Why the Red Army Rejected British Valentines but Demanded the Canadian Version.

Video Description

Two identical tanks. One frozen solid. One ready for war. Why? In the winter of 1942, Soviet tank crews on the Eastern Front faced a deadly problem. The British-supplied Valentine tanks—vital aid for the Red Army—were freezing into useless blocks of steel when temperatures hit -30°C. Their engines wouldn't start. Their tracks slipped on the ice. They were death traps. But just a few meters away, identical-looking Valentines were roaring to life on the first crank. They fought for weeks without breaking down. They were preferred by every Soviet commander from Stalingrad to Berlin. The difference? A small manufacturing plate that read: "Made in Montreal." In this documentary, we uncover the forgotten story of how a Canadian railway company (CPR) out-engineered the British military establishment. It is a tale of industrial espionage, frozen oil, and the "Angus Shops" engineers who turned a rejected British failure into the most reliable tank on the Eastern Front. IN THIS VIDEO, YOU WILL DISCOVER: The "Cold Start" Mystery: Why British engines seized in Russia while Canadian GMC diesels thrived in the same weather. The Railway Secret: How locomotive engineers applied "prairie winter" standards to armored warfare. The Classified Order: The secret GABTU directive that explicitly banned British Valentines from the front lines while demanding Canadian ones. The 14,000km Journey: The incredibly dangerous "Persian Corridor" route that saved these tanks from U-boats. This is not just a story about tanks. It is a story about how reliability wins wars. 👇 JOIN THE DISCUSSION Did you know Canada built tanks for the Soviet Union? Or that the Red Army preferred them over the British originals? Let us know in the comments! 🔔 SUPPORT THE CHANNEL If you enjoy forgotten stories from World War II, please LIKE and SUBSCRIBE. It helps us keep these histories alive. This documentary draws on multiple reputable sources to tell the full story of the Valentine tank and its role in World War II. The Valentine was a British-designed infantry tank later built in large numbers in Canada at the Angus Shops in Montreal, where over 1,400 units were produced and most were sent to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. Information in this film is informed by historical records and research from Valentine tank (Wikipedia) detailing production and service history, artifact documentation from the Canadian War Museum, the Valentine Tank entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia, the History of the Soviet Valentine Tanks overview of Lend-Lease service, and contextual insight into Canadian wartime production from the CPR Angus Shops page. These sources help explain why Canadian-built Valentines performed so differently from their British-built counterparts and why Soviet forces came to prefer them. Learn more sources below: 🔗 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine_tank 🔗 https://www.warmuseum.ca/collections/artifact/1052394 🔗 https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/valentine-tank 🔗 https://wiki.warthunder.com/271-history-of-the-soviet-valentine-tanks 🔗 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPR_Angus_Shops 🔗 https://picryl.com/ #ValentineTank #WW2History #RedArmy #CanadianHistory #LendLease #Tanks #EasternFront #MilitaryHistory #Documentary #WarStories #AngusShops #SovietUnion