Service
Production started in mid 1943 and the Archer entered service in October 1944. It was used in North-West Europe and (in 1945) in Italy. By the end of the war, 655 of them had been produced. The Archer was classified as a self-propelled anti-tank gun and as such was operated by the Royal Artillery (RA) rather than by Royal Armoured Corps units - as were British 3in SP, Wolverine and 17pdr SP. Achilles - during the war.
Post war the Archer served with the Egyptian Army. Surviving vehicles are preserved at the Yad la-Shiryon Museum in Israel, National War and Resistance Museum, Overloon in the Netherlands, and the Bovington Tank Museum in the UK.
Read more about this topic: Archer (tank Destroyer)
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“We could not help being struck by the seeming, though innocent, indifference of Nature to these men’s necessities, while elsewhere she was equally serving others. Like a true benefactress, the secret of her service is unchangeableness. Thus is the busiest merchant, though within sight of his Lowell, put to pilgrim’s shifts, and soon comes to staff and scrip and scallop-shell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the early forties and fifties almost everybody “had about enough to live on,” and young ladies dressed well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, which did service for several years. Display was considered vulgar. Now, alas! only Queen Victoria dares to go shabby.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“You had to face your ends when young
‘Twas wine or women, or some curse
But never made a poorer song
That you might have a heavier purse,
Nor gave loud service to a cause
That you might have a troop of friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)