Now don’t get me wrong, I know that the star of the movie is “Lullabelle” a M3 Lee, but in the beginning scenes of the movie is an early M4 Sherman, that had some interesting aspects. This is the tank that Bogart is retrieving parts from to fix “Lullabelle”. From what I can see its an early M4 with a cast hull. The hull has a hatch located just to the right rear of the turret. This is not a vent port, but either an escape hatch or something similar for the crew in the main hull.
Does anyone know which version of the Sherman it was? This would probably be a M4A1 (Sherman II) because of the cast hull.
It could be a Lee with a cast hull, I couldn’t tell well from the positionof the tank in the scene. I’ll check my refernces when I get home. The differences on the Lees and the early Shermans is hard from looking at the back deck.
I just found a picture showing the M3A1 with that hatch, yep!, that’s the one. These were used primarily in the states for training purposes if my information is correct.
