Here is a photograph that I bought many years ago, its only tiny (65mm x 40mm approx), however despite its size the image captures many Tanks, so many in fact it is difficult to count them all!!!! ..........in fact, I would be interested to know if anyone can count them all.
I believe it to be Erin.
I will hand over to the experience of Forum members to pick out the different marks of Tank and features of the photo. Comments are most welcome.
Well, there's more rhomboids in this small photo than survive in the world today...
So far as I can tell all the tanks are Mark Vs, though with at least one Mark V*. The tank to the far left seems to be a 15th Battalion tank with a crew number ending in 5 and a name ending "...ASUM" but I can't identify such a tank. The Mark V Male on the far right is 9003. This is 2nd Battalion's well photographed "Barrhead" though at the time this was taken it has lost its large B56 and the infantry unit marking seen in the earlier photos. The tank suffered a direct hit but was recovered and refurbished and is known to have served in Russia before being captured by the Red Army in 1921. Seems to me this is a late war or early post war photo showing tanks recovered from the battlefield awaiting repair (not after repair as the 15th Battalion tank hasn't been repainted).
Oooh!! Just noticed there's more to this photo than I realised. Must take another look, and note that 9003 is in the centre, not the far right as I thought!
To the right of 9003 is a Mark V Female 9374. This was a tank of 1st Section A Company 4th Battalion commanded by 2/Lt Brazier disabled on 27 September 1918 and handed to salvage 29 September 1918. It also went on to serve in Russia.
Thanks for posting this interesting picture, which is completely new to me.
Thanyou for the information Gwyn and glad you like the photograph. I have had it for a long time and its the smallest photo I have and yet has more tanks than I can count!!
I recall there was something written on the back of it, but as it was safely secured I didnt want to remove it from its mounts, but as you have interest I have now done so and there is more writing than I remembered, including a date!!! please see the attached photo, if only more photos had this much info on them!!! I bet many of the tanks in this photo had stories to tell.
(I think I can also make out the jib of a recovery tank central in the photo- to the left of the tent? on the skyline)
Well, one has to be careful with captions because one can never tell who wrote them or when, but in this case I'd say that the information is fairly consistent with my analysis. So, I'm inclined to believe the date of April 1919 and this is very helpful because it adds to the information we can glean from the photo. I must find time to update my databases...
