Landships II

Centurion, 

Thanks for opening the new thread.  I think this topic is worthy of discussion and the Old Bill thread was getting a bit confused.

Perhaps I should recap where I think we are?  My contention is that there is one Mk IV Male that carried its name "Egbert" on the hull front, and on both sides of the hull on the front horns.  This tank also carries the Home Forces or training number 141 on both horns.  The tank displays battle damage in the form of a pierced front plate (the same plate where the name is painted), and in damage low on the front of the left hand (or port) sponson.  There is also damage to the driver's visor.  This tank was used to visit towns as a focus for the local sale of War Bonds.

As I understand it, there is an alternative view that there were a number of different Mark IV Male tanks known as Egbert helping to sell War Bonds.  (Please correct me if I'm wrong).  The issue here is whether the tanks had the same battle damage and were therefore the same tank, or whether there were different tanks. 

Before I contribute further to this thread, could I just check that this is a fair statement of the position?    

1. Doesn't effect the overall shape of the hole in 3 and 4 which is different from the other two photos
2. Yes I noticed the lines but even if you remove this we still get different holes. giving the datings it would have been removed and later put back if these are all the same tank
3. Please re read my earlier analysis of the visor damage - they are not the same.

Perhaps the best way of resolving this would be to contact Bovington and asking them how many touring/presentation male tanks had battle damage.

Thanks for the reasoned reply Gwyn.  I dont have too much argument with most of what you say but I wouldnt put it in terms of alternative hypotheses. At the risk of sounding like an ex US state secretary let us look at what we know and can agree on, what seems probable and what we know we dont know.

 

1 There were a number of touring tanks (Julian, Egbert, Drake , Old Bill etc) used for raising funds and other promotions.

2. These were all male Mk IVs and bore home service numbers in the 100 range. These numbers are known so I wont repeat them here.

3. There are a number of photos of various touring tanks with their numbers prominent on the front horns. Normal practice for tanks of the period was for the number to be on both sides. Certainly Drake can be shown from photos to have had its number on each side and it would seem reasonable to assume that this applied to the other touring tanks including Egbert. I would refer to these generically as the numbered tourers

4. Publicity for visits was widely distributed well in advance with the tank that was to visit a particular town being named in the fliers and other handouts. Examples of these still exist as do announcements published in the local press

5. There is photographic evidence that sometimes the tank that was named in the local press as making the visit was not actually the one that turned up. This is clearly shown in an account and photo of the tank visit to Hartleypool where the tank is named in the council records as Julian but the tank in the photo bears Drakes number. The reason for the mild deception might have included a transport hitch, the tank due to visit suffering some mechanical breakdown, scheduling problems or just a mistake on the part of the advanced publicity. If the vehicle that turned up didnt actually have a name on it the locals would almost certainly be unaware of the switch.

6. Egbert exhibited some battle damage including a hole in the front plate and damage to the drivers visor

I hope we can all agree on the above. Now we enter the area for discussion. These are a number of photos of a touring tank (or tanks?) that does not appear to have a number of the port side. These are all said or inferred to be of Egbert. However there is at least one photo of Egbert (possibly two if the number is indeed on the Luton photo is it possible to see a scan of the section of the large print?). This would imply that any touring tank without a number on the port side is not the real Egbert (and is possibly a stand in) or that the number has been painted out (but why?). Given the dates of the various shots this would probably mean that the number was concealed and later painted back in (again why?). My own view is that this is highly improbable. However the tank (s) in question do have a hole in the front plate and a damaged visor. Unfortunately the only photo I know of that has a clear view of the hole and possibly a number on the port side is the Luton shot. Damage in the same location is not necessarily the same damage and I have been trying to compare the various holes, damaged visors etc. I would suggest that they are not all the same but that the hole in the Pontefract and Doncaster Egberts is the same. Both of these appear not to be numbered tourers and were exhibited in towns reasonably close, with a rail link and in within a short space of time. My contention would be that these were stand ins for Egbert (just like an understudy when the star cant make it) and might conceivably have been selected for the job because of a general similarity in the damage.

Yes I'd already gathered and acknowledged your point but as I said even if correct (and I'm not convinced that the  area that looks like the cats tail is the lug on the tank front and not a hole where it used to be but leave that aside) then the hole is still different in shape from that in pictures 1 & 2 but looks very like that in 4.

If you are saying that the pictures are not distict enough to tell if the holes are different then it must be equally impossible to tell if they are the same.

Darlington in Yorkshire! I'm afraid that your geography is sadly awry as it's in County Durham and way way north of Pontefract. Indeed it's closer to Hartlepool where Julian was supposed to go but didn't. Harrogate and Halifax are indeed in Yorkshire and in those days a different riding to Pontfract and Doncaster which are in South Yorkshire (ie effectively a different county and a long way apart). The assumption that they would all be in the same leg of a tour I'm afraid does not hold water. There is no reason why a visit to Pontefract should have been in March on this reasoning.  I wouldn't call South Wales exactly the other end of the country (perhaps the other side) and 'on to Bedfordshire' makes no real sense. Indeed if one plots the travels of Egbert  they appear to be logistically very odd as indeed were the travels of Julian. I think it would be unwise to try to determine dates in this way.

I'd be interested to hear your reasoning why Egbert would be un numbered at a time when all the other touring tanks had numbers. And why a number would be painted on part way through the tour. All the tanks, including Egbert,  started off from a parade and tank week in London and its seems very odd that Egbert would not be numbered at this time when photos of some of the other tourers at the time have numbers.

Egbert was certainly refered to at the time as 'battle scarred'

Lastly we still have the problem of the different shaped holes.

-- Edited by Centurion at 01:09, 2007-04-03

I've started putting all my info about which tank visited where and when on a spread sheet. Early days but already one major oddity - The Northern Echo reported the visit of 'Egbert' to county Durham in Jan 1918 in some detail (towns visited , amounts raised etc) where Durhan City, Darlington, Bishop Aukland and some small town in South Durham were visited, a week being spent at each major location - so far so good but then Lancashire papers reported 'Egbert' as spending a week in Preston in January 1918 and also in Blackburn for a week! This would require the same tank to be in two places at the same time! There is a photo of a tank in Preston but from the angle it is not possible to identify which one it was.

-- Edited by Centurion at 13:06, 2007-04-03

Centurion,

Wow! What a response!

My point is not that all visits to Yorkshire (or other northern counties) took place in March 1918. The vital point is that in my opinion the photographs of the unnumbered Egbert were taken before the photographs of the numbered Egbert, and I deduce from this that Egbert was painted with the numbers part way through the tour. You ask me to propose a reason why this might be. Well, I am quite confident that on 22 October 1917, about the time when I think training numbers began to be applied in the UK, Egbert was sitting in Central Workshops in France. I don't know when Egbert was shipped back to the UK, though certainly by December, but perhaps its arrival coincided with an urgent need for a Male tank for fund raising duties and Egbert fitted the bill. It was only on its return from the north that the man with the paint pot and the list of numbers caught up with it.

I have said all along that this is a theory. If you can prove me wrong that's fine because it will add to our common knowledge. However, I hold to it because it is simple and mundane, and therefore a good deal more reasonable than your notion of a number of similarly damaged tanks following each other around the country in case one breaks down. This, I might add, is a view held despite the lack of any corroborative evidence, such as a photograph of two tanks together on a train, for instance. According to my information, the visits to Blackburn and Preston were in different weeks. So, the only evidence you have thus far produced is a contentious analysis of jpeg files, and here you have already had to concede that you can't say the holes are definitely different or definitely identical.

I may not be able to prove my interpretation, but it is reasonable and fits the evidence.

In the absence of further facts, I rest my case.

The sponson damage is also partially visible on the photo posted by Gwyn in the Old Bill thread, page 1. The damage is visible below the feet of the man seated at the front of the sponson.

Gwyn Evans wrote:

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...I hold to it because it is simple and mundane, and therefore a good deal more reasonable than your notion of a number of similarly damaged tanks following each other around the country in case one breaks down. This, I might add, is a view held despite the lack of any corroborative evidence, such as a photograph of two tanks together on a train, for instance...

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Indeed, this is the curious part. Where was the "other" Egbert housed while the "real" Egbert went about it's business? A Mk IV on a rail wagon is not easily concealed even under a tarpaulin.
Why was no mention made of the train arriving with 2 or more tanks for a Tank Bank visit?
It would seem fortuitous that Egbert did not once break down on his tours, forcing the "other" Egbert to play his part, seeing as how frail he must have been to need an understudy. If there was another similarly damaged tank, which one was it and what happened to it? Why, if it was ready at a moments notice to stand in, was it not used as a tourer instead of Egbert the Unready?
Why would the understudy need to be so similarly damaged if all it had to do was "play the part"? The crowd are expecting a damaged but mobile tank. Any damaged but operational tank would do but both of these tanks have a gaping hole at the front, an open-air sponson, and amazingly similar visor damage.

Mark Hansen wrote:

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Gwyn Evans wrote: ...I hold to it because it is simple and mundane, and therefore a good deal more reasonable than your notion of a number of similarly damaged tanks following each other around the country in case one breaks down. This, I might add, is a view held despite the lack of any corroborative evidence, such as a photograph of two tanks together on a train, for instance...Indeed, this is the curious part. Where was the "other" Egbert housed while the "real" Egbert went about it's business? A Mk IV on a rail wagon is not easily concealed even under a tarpaulin.
Why was no mention made of the train arriving with 2 or more tanks for a Tank Bank visit?
It would seem fortuitous that Egbert did not once break down on his tours, forcing the "other" Egbert to play his part, seeing as how frail he must have been to need an understudy. If there was another similarly damaged tank, which one was it and what happened to it? Why, if it was ready at a moments notice to stand in, was it not used as a tourer instead of Egbert the Unready?
Why would the understudy need to be so similarly damaged if all it had to do was "play the part"? The crowd are expecting a damaged but mobile tank. Any damaged but operational tank would do but both of these tanks have a gaping hole at the front, an open-air sponson, and amazingly similar visor damage.

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Please point out to me where I ever suggest the ridiculous idea of two tanks going round together on the same train! Did I ever say that the other tank would be available at a moments notice? if so please point out where. Give me some credit and read what i have said properly and please don't attribute statements I haven't made. Anyone who has had any experience of organising any sort of nationwide roadshow (as I have on more than one occasion and in more than one country) will know that scheduling can be a nightmare (even when one isn't trying to cart something like a tank around) and a problem with one venue can have a knock on accumulative effect that can grow to wreck the whole programme. It would be  a miracle if none of the touring tanks (not just Egbert) managed to complete the tour without a breakdown. Coping with such an issue can mean switching teams from one venue to another or even bringing in a spare to cover a specific event elsewhere in the schedule. As I've said previously there are some oddities in the visits reported (for example Egbert appears to have had at least five  different one week visits in January 1918 (clearly impossible) so that on at least one of these a different tank would have had to be used. It also appears that Nelson was switched for Egbert (not Julian as I mistakenly said) on at least one occasion in the North East. 148 also appears to have carried out some tour work in the Lincolnshire area (possibly again to relieve pressure on the schedule?). One thing does become clear is that whilst one tank might have been the 'lead' tank in touring a particular area of the country another would be in roughly the same area at the same time (a perfectly sensible precaution) thus whilst Egbert appears to have taken the limelight in the South Wales area Julian was also visiting in the same area (but not the same towns) at the time and whilst Julian appears in most accounts of the tour in Scotland in Jan/Feb 1918 a second tank (yet to be identified) was touring in Banfshire. It looks as if the '2nd' tank played the smaller towns whilst the 'lead' starred in the cities and bigger towns. This combination has the advantage that one can make sure that the big fund raising venues are always covered (if the 2nd tank has a delay or break down its not too serious and if its the lead tank that has the problem the 2nd tank is reasonably close and can be switched to a different next venue with out loosing too much.)

All the visits to the major cities were well trailed with advance publicity naming the tanks that would visit (this included leaflet drops by the RFC) .Various contempory sources make  mention of Egbert's battle damage so it would actually be difficult to make a substitution with an unscarred tank without it being noticed. Interestingly although Bovingdon has said only one of the touring tanks was an ex combat vehicle seveal accounts refer to Nelson as also having seen action and having scars. Unfortunately there are very few photos that can definitely be ascribed to this tank that show enough detail to draw any firm conclusions on this.

-- Edited by Centurion at 13:21, 2007-04-05

Egbert sans 141 and graffiti

I'd like to point out that (presumably due to some kind of limitation with the software) I'm quoted above as saying things that I did not actually say.

The key points I make are these:
1. I know of no evidence to make me to alter my belief, which is that all the photos of a touring tank with a damaged hull front show the same tank; and
2. I know of no reason why Egbert could not have carried out one tour without 141 painted on, and later tours with the number.

As I've also said before I am perfectly happy to be proved wrong. There's clearly alot of research still to do so the evidence to sway the argument one way or another may yet emerge.

Having restated what I believe on this subject, I will add that I obviously understand that in the absence of conclusive evidence others may disagree.

I do not think I can make any further constructive contribution so I shall leave this debate.