Vickers Mark 2 medium tank in India, 1925 (c)

Photograph, India, 1928 (c).

Vickers Mark 2 medium tank standing with hatches open.

Colonel Norman Margrave Dillon (1896-1997), who compiled the album in which this photograph appears, fought with the Tank Corps in France during World War One (1914-1918). In 1925 he sailed to India to join 7 Armoured Car Company at Peshawar. In November 1926, he was posted to Delhi as Tank Technical Officer attached to Army Headquarters.

The British Army Vickers medium tank differed from its World War One predecessors by carrying its main armament in a rotatable turret. The Mark 2 was produced between 1925 and 1934 and saw action on the North West Frontier of India. It was armed with a 3 pounder gun and four machine guns and had a crew of five. By the start of World War Two (1939-1945) it had been replaced by the first of the Cruiser series of tanks but Mark 2s continued to be used for training tank drivers.

From album of photographs compiled by Colonel Norman Margrave Dillon, 1918-1926.