A rare Canadian tank built during the Second World War and left abandoned in an English field was discovered by a group of British hikers..Members of a team of historians called Destination Discovery hiked through moorlands in the Peak District in northern England though marshy acres that had previously been a military firing range and the abandoned tank now sits in open land..The British hikers hadn’t realize how significant the find was at the time they posted their video on YouTube back in 2020..British historian, Mark Felton, learned of the original video footage and published an updated video revealing the full significance of the war relic in March..According to the video’s description, Felton is “a well-known British historian, the author of 22 non-fiction books, including bestsellers ‘Zero Night’ and ‘Castle of the Eagles’, both currently being developed into movies in Hollywood. In addition to writing, Felton also appears regularly in television documentaries around the world, including on The History Channel, Netflix, National Geographic, Quest, American Heroes Channel and RMC Decouverte.“.Felton warns in the video “due to the amount of unexploded ordinance around, caution is advised” throughout the parkland area surrounding the tank..“This [tank] in particular is a great example of a rare allied tank that should probably be saved for a museum. In Buxton, Derbyshire in the heart of the national park known as the Peak District is a military firing range. There is a scattering of old World War Two buildings on the site and one World War Two tank,” Felton said in the Destination Discovery video..“At first glance, you might identify this as an M4 Sherman, but it’s actually one of the rarer.World War Two tanks — the Ram. And it’s not American, but rather Canadian,” Felton said..A Second World War historian at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Jeff Noakes, also took a close look at the video and confirmed it shows a rare Ram tank — specifically a Ram 2 from the middle of the production run that went from 1941 to 1943, according to a Yahoo News report..“You’ll see on the tank in the video, on either side there are these bulges that come out. In early production Ram tanks, there were actually doors there that could be opened. Later on they got rid of those doors, in part because they were a weak point in the tank’s armour,” Noakes said..Canada built more than 1,900 Ram tanks, and fewer than 30 are still in existence. The Canadian War Museum has one fully restored Ram and is currently renovating another. A few others exist in the UK, the Netherlands and Australia, Noakes said..Archivist and Canadian historian for the 1st Canadian Armoured Carrier Regiment, Bill Miller, who lives in Calgary weighed in on the find..“The thing that struck me first of all in seeing the video is how complete and unmolested this hull is. A lot of the artillery range targets, there’s not a whole lot left of them. This hull is quite restorable, it’s quite intact. The fact that there is still some remnant of track there is just amazing,” Miller said..Miller said he thinks this Ram presents a great opportunity for a complete mechanical restoration and said the Ontario Regiment Museum might make a suitable new home for it..“Not that I am a pessimist by nature, but I have a hunch I will be a very old man one day and the Ram will still be rusting peacefully in a field in England,” he said..Amanda Brown is a reporter with the Western Standard.,.abrown@westernstandardonline.com.,.Twitter: @WS_JournoAmanda
