The 11th Royal Tank Regiment (11 RTR) was an

armoured Armour (British 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, or fr ...

regiment A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, service and/or a specialisation. In Medieval Europe, the term "regiment" denoted any large body of front-line soldiers, recruited or conscripted ...

of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

. It is 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 First World War. Today, it is the armoured regiment of the British Army's 12th Armoured Infantry Brigade. Formerly known as th ...

, itself part of the

Royal Armoured Corps The Royal Armoured Corps is the component of the British Army, that together with the Household Cavalry provides its armour capability, with vehicles such as the Challenger 2 Tank and the Scimitar Reconnaissance Vehicle. It includes most of the A ...

History

The 11th Royal Tank Regiment was raised during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in January 1941 and designated for the

Canal Defence Light The Canal Defence Light (CDL) was a British "secret weapon" of the Second World War, based upon the use of a powerful carbon-arc searchlight mounted on a tank. It was intended to be used during night-time attacks, when the light would allow enem ...

(CDL) role in May 1941. The unit trained at

Lowther Castle Lowther Castle is a country house in the historic county of Westmorland, which now forms part of the modern county of Cumbria, England. It has belonged to the Lowther family, latterly the Earls of Lonsdale, since the Middle Ages. It is a fu ...

near Penrith, and was based at

Brougham Hall Brougham Hall is located in the village of Brougham just outside Penrith, Cumbria, England. History The de Burgham family may have held land at Brougham in Edward the Confessor's time and were allowed to keep their position after the Norman Co ...

, Cumberland. It spent 1942 and 1943 in the Middle East without seeing action, returning to the UK in April 1944. 11 RTR formed part of

79th Armoured Division The 79th Armoured Division was a specialist armoured division of the British Army created during the Second World War. The division was created as part of the preparations for the Normandy invasion on 6 June 1944, D-Day. Major-General Percy ...

(aka

Hobart's Funnies Hobart's Funnies is the nickname given to a number of specialist armoured fighting vehicles derived from tanks operated during the Second World War by units of the 79th Armoured Division of the British Army or by specialists from the Royal Eng ...

), equipped initially with CDL (tactical searchlight) tanks. It landed in Normandy on 12 August 1944, seeing no action until 29 September 1944, when it was ordered to transfer all of its equipment to the

42nd 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest c ...

and 49th Royal Tank Regiments, and was retrained to operate the American amphibious LVT-4, known by the British Army as the Buffalo Mark IV. Not long after

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

(6 June 1944) 11 RTR converted to Buffalo (U.S. LVT aka Amtrac), and participated in

Operation Plunder Operation Plunder was a military operation to cross the Rhine on the night of 23 March 1945, launched by the 21st Army Group under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. The crossing of the river was at Rees, Wesel, and south of the river Li ...

, the assault crossing of the

River Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , sourc ...

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

was ferried across the Rhine in a Buffalo from 'C' Squadron 11RTR. In the book "the story of the 79th Armoured Division" created and published by the 79th Armoured Division themselves in 1945, it states that Winston Churchill was transported across the Rhine by 'B' Squadron of 11 Royal Tanks.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Royal Tank Regiment Association

Video of Winston Churchill Crossing The Rhine Moments After Battle
Royal Tank Regiment