Operation Infatuate II: Sherman tanks at Westkapelle

[Jakko Westerbeke]

Two more photos I don’t think I’ve ever seen:

00003248.jpg 00003226.jpg

The first one is T148656 sometime in the late 1950s, after it had been stripped of anything that was loose and the scrap merchants’ torches cut off some of the rest of it. The other looks very similar to other photos of the tanks left in the village (of course) but not quite the same as the others I’ve seen.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Nice finds, Jakko!

[Jakko Westerbeke]

I also have a printout from the Polderhuis with more photos of the tanks that I’ve never seen, taken in 1945 according to the text on it. It appears to have been made using scans of the original pictures, but the question is: Where are those scans? Possibly on some hard drive at the museum that nobody remembers is there anymore …

[MicS]

Originally Posted by Jakko Westerbeke

Two more photos I don’t think I’ve ever seen:

Attachment 139019 Attachment 139020

The first one is T148656 sometime in the late 1950s, after it had been stripped of anything that was loose and the scrap merchants’ torches cut off some of the rest of it. The other looks very similar to other photos of the tanks left in the village (of course) but not quite the same as the others I’ve seen.

The first one is totally new to me. The second one (AVRE A3) is from the same negative as FO039991, only slightly differently cropped:

Street view - AVRE A3, No.10 Gun tank, No.M Crab (left); Gun tank '6 CHERRY', No.22 Crab (right).jpg

Michel

[Jakko Westerbeke]

You’re right, it is the same after all. I thought it was different because most versions of it you see are dark, like the one you posted.

Let me make quick scans of the print-outs of the other photos I mentioned …

Photos 50-51.jpeg

Photo 53.jpeg

Photos 57-59.jpeg

Photo 60.jpeg

These are (from the caption on the paper) all photographs by one Jan Reinder Fijn, that he took when visiting Westkapelle in 1945. But like I said: I have no idea where the scans that these are print-outs from, have disappeared to

[MicS]

Yes, finding the scans would be nice. Finding the original negatives would be even nicer (and even less likely alas!).


My hope is that one day a photo surfaces that shows at least a few letters of Crab No.27's name...

[Jakko Westerbeke]

It might be worth trying to track down the heirs of Mr. Fijn to see if they still have those negatives … Too bad he didn’t get close to the tanks in the sea to take pictures of them, though, else he might have captured the name of No. 27 too.