Image right: A prototype Australian AC1 Sentinel Cruiser Tank Mk I negotiating a gully during trials at the Villawood test track in Sydney, 1942. Courtesy Australian War Memorial
One of the more unusual modes of transport associated with the Strathfield district was the Australian Cruiser Tank, assembled at the Chullora Railway Workshops during World War II.
Wartime workshops at Chullora by Milton Kent, c.1940s. Courtesy State Library of NSW
After the declaration of war, the Australian government was understandably concerned about our own defence. With no tanks available from Britain after Dunkirk, an Australian team, with British leadership, ambitiously embarked on the task of designing a tank to be built in Australia. This coincided with the Australian Army raising an armoured division for service in North Africa and the fear of Japanese invasion.
The NSW Department of Railways was appointed a major assembly contractor for tank production in October 1941.[1] The job was huge as the Australian government required 859 tanks to be produced. At the time, there were few heavy engineering plants in the entire country. A tank assembly shop with a floor area of 70,000 square feet was erected at Chullora while two officers were despatched to the USA to study the latest developments in tank production. British tank expert, Colonel Watson was sent out from the UK at the request of the federal government.
Assembly of Australian tanks at Chullora Workshops, 25 September 1942 by Herbert H. Fishwick. Courtesy Australian War Memorial
Three experimental tanks were produced at the Eveleigh Workshops between January and June 1942 while the Chullora Workshops were still under construction. The first four tanks assembled at Chullora were completed in September 1942.
The tank was also known as the AC1, Mark 1 or ‘Sentinel.’ Two other Mark models were produced, the Mark III ‘Thunderbolt’ and Mark IV.
One of the biggest challenges was sourcing a suitable engine. The solution was to adapt three V8 engines of 1940 Cadillacs into one unit for each tank. Remarkably, the main armoured steel hull of the tank was cast as one large piece.
The whole programme was also hampered by the ongoing modification of components due to changing war requirements.
Each tank was equipped with a two-pounder gun (later replaced with a larger gun) and two machine guns. Tanks were comprised of 20,000 separate components but Australian engineers designed them without rivets after discovering that flying rivets killed troops when shells did not.[2] Its silhouette was three feet lower than the USA’s M3 Grant tanks. Weighing 27 tons, it could reach speeds of 30 miles per hour. It could accommodate a crew of five.
You can read more about its specifications at: https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1576639
‘The first stage in production consisted of the fitting of the floor plates and bogies to the hull casting. From this stage the tank was progressively moved along the assembly line for fitting of brake gear, power unit, electrical equipment, sub-frame, transfer box, gear box, final drive, transmission, turrets, tracks and all equipment necessary for the complete assembly of the tank.’ [3]
On 12 December 1942, a parade of munitions through the streets of Sydney, in aid of the Austerity Loan, featured nine Australian Cruiser tanks, manned by personnel from the Army Inspection Branch.[4] The parade included more than 350 samples of armaments made in Australia and was about five miles long. The parade also featured a captured Italian tank with Libyan sand still inside it, a German troop carrier and a German heavy armoured car.[5] The display remained in the Botanic Gardens for several weeks.
A convoy of Australian-made cruiser tanks built at Chullora in the Mile of Munitions parade, George Street, Sydney, December 1942. Courtesy Australian War Memorial
During January 1943, tanks were put through gruelling field tests. The newspapers reported on their performance.
‘The official account claims that the AC MK 1 tank combines in a manner never previously attempted, or achieved, the automotive characteristics of American tanks with the fighting qualities of the British tank.’ [6]
‘Australia is producing the fastest tanks in the world. Of the cruiser type, they have a greater range of action than any other cruiser weight tank of British or American origin now in Australia. They have multiple petrol engines – the only tank in the world so equipped – and are the first tanks to have a complete armoured hull cast in one piece.’ [7]
However, official reports (not then made public) were more critical, identifying many faults and features requiring improvement.[8]
Australian developed and built Cruiser Mk III Thunderbolt AC3 tank, fitted with a 17-pounder gun in the turret. Courtesy Australian War Memorial
By April 1943, 54 tanks had been completed with seven more almost finished. Production of 200 AC III ‘Thunderbolts’ had commenced with components ordered and 150 hulls cast. But by mid-year, all tank production ceased abruptly when officials decreed that there were more than enough tanks already in service overseas. Factory space at Chullora was instead devoted to machinery for merchant ships, agricultural machinery, locomotives, aircraft and radio components.[9]
About 65 tanks were produced in total, however none ever saw combat, being used instead for home defence, propaganda or training purposes. Some were modified to resemble German tanks in the 1944 movie, The Rats of Tobruk.
From 1943, M3 tanks were imported from the USA.
Military train carrying tanks at Homebush, 7 February 1944. These are not Australian Cruiser tanks but may be American M3 Medium Tanks.
Courtesy Museums of History NSW. NRS-17420-2-45-1770032
In the midst of claims of injudicious planning and wasteful expenditure, The Sydney Morning Herald summed up the situation at the end of the war:
‘The armoured division did not go to North Africa, the Japanese did not land in Australia and the sort of jungle warfare to which the Australian forces found themselves committed did not lend itself to the deployment of massed tanks.’ [10]
‘Primarily, the production of tanks in Australia was stopped because the Australian Army moved in 1942 from the desert to the jungle. It stopped because the Defence Committee, comprising the chiefs-of-staff of the three Services decided, with approval from Allied headquarters, that the strategic needs of the South-west Pacific no longer required the production of such tanks, and that the man-power would be better employed on other work.’ [11]
After the war in March 1946, 62 Australian Cruiser tanks were offered for sale by tender by the Commonwealth Disposals Commission.[12] Each tank had cost about £40,000 to build.[13] However it appears that most of them were later scrapped instead. Surviving AC1 Sentinel tanks are on display in several war museums.[14]
Stay tuned for more transport stories in the Ironbark Gallery’s exhibition Next Stop, Strathfield: Travel Through History from 15 October.
By J.J. MacRitchie
Local Studies Advisor
References
[1] Railways At War: a record of the activities of the New South Wales Government Railways in the Second World War p.52
[2] The Murrumbidgee Irrigator 16 April 1943 p.4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/156034574
[3] Railways At War: a record of the activities of the New South Wales Government Railways in the Second World War p.53
[4] Sydney Morning Herald 9 December 1942 p.6 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/17807980
[5] Sydney Morning Herald 8 December 1942 p.4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/17828253
[6] The Great Southern Herald (Katanning, WA) 20 February 1943 p.1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/146847341
[7] Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate 2 February 1943 p.1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/140442326
[8] National Archives of Australia. Test Instruction number 379 - Tank AC I [Australian cruiser tank] [Includes: Photographs, blue prints, plans, drawings] https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=663589
[9] Daily Mirror 28 October 1943 p.6 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/272435353
[10] Sydney Morning Herald 16 August 1945 p.9 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/17950353
[11] Sydney Morning Herald 15 December 1943 p.6 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17873862
[12] Daily Telegraph 4 March 1946 p.4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/248495513
[13] Maitland Mercury 30 January 1946 p.1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/281230247
[14] Anderson, Thomas. AC 1 Sentinel Cruiser Tank https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/Australia/AC1_Sentinel.php
Further reading
Sydney Morning Herald 28 April 1941 p.9 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17733096
Herald (Melbourne) 22 December 1942 p.4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article245121586
Sydney Morning Herald 23 December 1942 p.6 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17795814
Sun 1 February 1943 p.4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article231747161