Mr. Greville, all hands:
The U.S. Government in general and the War Department specifically came up
with names through the application of motivational propaganda for U.S.
soldiers and public consumption as a result of the way we entered WW II -
getting out asses kicked because we were not prepared. This was in
consonance with all the other propaganda we put out as bits and pieces of
rallying cries, slogans and names that all on any front, including the home
front could rally around.
This started after WW I and before WW II. Before WW II, you have different
names applied to rifles - "Springfield," "Enfield," "Johnson," "Thompson"
and shortened to "Tommy Gun," and "Garand," - none of which were in the
original War Dept publications. This practice was proliferated throughout
the war and survived when the third generation armor came out at the end of
the war and into Korea. M47/48 and 60 series was the "Patton;" M24 was the
"Chaffee;" M41 was the "Walker Bulldog;" current M2/3 "Bradley;" M26
"Pershing;" M18 "Hellcat;" M7 "Priest;" M551 "Sheridan;" M22 "Locust;" -
all U.S. names that were designated by the War Dept, later Dept of the Army
- the same department that came up with "Mustang" for the P-51;
"Thunderbolt" for the P-47 and "Lightning" for the P-38; "Mitchell" for the
B-25, "LIberator" for the B-24 and "Flying Fortress" for the B-17 - none of
these names, especially the ones from Korea, I do not think that anther
country had anything to do with naming them specifically given the history
of naming conventions employed by the USG and the US military although I
would give the UK credit for coming up with the idea in general given their
history of naming - we simply followed suit.
R. S. Rayfield, Jr.
Maj USMC (Ret)
-----Original Message-----
From: Douglas Greville [mailto:dgrev@ruralnet.net.au]
Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2002 5:45 PM
To: mil-veh@mil-veh.org
Subject: Re: [MV] Stuart v's Stewart THE REAL STORY
Tom
Very interesting, thank you.
> his brief combat history. The US Army honored the Civil War Generals with
> quite a few named tanks, the Stuart (Jeb Stuart), the Lee (General Robert
E.
> Lee - overall commander of southern forces) and of course the Sherman
I disagree. The names were conferred by the British War Department.
The US did not have a habit or history at that point in time of
"naming" armoured vehicles. You will not find names mentioned in
official (eg manuals) or unofficial use.
In US use British
M4 Sherman 1
M3 (light) Stuart (but to the troops = "Honey")
M3 (medium) Lee (US turret) Grant (British turret)
etc
M60 Never used by the British, so never named.
M113 Ditto
M114 Ditto
There has over time been sporadic attempts by the US to name vehicles
but due to the "M" number system it has never taken off.
eg M1 Abrams
Note that it is quite similar with the US Air Force they too used
number designators.
US British
P-51 Mustang
P-40 Kittyhawk
Although the British do have number designators, especially in the
pre-war and war years, the system was such a dog's breakfast that
only burocrats bothered. I believe the whole issue came to a head
one day when Winston Churchill couldn't figure out which Cruiser
tank was which (A series) and decreed names would be used. This is
where the British got stuck on the letter "C" for the names of
Tanks produced in Britian. I has been the case ever since.
The latest is Challenger. They are now actually recycling names
as they have run out of realistic names. Bit like the US has run out
of "M" numbers and started again at M1.
Regards
Doug
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Armoured Vehicles Collector
_______
_/_(_o_)_\_ ____
_/|___|_|___|\_ /____\
/ [___] [___] \ Douglas Greville _/[o]___\_
/\_ [o] [o] _/\ Broken Hill __/=_|____|_=\__
|w||___________||w| N.S.W. /__\__________/__\
|w|\u u/|w| Australia |w| \ / |w|
|w| \_________/ |w| |w|$ \______/ $|w|
[w] [w] [w] [w]
M8 Ferret
dgrev@ruralnet.net.au
Web Armour site at:
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Feb 06 2002 - 11:49:35 PST