British Sherman tank Bizerta Sept 1943 IWM NA 6653

The 40th (The King's) Royal Tank Regiment (40 RTR) was an

armoured Armour (Commonwealth English) or armor (American English; see spelling differences) is a covering used to protect an object, individual, or vehicle from physical injury or damage, especially direct contact weapons or projectiles during combat ...

regiment A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, military service, service, or administrative corps, specialisation. In Middle Ages, Medieval Europe, the term "regiment" denoted any large body of l ...

of the

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

from 1938 until 1956. It was part of the

Royal Tank Regiment The Royal Tank Regiment (RTR) is the oldest tank unit in the world, being formed by the British Army in 1916 during the World War I, First World War. Today, it is an Armoured warfare, armoured regiment equipped with Challenger 2 main battle tanks ...

, itself part of the

Royal Armoured Corps The Royal Armoured Corps is the armoured arm of the British Army, that together with the Household Cavalry provides its armour capability, with vehicles such as the Challenger 2 and the Warrior tracked armoured vehicle. It includes most of the Ar ...

. It was originally formed by converting the 7th Battalion,

King's Regiment (Liverpool) The King's Regiment (Liverpool) was one of the oldest line infantry regiments of the British Army, having been formed in 1685 when a single battalion was raised as The Anne, Queen of Great Britain, Princess Anne of Denmark's Regiment of Foot. ...

, a Territorial Army

infantry Infantry, or infantryman are a type of soldier who specialize in ground combat, typically fighting dismounted. Historically the term was used to describe foot soldiers, i.e. those who march and fight on foot. In modern usage, the term broadl ...

battalion A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of up to one thousand soldiers. A battalion is commanded by a lieutenant colonel and subdivided into several Company (military unit), companies, each typically commanded by a Major (rank), ...

that recruited mainly in the Bootle area, to a tank unit. Equipped with

Vickers Valentine The Tank, Infantry, Mk III, Valentine was an infantry tank produced in the United Kingdom during World War II. More than 8,000 Valentines were produced in eleven marks, plus specialised variants, accounting for about a quarter of wartime Britis ...

tanks, the regiment served with the 23rd Armoured Brigade in

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel J.L. Finigan it fought at

El Alamein El Alamein (, ) is a town in the northern Matrouh Governorate of Egypt. Located on the Mediterranean Sea, it lies west of Alexandria and northwest of Cairo. The town is located on the site of the ancient city Antiphrai which was built by th ...

and acquired the nickname "Monty's Foxhounds" during the long pursuit of the

Afrika Korps The German Africa Corps (, ; DAK), commonly known as Afrika Korps, was the German expeditionary force in Africa during the North African campaign of World War II. First sent as a holding force to shore up the Italian defense of its Africa ...

and the Italian Army across Egypt and Libya and into Tunisia. It later served in the Italian Campaign, landing in Sicily in July 1943, and fighting their way up the eastern coast. They were the first of the RTR regiments to arrive in Italy. They then fought their way up the country to the

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

and Gustaf lines and to the

Po valley The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain (, , or ) is a major geographical feature of northern Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of including its Venetian Plain, Venetic extension not actu ...

. They then fought in Greece during the

Greek Civil War The Greek Civil War () took place from 1946 to 1949. The conflict, which erupted shortly after the end of World War II, consisted of a Communism, Communist-led uprising against the established government of the Kingdom of Greece. The rebels decl ...

. The Regiment was placed in suspended animation in mid-1946, and then reconstituted at Liverpool as an armoured regiment of the Territorial Army in 1947. In recognition of its services in North Africa, Vickers Engineering presented Colonel Finigan with a silver model of the Valentine which still serves as a centrepiece when former officers of the Regiment and its successor dine formally together. In 1956, the Regiment amalgamated with the

41st (Oldham) Royal Tank Regiment The 41st (Oldham) Royal Tank Regiment (41 RTR) was an armoured regiment of the British Army from 1938 until 1956. It was part of the Royal Tank Regiment, itself part of the Royal Armoured Corps. It was originally formed before World War II by the ...

to form the

40th/41st Royal Tank Regiment The 40th/41st Royal Tank Regiment (40/41 RTR) was an armoured regiment of the British Army in existence from 1956 until 1967. It was formed in 1956, as part of the reorganisation of the Territorial Army (TA), from the 40th (The King's) Royal Tan ...

References

{{reflist

External links

Royal Tank Regiment 1946-2005
(

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

) 40-040 The King's Royal Tank Regiment King's Regiment (Liverpool) Military units and formations in Lancashire Military units and formations in Liverpool Military units and formations established in 1938 Military units and formations disestablished in 1956