In April 2016, the Australian government entered into a very weird contract with the French company, DCNS to convert DCNS’s nuclear powered submarine model into diesel powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy. DCNS had to know that even if they were able to get a submarine that had been designed as a nuclear powered submarine into a working diesel powered submarine the results would most likely be pitiful. The Australian government experts who went with this French submarine really had to know that too. 

It would have been easier for Australia to buy a tank and convert it into a jet fighter.

 So you have to marvel at how, in November 1940 during the dark days of World War II when it looked like Hitler had won the war, that Australia, which didn’t even have a car industry back in the day, decided to design and build a tank. It turned out to be one of the best tanks in the world at that time. This incredible, successful, story is told for the first time in a book written by Cairns’ own, Jason Belgrave at the Australian Armour and Artillery Museum at Smithfield. And I have him here with me for this and the next two programmes to tell us about his book and this amazing story of the Australian tank called the Sentinel.

Tag words: Jason Belgrave; Australian Cruiser Tank; Sentinel; Colonel William Douglas; Tiger Moth; Wirraway; Australian Armour and Artillery Museum;