I'm bored (for rather obvious reasons). So, I've been looking at historic #EmbarkingtheDDayArmada photos and working out their location. Here's one I've just sussed. đź“·Gosport Society
Originally the only ID for this picture was Portchester, between Portsmouth and Gosport. The indispensable D-Day Then & Now by After the Battle worked out the location as the A27, the photo taken looking west. Crucially they found the same house that's visible in the background.
The tanks, they reasoned, were bound for Portsmouth for embarkation. The problem is that tanks didn't embark from Portsmouth – all armour in this area went via Gosport. But if this photo is looking west, they're heading the wrong way. Plus I wasn't sure about the house...
It's very similar, but not quite right. The old picture shows a bay window and a long pitched roof in front of the chimney, plus a much smaller house in front. none of this matches with the present house.
My instinct was that this photo was taken looking east and the tanks were bound for Gosport. So I started looking on the other side of the road on Google Maps. Not much later and bingo, here's a much better match, with a smaller house in front when viewed from the west.
The roads around here have changed with the dual carriageway, so the road's angle has changed a bit, but you can still see the gentle curve from street view. So now we can safely say these are tanks heading west on the A27, bound for Gosport and France.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/50%C2%B051'00.5%22N+1%C2%B009'05.1%22W/@50.850126,-1.1526419,311m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x0:0x0!7e2!8m2!3d50.8501259!4d-1.1514153?hl=en
Unfortunately, as After the Battle noted, the censor has removed the unit markings. I thought the board on the left might have a loading number, but if it is 225, that number wasn't apparently issued. Can anyone ID the unit? @RobertGlenniePT maybe?
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