Landships II

Vilkata · Brigadier

Interesting photos.

Date: Feb 2, 2006

The tank in the first pick is likely to be a casualty of 3rd Ypres, Poelcapelle is northeast of Ypres and not far from where my great uncle was killed. It's also where Guynemer, the French ace, was shot down.

Centurion · Legend

I think there may have been some retouching on the negative of the 2nd photo and possibly the Cambrai lettering may have been touch in or touched up as the track adjusters seem to have been smoothed out.

Mark Hansen · Legend

Perhaps the first tank is suffering the effects of loose lips sinking landships?

Treadhead · Major

Howdy Vil,

Thx for sharing the photo's, the one of the half buried Mark is pretty nifty. Personally I think it would have been pretty cool to have had a tank like that on my old street when I was a kid.....but then I probably would have been playing on it everyday!

I also enjoyed your pic of the four (4) railguns. I must also admit to never seeing so many railguns at one place.....but the question begs, how in Hades did they all get there!?! They obviously all needed rails to get to that one spot.......maybe the photo was taken in a railyard??....but then where are the outbuildings?....strange

Tread.

-- Edited by Treadhead at 15:26, 2006-02-02

-- Edited by Treadhead at 15:27, 2006-02-02

Rhomboid · Field Marshal

Here are two further photos of the "sunken" tank in Poelcappelle, from a touring guide of the immediate post-war period. It's interesting to see that the tank was left in place at a crossroad when the village was rebuilt.

Michel Boer · Brigadier

And here's another photo of wrecked tanks at Poelcapelle, which is now called Poelkapelle. The town has presently around 7700 inhabitants above the ground, and many thousands more below the ground in both the German and Allied memorial cemetaries. In the centre of the village (see the other photo) is a monument for Georges Guynemer, who was buried in the village with military honour by the Germans. To this day, the French airforce honors Guynemer annually with a fly-by over Poelkapelle.

Michel.

Mark Hansen · Legend

Treadhead wrote:

I also enjoyed your pic of the four (4) railguns. I must also admit to never seeing so many railguns at one place.....but the question begs, how in Hades did they all get there!?! They obviously all needed rails to get to that one spot.......maybe the photo was taken in a railyard??....but then where are the outbuildings?....strange Tread.-- Edited by Treadhead at 15:26, 2006-02-02-- Edited by Treadhead at 15:27, 2006-02-02

I don't know if this photo is of the same railguns but there are at least 3 of them (perhaps a fourth; it's a bit hard to tell) at this site http://www.geh.org/fm/st08/htmlsrc/m197601470089_ful.html#topofimage. They have quite a few other WWI stereo photos there as well.