Vanderbijl’s first WW2 tank

South Africa is home to the largest British Crusader Mk2 tanks in the world with some 15 on display in museums or as memorials, making “Margaret” an important tourist attraction in the Vaal Triangle as part of our military heritage. During World War 2 some 25 Crusaders were delivered to South Africa and used by the then Union Defense Force to train tank crews before they deployed to North Africa, Sicily and Italy. After the war, the tanks were stored at the 81st Technical Stores Depot at Lyttelton, Pretoria. Later they were lent to museums and army bases as static displays or gate guards. The Crusader entered production in 1939 and was ready by March 1940. Although too late to deploy to France, they were quickly shipped to Egypt and used in the early part of the desert war against Italian and later German forces in North Africa. The Crusader Mk2 is armed with a QF 2 pounder (40mm) anti-tank gun that could penetrate the Italian tanks it faced. It was equipped with a coaxial BESA 7.92mm machine gun. The tank has a road range of 160km, a maximum road speed of 43 km/h which is made possible by a Nuffield Liberty 12-cylinder water-cooled inline petrol engine which produces 340 bhp@1500 rpm. The Crusader Mk2 frontal glacis provided an effective thickness of 49mm. For more information on the tank visit the SA Armour Museum home page by scanning the QR code with your cellphone.

Article by Dr. Dewald Venter, Tourism Management lecturer at the Vaal University of Technology.