Type: Cruiser Tank
Nation: United Kingdom
Period: World War 2
Location: Memorial Pegasus, Benouville, France
The A27L Centaur was one of three competing designs for a successor to the rapidly ageing Cruiser Mk VI Crusader. The other two were A24 Cavalier and A27M Cromwell – the latter would eventually be chosen for production. The „L“ stood for Centaur‘s Liberty engine, while the A27M was powered by the much better Rolls-Royce Meteor. Apart from the engine, a different type of track tensioning system and Cromwell‘s sturdier suspension, the hulls were almost identical.
Standard Centaurs were used for training only, but the Mk IV Close Support version, which was equipped with a 95 mm howitzer, saw combat on D-Day and during the early Normandy campaign. The numbers around the turret were deflection markings, indicating the direction the gun is pointing at – like on the turrets of old World War 1 battleships. And in fact the Close Support tanks were intended to shoot at beach defences directly from the landing craft before coming ashore. The compass-like numbers aided the battery commanders who were located outside the tanks in coordinating fire to their assigned targets.
This particular vehicle landed on Sword Beach as part of the 5th Independent Battery of the Royal Marines Armoured Support Group and provided fire support to the Allied troops until it got knocked out by mortar fire farther inland. Today it watches over the legendary Pegasus Bridge which was moved from the Caen Canal to its current position in 2000. The excellent Memorial Pegasus museum tells the remarkable story of the Anglo-Canadian 6th Airborne Division, Operation Tonga and (of course) the capture of Pegasus and Horsa Bridge by British glider troops in the early hours of D-Day.
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