Landships II

Date: Dec 4, 2005

Dicke Berta - the Mystery 'Variant' Solved!

Date: Dec 4, 2005

Well thats the most awesome thing I have ever seen built out of wood.

All The Best

Tim R.

Date: Dec 4, 2005

My hat is off: that's incredible. Fine sleuthing, too!

Date: Dec 4, 2005

Yes, fine job solving the mystery! I will of course update the article on the "Bertha".

/Peter K

Date: Dec 4, 2005

Thanks, gents!

As usual with these things, there's more to add...

It follows from all this that, of course, only one Dicke Berta survived the Great War, the one captured by US forces and taken back to Aberdeen. However, even here it turns out I was wrong before about the date...

Jack Mueller posted this on Missing-Lynx, in response to a post I had made:

Actually, the Aberdeen example was spared in the '42 drive. Almost all other WW1 examples were not. The end for Dicke Berta came in 1954, believe it or not, as part of a Korean War Scrap Drive. It was a poorly veiled effort (the war had ended 10 months earlier) to reduce the crowded inventory of the Proving Grounds. There was a photo of a 5 ton pulling the monster off property in the publication "Bore Sight" a couple years ago. It had been sold to a scrap dealer, who after cutting away the splinter shield, and other light parts, found Krupp metallurgy to tough for him, and the gun was barged out a few miles, and unceremoniously dumped in the Atlantic.

Which backs up, and vastly expands upon, a comment made by Randolph Davis at the Aberdeen Ordnance Museum, who emailed me thus some months ago:

According to some senior staff members, the Bertha that you spoke of that was scrapped here at APG was done so either in the 1940s or early 1950s in an effort to "clean" up vast quantities of surplus tanks and armors that were accumulating on the Proving Ground. There are no other records or unpublished data that we can locate at this time.

Because he hadn't provided more details, I had never taken much notice of the '1940s or 1950s' comment, but Jack's message puts that well and truly in context.

Now, if anyone has that issue of 'Bore Sight' magazine (and some good diving gear - there's a Bertha at the bottom of the Atlantic somewhere!)...

Date: Dec 5, 2005

Roger,
very interesting information.
I found a photo of wood model from russian book "Sovremenaja artilleria - current artillery " of the year 1937 by Kirrilov Gubeckij.
I attach a picture of the tube on its cart with american soldier too.

Pavel

Date: Dec 5, 2005

Pavel, that is very interesting, thanks - that first picture, from the Russian book, is clearly taken from this...

...which is actually a postcard of the gun! That's a scan of the actual postcard, I bought it from ebay for a fiver a couple of months ago. It was that postcard that set me off on the search that led me to Vluynbusch, in fact.

What does the Russian caption say, please?

And thanks for posting the photo of the American soldier with the barrel - as you know from the article on the main Landships site, I have a few images of the gun in US hands, and that's a really good one! Do you have a larger version, please? You can email me at rogertodd1@hotmail.com.

Date: Dec 7, 2005

Russian caption is "German 42cm Mortar - wooden model" - so it all fits.
G.

Date: Dec 8, 2005

So they knew it was a model, thanks Grzegorz!

Also, I now realise that on the postcard, 'Holz' is 'wood.'

lunterborn · Private

Actually, the information on the Berthas at Aberdeen is partially incorrect, the US Army brought two Berthas back to Aberdeen at the end of World War I. One was scrapped in 1942 as part of a scrap drive. There is a US Army Newsreel film on the internet showing it being cut up for scrap in 1942.

see:

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675042333_scrap_Aberdeen-Proving-Grounds_can\
on-balls_old-equipment_42-cm-Howitzer

The second one was the one scrapped in 1954.

Lee

Roger Todd wrote:

Thanks, gents!
As usual with these things, there's more to add...
It follows from all this that, of course, only one Dicke Berta survived the Great War, the one captured by US forces and taken back to Aberdeen. However, even here it turns out I was wrong before about the date...
Jack Mueller posted this on Missing-Lynx, in response to a post I had made:
Actually, the Aberdeen example was spared in the '42 drive. Almost all other WW1 examples were not. The end for Dicke Berta came in 1954, believe it or not, as part of a Korean War Scrap Drive. It was a poorly veiled effort (the war had ended 10 months earlier) to reduce the crowded inventory of the Proving Grounds. There was a photo of a 5 ton pulling the monster off property in the publication "Bore Sight" a couple years ago. It had been sold to a scrap dealer, who after cutting away the splinter shield, and other light parts, found Krupp metallurgy to tough for him, and the gun was barged out a few miles, and unceremoniously dumped in the Atlantic.
Which backs up, and vastly expands upon, a comment made by Randolph Davis at the Aberdeen Ordnance Museum, who emailed me thus some months ago:
According to some senior staff members, the Bertha that you spoke of that was scrapped here at APG was done so either in the 1940s or early 1950s in�an effort to "clean" up vast quantities of surplus tanks and armors that�were accumulating on the Proving Ground.��There are no other records or�unpublished data that we can locate at this time.
Because he hadn't provided more details, I had never taken much notice of the '1940s or 1950s' comment, but Jack's message puts that well and truly in context.
Now, if anyone has that issue of 'Bore Sight' magazine (and some good diving gear - there's a Bertha at the bottom of the Atlantic somewhere!)...

�