Sherman Crab T147955 “Avalon” Overloon. Regiment? Damage?

[Alex van de Wetering]

Hi David,

Thanks for taking time to share your thoughts!

The Overloon museum opened on may 25th 1946 in the wooded area on the Eastern edge of Overloon, bascially on the original battlefield. "Avalon" was there from the start. In the early days the museum tried to replicate the battlefield as much as possible, with weapons, shrapnel, boxes and vehicle parts littering the area around the vehicles. After a few years the "litter" was put indoors in a museum building and a path was created along the outdoor exhibits.
It seems that at some stage the vehicles were put on proper hardened surfaces, until the early 2000's when all vehicles and guns were put indoors in the new large museum building.

As far as I can tell Avalon and Cookie stayed in approximately the same location from 1946 to the early 2000's. "Approximately", as it seems they did end up a bit closer to eachother.

I presume "Cookie" isn't in the colour picture and the picture with the children, because Cookie is either obscured by Avalon, or it's just outside the frame.
The picture with the children is part of a series all taken at the same date and one also shows "Cookie" with the rurret reversed. These pictures are dated June 13th 1946, so only a few weeks after the museum opened.

The coloured picture is dated 1946/47 and is from a series that also includes the Panther and Cromwell tank, other well known Overloon exhibits.

Attached is an early picture of the museum with scrapnel and ammo boxes littering the museum grounds. On the left you will see "Cookie" with the turret reversed and on the far right you can see "Avalon".
source: NIOD through https://beeldbankwo2.nl

Overloon 1946-3.jpg


Also attached is a picture of Cookie from the same series as the ones with the children sitting on Avalon. June 13th 1946.
source: https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onde...field=overloon

SFA001000748_01.jpg


The third picture shows Cookie with Avalon in the background.....the blurry picture in my ealier post is in fact a section I cut from this picture. This picture is dated May 27th 1946.
source: https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onde...field=overloon

Overloon 1946.jpg



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[Alex van de Wetering]

David,

On all pictures I have seen of Avalon at the museum the right hand track is missing. I presume the track was left in the field where Avalon was knocked out and presumably "borrowed" as spare for another Sherman, or even as armor which seems to be quite common in late 1944/45.

I visited "Broekhuizen" a couple of months ago, and searched for the field where Avalon supposedly was put out of action. It's to the Southwest of Broekhuizen. As you will see from the pictures there isn't much more to see than just a field, but the trees in the background hide the ruines of the Broekhuizen castle, that was in fact destroyed during the battle in 1944.

Broekhuizen2.jpg Broekhuizen3.jpg

Broekhuizen1.jpg

[Alex van de Wetering]

It is a subject I have been wondering about a long time myself. I'll share this thread in the hope that other may be able to come up with archive material from War Diaries or other prime sources.

Yes Hanno, please do! I also put up a thread on the same subject on ww2talk some time ago.

I forgot to add...I did ask the museum about the history of Avalon years ago when we were working on the Conger carrier, but sadly the archive didn't give any answers, apart from 2 more early museum pictures and a small note from a previous repaint job. Sadly the people that were involved in the museum in the early days have since passed away, which means that it's hard to find the background of some of the exhibits in the collection. For instance; we are not sure when the Conger carrier was added to the museum collection, nor where it came from and why it was marked as a "Wasp" in the early days of the museum.

I am not sure who moved the exhibits from the battlefield to the museum grounds in early 1946.....could be a civilian company, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it was the British army as I think they were closely involved when opening the museum.

[Alex van de Wetering]

Here is another picture of the early days of the museum; source: https://www.strijdbewijs.nl/slag/overloon1.htm

it seems the writer on the website assumes it shows the actual battlefield, but in my view this is in fact the museum (Cookie in the background) shortly after it opened.
I seem to remember this picture was also included in a old museumguide, but I can't find it at the moment.

For those interested.....early museum pictures of a number of the vehicles can be found here:
https://studiezaal.erfgoedhuisweert....56693742f4b18c
https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onde...hTerm=overloon

Not WW2 pictures, but to me these are still very interesting pictures as most of the exhibits still carry their original paint and markings.

over020.jpg