U.S. Light Tank, M24 entered production in 1943 with Cadillac and Massey-Harris with the tractor firm making 1,139 at its Racine, Wisconsin facility (a former Nash-Kelvinator plant!) and another 3,592 hulls coming direct from Cadillac’s Detroit factory, with lots of sub-components supplied by Oldsmobile.
They were an excellent light tank for the era, hitting the scales at 20 tons (which was still much larger than a 15-ton circa 1941 M3 Stuart that it would doctrinally replace) while carrying an effective 75mm M6 main gun, up to 38mm of armor (which was actually lighter in spots than the Stuart but better than nothing) and could hit speeds of up to 35 mph on good roads and with good tracks/wheels.
Fort Hood, a good example in size between an M24 Chaffee light tank, M4A3E8 Easy Eight Sherman medium tank, and M26 Pershing heavy tank, all shown with deep wading equipment
It came rather late to WWII and only started reaching the ETO in November 1944, not making much of a difference. In U.S. service, however, it did see much more action in the first days of Korea, as we have covered in the past.
Where the M-24 really shined, in terms of military history, is in rebuilding Allied tank forces post-war, and it saw something like 28 different operators including Norway who used them until the end of the Cold War, only retiring their Cadillac-Massey light tanks in 1993!
NM-116: Norwegian M24 Chaffe repurposed as a tank destroyer
In fact, that is where the “Chaffee” designation comes from on the tank, issued by the British who were fond of naming Lend-Leased Yank tanks for generals.
However, while countries as wide-reaching as Ethiopia, Chile, and Denmark would use the humble little Chaffee, no one used as many as the French, who picked up no less than 1,250 M-24s in the late 1940s to early 1950s– a full one out of every four built.
These tanks saw lots of serious use in Indochina from 1947-54 in French hands, where the small (compared to a main battle tank) was ideal from primitive roads and bridges.
26 March 1951 Indochine française. French and Vietnamese soldiers catching a ride on the M24 Chaffee “Metz”. Réf. : TONK 51-37C R13 Guy Defives; Paul Corcuff/ECPAD/Defence
Ten were even flown, disassembled into components, into Dien Bien Phu where they served as mobile artillery for the embattled garrison, reportedly firing in excess of 15,000 shells during the siege.
French Foreign Legionnaires working on US-supplied M24 Chaffee tanks at Dien Bien Phu in Indochina. They would suffer repeated massed bazooka and recoilless rifle attacks and somehow endure.
Once the French left, the NVA and ARVN had so many third-hand Chaffees inherited that they continued to use them well into the 1960s, with the South Vietnamese replacing theirs with U.S.-supplied M-41A3 Walker Bulldogs and Uncle Ho’s tankers graduating to Soviet-supplied PT-76 light tanks with the latter first seeing combat against the Lang Vei Special Forces camp on 6/7 February 1968.
Two M24 Chaffee tanks of the People’s Army of Vietnam, which had been captured from French forces, at a military parade in Hanoi, 1955.
M24 Chaffee light tanks of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) prior to the commencement of operations in the Iron Triangle, Oct 1965. Binh Duong Province, Ben Cat. Tom Gosper photo via the AWM. P11006.017
The ARVN also transferred many semi-working M24s to the VNAF, the South Vietnamese airforce, for use in static roles by their local security police, which continued well into the 1970s.
M24 Chaffee of the VNAF (South Vietnamese Air Force) guards Tan Son Nhut in Saigon.
Some fought to the bitter end, pressed into service in a losing battle against impossible odds.
M41 Bulldog and M24 Chaffee light tanks of the ARVN after being destroyed by North Vietnamese T-54 on the outskirts of Saigon, during the 1975 Spring Offensive
As for the French, they kept a few M-24s in their inventory where some saw combat in Algeria as late as 1962, but by that time had moved to replace them with more than 3,500 domestically-produced air-portable AMX-13, which remained in service with the Republic into the 1980s and is still seen in many third world environments as another 3,500 were exported to French allies– a true successor for the M24.