Interesting find - modified Valentine tank

Stafford · Dec 8, 2020

In the last couple of days my work took me up to the wheatbelt north of Perth, a fair distance from my home stomping ground of Kalgoorlie, taking a drill rig to a mine site up there. Around dusk on the way up I spotted this off to the side of the road, the unmistakable valentine wheel setup immediately caught my attention, and I resolved to stop and have a look at it on the way home.

Unfortunately by the time I got there next day it was early afternoon and a blazing sun was not good for taking pictures, nevertheless, here is what I snapped:

Meat Grinder · Dec 8, 2020

Very cool!

Concord · Dec 9, 2020

Wow! I wonder how 'Mockie' got his hands on it? I assume it saw action, because of the crew 'Roll of Honour'. Eight names are listed, and the Valentine had a crew of only 3 (4 for later versions).
Pre-metric days. Speed 15 M.P.H. (24 km/hr). Pretty damn slow for a combat tank (the Sherman's top speed was double that).
If you had a mechanical problem, it would have been difficult to get parts (pop down to Tanks-R-Us?).

They must have removed part of the upper hull, because the driver's compartment was well forward, and covered.

Interesting! Thanks for sharing @Stafford.

Stafford · Dec 9, 2020

A lot of army stuff was sold off after the war, it actually wasn't too unusual for farmers to buy tanks to use as tractors - most of them have simply rusted away or been scrapped in the meantime. There are very likely to be others mouldering away in barns covered in dust and chicken shit. I know when the tank museum was restoring their Matilda II they got several parts and a bunch of advice from a bloke here in Australia who had several Matildas, as part of his story (IIRC) he said the first Matilda he aquired was from a farmer using it in much the same way.

When you think about it these slow tanks would have done quite well as stand in 'tractors', they're heavy even once most of the armour is removed, their engines might seem anaemic by todays standards but 165 HP (and probably a LOT of torque, or well down geared) would have done just fine for ploughing during the late 40s and 50s.
Valentines were pretty tough for an early war tank too, 60mm armour all round IIRC, so sort of like a mini-churchill.

I don't think the roll of honour actually has anything to do with the tank, they just stuck it here because it was as good a place as any. Maya isn't really even a one horse town, there's literally nothing there except the grain collection point and the truck parking bay.

Gnarly · Dec 9, 2020

Stafford said:
I don't think the roll of honour actually has anything to do with the tank, they just stuck it here because it was as good a place as any. Maya isn't really even a one horse town, there's literally nothing there except the grain collection point and the truck parking bay.

Agreed. These would have ben the WW2 casualties from the Maya population (http://visitperenjori.com.au/home/surrounding-townsites/maya/):