That is typical for these kind of projects. I am sure the museum, municipality and local sponsors can work something out. The museum has been given two Sherman tanks (and possibly other artifacts). I have donated parts for one of their restorations. So maybe they can find ways to go the extra mile and give something back to the community.

Great news indeed! This is the opportunity to restore the original markings of the tank, instead of the variety of fanciful markings it has endured ever since it became a memorial. Accurate information about its commander as well as period photos could also be added to the memorial.

Michel

Well, yes. I just mentioned it because it’s not like the whole restoration is already sorted.

You mean the two HVSS Shermans that stand in the museum grounds?

In the phonecall I mentioned, I was also told that the fellow in charge of the restoration asked the Polderhuis museum (very close to the tank, for those who might not know) for help regarding those markings. Apparently, they told him they knew someone to help with that (that is, yours truly) and I affirmed that if he has any questions, he can contact me.

TBH, I had been thinking about this before already, and it’s actually not that straightforward because all the Crab gear has been removed. I think putting the AoS and 79AD markings on the upper corners of the glacis plate would be the best choice, given that other 1 Lothians Crabs had them there as well, even if this particular one did not.

Good you mention that: who was the commander? Sgt. Stead?

Excellent news!

Exactly my thought! Jakko's book will certainly help with that.
I also hope they will replace those front fenders for some originals, or something that looks close to the original.....even a fender with the correct shape, but without the stiffening rib will look much better that the current flat fender.

I agree; the media exposure lately could have a positive effect on that, and I am sure those involved know this all to well.

Alex

Another one that may be of interest here:

Attachment 116695

This is a still from the 1945 British Ministry of Information film Broken Dykes by John Fernhout (credited as John Ferno in the film itself). The first half of it is available at the Beeld en Geluid archive (so is the second half but it contains nothing of interest to this thread). In the black bar across the middle of the page, click the “play” symbol (the square with the triangle in it); the bulldozer can be seen at about 00:43:47:00, but only for a few seconds, and the film doesn’t show anything the still above doesn't.

Anyway, this is the dozer I labelled S55, most likely in late 1944, and it shows markings and other details I had never seen of it, because I’m not aware of any pictures of it taken as close-up as this one.

I’m informed elsewhere that the 344 with a diagonal bar behind it is the AoS marking of 1st Canadian Army engineers, which is slightly confusing to me, unless the bulldozers shipped to Westkapelle were on loan from that? Or perhaps it’s just that I don’t understand how all these units fit together (my interest is much more the vehicles than the units).

Excellent find, which gives us the unit of one of the Westkapelle dozer wrecks!

AoS 344c is 1st Mechanical Equipment Company, Royal Canadian Engineers. See http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/showthread.php?t=4524

Michel

Two wrecks :) The one of which there is a picture when it’s bulldozing in early November 1944, also has this AoS marking on the left rear, just aft of the Allied star. My conclusion is that this is the same bulldozer that ended the war on top of the dyke.

Thanks!

Also, with a bit of luck I may have soon a bit more information on (what is probably) another of the bulldozers at Westkapelle, when I actually get to see some photos from a private collection.

As promised:

Attachment 116834

Attachment 116835

The top one is AVRE T69114/B, the identity of the D6A dozer I’m still not sure about, because I’m having a little trouble placing it. It looks like it’s on the middle of the beach, with the remains of the dyke near the village in the background.

Interestingly, the dozer has a name, The RAM and part of its WD census number is readable. The second digit is gone but must have been a 4, the fourth digit looks like a 9 to me, and the last one perhaps a 1 or maybe a 7? I’ve not really tried tinkering with the colours, contrast etc. on the much higher-resolution scan I have to see if I can make out more, though.

The little boy in both is Martin Reijnhoudt, who I got these photos from; the woman in the top picture is his mother. She and his father ran a bakery, which the AVRE was parked just in front of. Apparently, they moved back in in January 1945, and when British soldiers were using bulldozers around the village (reason unknown), his father paid one of them with a bottle of wine to tow the AVRE away from in front of his shop. The dozer driver hooked a thick steel cable to the tank, started pulling, and only succeeded in removing bricks from the paving of the street before the cable started to fray and broke :)


Edit, a few hours later: The WD-numbers seems to be E2?39?7:

Attachment 116839

So most likely E2439?7 with one digit I can’t make out. There is some stuff visible where the fifth digit should be, but I can’t see a number in those squiggles.

Also, I think I figured out which bulldozer this is: the one I’ve got down as E22 (see my PDF), on the south side of the Gap, a bulldozer I only knew from the Rijkswaterstaat map I posted earlier and very long-distance photos, and of which I had not seen any close-ups at all.

The land in the right background does appear to be the old dyke near the village, with tank wrecks becoming more visible if I play with the colours and contrast in the scan. This fits with sight lines along bulldozer E22, from the south side of the Gap to the northwestern end.

Great photo of 'The RAM' Jakko!

I think it might be your E32, which by the way is a D6A, not a D7A (to be more precise, in your pdf the dozer on your first photo - Dozer 'D' in Hanno's post #64 above- is a D6A, located to the right front side of LVT(4) E23, while the one on the second photo, on the left front side of E23, is a D7A).

They are stuck at a similar angle, the left track is broken on both, the engine cover top plates are missing (not that this is exceptional on dozer wrecks!), and the angles of shot of the photos are compatible. More importantly, it seems that their Reg Nos are both E243xx7 (possibly E243927 or E243957).

It might be worthwhile to get a higher resolution scan from Beeldbank Zeeuwse to see if the Reg No could be read.

I think I can see the remains of AoS 12xx on the right side (left on your photo) of the front plate. This could be 1232 or 1236 for 149 Aslt Pk Sqn, although this unit is not suppposed to have landed any dozer on the right side of the Gap, but it could be another RE unit altogether since many had similar AoS serials.

Michel

I see what you mean, and now I think we’re both wrong in some ways :) I confused E22 and E32 in the photo Hanno also posted; the latter is clearly a D7A, and as you say, I failed to spot that the bulldozer here:

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/at...1&d=1575235944

is a D6A.

However, No. E32 is the D7A with the hooks on the back, and No. E22 is the D6A that I thought I didn’t have any close-up pictures of — but did. More rewriting to do for v1.1 …

I downloaded it at the highest resolution possible from there, which turns out to be 1417 × 855 pixels.

(Tip: Dezoomify, though in Safari, that doesn’t let you save the image, so use another browser).

You have better eyes than I do :)

Let’s add another one: Crab Dandy Dinmont is T148143:

Attachment 116869

This is a still from Walcheren Heroverd (“Walcheren Reconquered”) available on the Wikipedia page about the inundation of Walcheren: the tank appears 1:22. The commentary at that time doesn’t mention the tank at all, BTW, but talks about damaged and destroyed homes instead.

Excellent, great find :thup:

Superb view of DANDY DINMONT's markings! While on other photos the markings are alreay faded, they look quite sharp here.

Reg No T148143 appears in the War Diary for a Crab received by 1 Lothians during March 1944, which is consistent with DANDY DINMONT having a full set of markings, including the original name, turret number and formation sign, unlike "Memorial" tank T148656 which must have been a replacement one.

Michel

I was a little surprised to see the white highlighting on the upper and right sides. I hadn’t expected that to be there, from the few other photos I’ve seen of this tank that actually showed the name.

This image is not even all that early, though: it’s from a cinema newsreel date 4 March 1946, so probably taken weeks or even months before that. Call it at least a year after the landings. The flail is entirely gone from the tank already, and the houses nearby have already been demolished. (And I like how they braced the last remaining house in the row against the tank :)

Talking of Dandy Dinmont and T148656, I suspect this photo may also be new to a lot of people:

Attachment 116875

This is from the German military/popular history magazine, Clausewitz, which got it from some or another image bank that seems to require a subscription. It was certainly new to me, and shows a side of the tanks that I’d never seen in this kind of detail either. (Quality here isn’t great, as I took this photo with my iPad because I didn’t feel like going to my computer and scanner.)

The photo is clearly earlier than the newsreel, as the front wall of the house on the far right of the photo is still standing. However, the flail gear has already been (partially?) removed, as the left-hand jib is on the ground behind the tank.

Great photo again, with a full view of the Memorial tank's rear markings, which will be useful in its restoration!

I wonder what the small marking just under 'CHERRY 6' on the wading trunk might be?

Note that the Memorial tank still has its spare chains on the turret side on this photo.

Michel

And for my model of it :)

I just looked at the photo in the magazine with a strong magnifier, and it’s either too small to read in the print, or it’s simply a line somebody painted under the name. I lean towards the latter, because it seems to be about as thick and even as the strokes that make up the letters. Though it could, of course, also be that somebody used a smaller brush to paint something underneath.

Those were on it for a fair while, but I’ve not yet pinned down when they seem to have been taken out.

Back to the Memorial tank T148656, I am wondering about a marking which appears to be on the transmission housing.

It clearly includes a 5 and a 6:
Attachment 116890

and might have more numbers or letter to the left of '56':
Attachment 116891

I guess it could be its Reg No T148656 or just 148656, because the next sign left of '56' looks like it could be a 6 (next photo), the presence of a 8 before it being possibly the reason for what we see on the first photo above just left of the pairs of chains left of the 56:
Attachment 116892

In summary:
Attachment 116893

I think I have seen examples of the Reg No being painted in large numbers in this location, but naturally I can't find them right now...

Other photos of the front of the tank do not seem to show this marking, that is, on photos where the transmission housing is not obscured by the rounded guard plate between the flail jibs.

Any ideas?

Michel

I must be getting old, because I posted just one such example on this very forum only a couple of days ago :doh::
http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/sh...232#post273232

Michel

From these photos shot while it was still in its (very faded) original livery, it seems that the marking was within the middle casting of the transmission housing only:

Attachment 116897 Attachment 116898

So, if this marking was indeed the WD No. and given the size of the digits, it must have been written in two lines:

148
656

Michel

Talking of Dandy Dinmont and T148656
 

It was new to me too, a local battlefield guide kindly sent me scan of this photo:

Attachment 116899

Now you point this out, I seem to recall noticing it before as well but for some reason not digging deeper into it. Chances are I forgot due to having all kinds of other stuff to figure out as well :(

Luckily you remembered, because I was about to go and find the one posted the other day :)

I’m not sure. In this photo:

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/at...1&d=1603308625

I’m not convinced the character left of the 5 is a 6. It seems to be missing its left-hand side and the remaining part appears too angular to me. I also can’t really make anything of the markings in the 1958 photos, as they’re really just a blur.

On the other hand, I have no idea what else could be painted there that would have the number 56 in it … AoS number 56 seems unlikely, and why would it be on the tank? (A replacement transmission salvaged from another tank is about the only reason I can think of, but see above.)

The 5 is a fair deal larger than the 6, as is most obvious in the photo with all the people posing in front of and on the tank. This seems to suggest it’s hand-painted.

I spent much of the afternoon today at the Polderhuis museum in Westkapelle, looking through photo albums and binders with photos. Here are the more interesting ones I found for the current topic.

Zuidstraat with tanks, from the collection of one J.C. van Winkelen. I don’t think I’ve seen this particular one before, but it caught my eye mainly because the number 10 on the left side of the turret of Wolf of Badenoch is clearly visible here, when it’s usually obscured by the engine deck if the turret’s left side is visible at all:

Attachment 116964

More importantly, it also shows this on the AVRE’s air inlet:

Attachment 116965

Front view of “Cock o’the North”, from Willem D. Passenier, who is also the man in the photo:

Attachment 116967

And that same tank with an unknown woman next to it, again from the J.C. van Winkelen collection:

Attachment 116968

This is very similar to another photo of that same tank, which shows it closer up. That photo was next to it in the binder, but they seem to be two different photos, rather than the other one being a cropped version of this.

A photo I don’t think I’ve ever seen of the tanks at ’t Stort:

Attachment 116970

The front-most Crab from LCT 1005 (the one on the extreme left in the photo above), with some British soldiers on it:

Attachment 116969

This photo comes from one Reg Bennett, who, according to the letter his photos were with, was a member of a British DUKW company that transported supplies from Middelburg to Westkapelle.

The two LVTs that were on the landward side of the remains of the old dyke, with some sand for the new dyke already piled over one of them:

Attachment 116971

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that photo before, but I could never find it again when I was looking for it earlier this year. It’s also from Reg Bennett.

And Willem D. Passenier again, on an LVT that has clearly been stripped of some of its useful bits:

Attachment 116972

I also came across this, in a picture frame:

Attachment 116973

I’m assuming this is from a Chrysler-built Sherman …?

Thanks for these new photos and the beautiful view of the MINOTAUR marking Jakko!

Your pic is a (much) better version than the old Beeldbank.zeeuwse (now digitaal.dezb) FO052990:
Attachment 116978

which confirms that when one can get to the original print (or better still, negative), chances are that many more details will appear than on the often poor scans originally posted. I downloaded this particular photo over 10 years ago, and it has not been updated for a better version since...

If the original pic of Dozer 'D' (FO039987) could also be located, we might find out its WD number and/or other markings.

Michel

Thanks for posting that one — so I had seen it before, but not realised it because of the poor quality! The ladder along the AVRE looked familiar, but because I couldn’t recall a photo that actually shows the 10 on Wolf of Badenoch I thought I hadn’t seen this one before.

I’m not sure where that photo comes from, though. It’s in a binder with what seems to be someone’s collection of photographs relating to the war on Walcheren, and a lot (perhaps even most) photos are in it more than once — as in, two or three identical ones stuffed into a single pocket. I have no idea if he took them himself and printed multiple copies, or if they’re all published photos that he collected doubles of and put into a binder together. No negatives to be seen, but of course, if they were his own photos, chances are he (or his heirs) hung onto those and donated only the prints to the museum.

As for the bulldozer: I didn’t come across that photo in the albums and binders. I did find an original print of this one:

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/at...1&d=1588755954

in a photo album put together by the photographer, and she captioned it as being exactly where I thought it was, so at least that suspicion is confirmed.

I also found an original print of:

Attachment 116986

in an album from the captain of the suction dredger that was used to build the new dyke, who appears to have made that photo. However, something went wrong scanning it, so it’s become far too pixellated to be useful. I’ll have to go back and try again.

Lest we forget
 

Great to see this subject being researched in-depth. I hope to free up time sometime soon to add more to the discussion.

Lest we forget:

Yesterday 76 years ago, the Allies landed on Walcheren island in an effort to free up the Scheldt estuary. Free access to the Scheldt was needed to enable the use of the port of Antwerp to supply the Allied armies. After a series of harsh battles the German Army was rooted out.

Major Wilfed Sendall was one of the soldiers landing at Westkapelle. His words give an insight into how fierce the German response to the landing was: "Most of the Marines landed early in the assault on Normandy and all of them thought that this little D-Day was far more terrifying than the big one".

Today, all that remains is one Sherman tank as a memorial to this small but hard-fought battle. This thread, the Sherman Register FB album, and Jakko's book show most if not all known pictures of the Sherman tanks which landed during Operation Infatuate II.

See this short video about the commemoration in Westkapelle this year:
https://youtu.be/gW5KGVKcxcQ

In related news: the municipality last week decided to budget €75,000 for the tank’s restoration. Earlier, I had been told 20,000 by someone more closely involved than I am, so this is good news, and there was talk of the Army lifting and transporting it — though I also know there have been talks with a local crane company to do that, so which it will be, I don’t know yet. I do intend to be there when that happens, though :)

Jakko.

That is good news!

Do you know if the refurbishment is being considered solely as a ‘standard’ Sherman, or is the plan to reconstruct an acceptable external representation of its wartime Crab entity?

David

Like I said, the museum, municipality and local sponsors will work something out. :thup:

David,

The Sherman will be restored as and where it stands today. In its current configuration it has been part of the memorial since its inception.

Edited to add: First position on the dyke, further behind of the stone and brass memorial. Date: ca. 1960

Attachment 117257