Wondered if anyone out there could help me make sense of this photo?
It shows a group of soldiers in Wehrmacht uniform so it seems it was taken sometime during WW2. My knowledge of uniforms isn't good enough to suggest when, though the boots and gaiters makes me think later rather than sooner. The location is some kind of large stone building (ecclesiastical?).
The tank is clearly a Mark IV. It is also an unusual Mark IV in that it's a top tower, so although we can't see the sponsons it is likely to be a Female (since no Male top towers are known). I believe the German army captured at least two Mark IV top towers during WW2. One of these was the well known "Lyric", formerly the presentation tank at Suippes and later placed on the old battlefield at Fort de la Pompelle. The other (possibly) was another French presentation tank, that to Lassigne. However the tank in the picture is neither of these because both those tanks had lost their unditching rails.
So I'm stumped. Any ideas on date, location or the identity of the tank?
Gwyn
-- Edited by Gwyn Evans on Saturday 17th of April 2010 08:09:44 PM
-- Edited by Gwyn Evans on Saturday 17th of April 2010 08:11:41 PM
As it seems, the whole of Northern France was littered with 'donations' from the British Tank Corps - in form of obsolete Mk.IVs from (mainly) L-Bn, which were better 'donated' than brought to back England for good money and scrapped afterwards. Most of there were still present by 1940 - but removed at least by 1942, going to some German smelters.
It's not Lassigny. The old church was destroyed in 1918. In Lassigny like some other village, the tank was on a village square. In Montdidier, the tank was far away from the main churchs on the center.
