Back in Action 77 years later...

[jdmcm]

Thought I would share a couple pictures of our M4A3 we rescued from the Utah desert back in 2011...Will get around to a bit more of an in-depth thread on the tank later...but for now she is back in action and still fighting the Nazi's all these years later

Attachment 105600 Attachment 105601

[Jesse Browning]

That’s awesome! Good job!

[Jesse Browning]

Good to see the Canadian trademark extra track. Now you need a section or two of Matilda track, or maybe even some Tiger track.

[jdmcm]

This is how we found her, she spent 30 some odd years on a US Army firing range

[jdmcm]

Jesse we have been pretty lucky with spare track but alas no Tiger or Matilda, I was working off one of my favorite pictures which I have included here, and to be clear this is not my photo, it is from the internet and I have no idea who to credit it with.

John

[AndrewSchaefer]

Incredible save!! Awesome

[Jesse Browning]

The museum in Huntsville Alabama had a bunch of Sherman steel chevron track that had been burned. Th last time I was there.

[Stew Robertson]

Nice set of boogies John

[Bob Carriere]

....I can just imagine the number of welding rods expended to fill all those holes.....

FANTASTIC.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

John,

From a range wreck to a fully operational Sherman - I amazed by the transformation.
Well done on saving this piece of history!

Regards,
Hanno

[Wayne Hingley]

Great job John! Nice to see another successful project.

[Luke R]

Awesome job John!
I don't suppose you happen to have any photos of the restoration process you are willing to post?

[rob love]

To simply show a before and after photo in no way does justice to the amount of effort that must have gone into a project like this. Congratulations.

[James P]

Bravo for the work done turning a range wreak/target back to a fine example of a M4

[jdmcm]

Thanks for all the accolades guys, but we certainly haven't transformed it into a museum quality show piece, we replaced the sections of hull that were completely destroyed or caved in beyond repair..which was a lot of it, plus the turret roof had something substantial hit it. We got the tank along with the Sherman Jumbo and we stripped all the interior fittings and brackets and linkage for use on the Jumbo Sherman, which is intended to be a proper nut and bolt restoration. The fellow we bought it from said once we stripped what we need we should scrap it...but that wasn't going to happen! We have left a lot of the damage as is, but in the interest of full disclosure none of it is actual battle damage, the tank was a training tank and never left the USA during the war, post war it was sent to the national guard and then finally to the range...see the photos below provided by Leife Hulbert via Joe Demarco and eventually Pierre-Olivier Baun showing the tank in active service with the national guard in the USA. Joe was able to match the USA registration number to our serial number, not a Pacific or ETO picture but still pretty cool to see it "before"