and mortared. A pause in the battle ensued until the last Chinese attack came at 0450hrs. At first light a counterattack by C Company 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry supported by tanks of B Squadron Lord Strathcona’s Horse finally secured the Hook by 0815hrs. At 0940hrs 4 Troop B Squadron withdrew to their harbour positions after nine hours close engagement with the enemy. Lieutenant Michael Anstice was awarded the Military Cross for his gallantry.

The last word goes to Trooper Ron ‘Groucho’ Marks:

We came off the Hook after three days and three nights without eating properly or getting out of the tanks except to bomb up with ammunition and when we got back, everyone was waiting in line at the mess tent to get breakfast. To a man they stood aside to allow the Centurion crewmen of 4 Troop to walk to the head of the queue.

For the duration of the war, the Hook feature remained the scene of fierce fighting as the peace talks continued in Panmunjon. In May 1953, the Centurion tanks of 2 Troop C Squadron 1st Royal Tank Regiment fought a similarly decisive action in support of 1st Battalion The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment in one of the final actions of the Korean War.

The pennant flown by BLACK BESS during the battle of the Hook is shown on a map of the Hook position with the enemy hill features named and the symbols indicating where the tanks were located in support of the forward infantry companies.

CENTURION DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

During World War II, British tanks were severely compromised by the misguided doctrine of employing three specific types of tanks to conduct armoured operations. Small, fast, light tanks were employed for reconnaissance and scouting. A class of slow, heavily armoured ‘Infantry’ tanks