10th Armoured Brigade (United Kingdom)
| 10th Armoured Brigade 10th Tank Brigade |
|
|---|---|
| Active | 1941–1943 |
| Country |
 United Kingdom
|
| Branch |
 Territorial Army
|
| Type | Armoured (later Tank) Brigade |
| Role | Training |
| Size | 3 Armoured regiments |
| Anniversaries | Minden (1 Augustl) |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders |
Brigadier Philip Bowden-Smith |
The 10th Armoured Brigade was a short-lived armoured brigade of the British Army in World War II. It had been converted in November 1941 from infantry battalions, but had never seen action and was disbanded in late 1943.
The 10th Armoured Brigade came into existence on 1 November 1941 when 125th Infantry Brigade based at Barnard Castle was converted to the armoured role. The brigade had fought in the Battle of France and were evacuated from Dunkirk with 42nd (East Lancashire) Infantry Division, which was being converted to an armoured division, the 42nd Armoured Division. The brigade comprised three battalions of the Lancashire Fusiliers, two of them (1/5th and 1/6th) Territorial and one raised for war service, which were all converted to regiments of the Royal Armoured Corps (RAC), and a motor battalion was added. The brigade commander, Brigadier Philip Bowden-Smith, was a cavalryman (and former Olympic Equestrian) who had taken command of the 125th Brigade in September 1941, shortly before it was converted. He commanded 10th Armoured for almost its entire service.
10th Armoured Brigade was constituted as follows:
The following officers commanded 10th Armoured/Tank Brigade during the war:
Four days after the official conversion, 10th Armoured Brigade received its first equipment. The War Diary records: 'The first two tanks arrived, two Vickers Medium tanks dated 1923 and 1924. These were not in going order, and were practically useless'. The brigade got its first cruiser tanks – four Covenanters – on 1 December, and over the next two years received a trickle of widely varied tanks, including Cruiser Mk I, Cruiser Mk II, Cruiser Mk IIa, Covenanter and Crusader cruiser tanks, Valentine and Churchill infantry tanks, and later some Sherman Vs.
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