WW2 tanks pulled from the sea

[bullmastiff]

very interesting read that thekatt thanks

personnaly i think the farmer has done a service to the memory of the allied forces and the lost,
it may not be to everyones taste but people go and see mummies in museums and to me that is more
of a desicration.

 

[Locksley]

wow, that's awesome, loving the Sherman

 

[Dirus_Strictus]

' New research suggests that the Omaha tanks were aiming for a church steeple on the visible horizon behind the cliffs. In order to maintain their line of sight it is believed that the tanks had to turn progressively away from the shore to combat the wavefronts pushing them down the beach, putting their sides virtually parallel with the waves/beach. This meant that the protective canvas flotation devices were easily swamped by the waves. If they had kept going directly forward with the front of the tank headed straight for the beach, they may have reached it.
Others believe that the error was on the part of the commanders aboard the ships from which the tanks were launched. They simply gave the order to launch too early, possibly to avoid getting too close to the battle themselves.'

The original source of the information gives no proof that the above statements are in fact true. The second paragraph's last sentence is certainly contentious and not reported in battle diaries etc.

 

[night crawler]

Regarding the tanks which were heading towards the church steeple there was a TV program about it a few years ago. They even found the tanks all faceing the church direction all in a line along the sea bottom. In that they say one crew drowned the rest saved.

 

[phill.d]

Here's some great pics, and video of a German tank been pulled out of an Estonian lake 56 years after been submerged.
The tank turned out to be a Russian T34 trophy tank captured by the Germans.

Heavy battles were fought in the Narva front in the north eastern part of Estonia in 1944. The tank was captured from the Russians and used by the German army. (This is the reason that there are German markings painted on the tank’s exterior.) On 19 September 1944, German troops began an organised retreat, the tank was then purposefully driven into the lake when the Germans fled.

In September 2000 the 27-tonne tank was pulled from it's boggy tomb, It was in Mint condition considering the time it had been under water.

Viewing highly recommended!
Enjoy!
http://englishrussia.com/?p=299

 

[night crawler]

Did you see the wheels and tracks still worked after all that time

 

[smiffy]

This museum is on the D6 road heading towards Bayeax just outside of Port-en-Bessin .........
Just to clear a few points about disturbing war graves.......
......More or less all of the wrecks on display were dredged / winched up from the sea bed as part of the massive clearing operations done on the whole landing beaches in the years following the end of the war and up until the early 1970s..this was part and parcel of contracts issued by the French Governements of the time to make the beaches safe and to clear them for public use once again.................
This fella ( I can't recall his name but it may be Jacque Lemoncheaux ?) was operating a large scrap recovery business in the area and was allocated certian ares to clear as part of these contracts.......99% of what was cleared was subsequently scrapped at the huge steel mills that used to be south of Caen...not just be this guy but also by the dozens of other fellas involved in the clearance work...
.....it was off his own initiative that he decided to save a few examples of each machine recovered for posterity and possible use one day in a museum of some sorts..........as far as the government were concerned they wanted as much as possible of the 'scap' cleared and they weren't really bothered about preserving anything..... either from the historical point of view or as ' war graves' .........stringent measures were put in place to recover any human remains of which they were some........or explosive ordnance of which there was an awful lot ............many years later the Mayor of one of the villages along the coast asked this same fella to recover another DD tank that was known to be in the sea in front of their village...(sorry memory has slipped.... can't recall which village)................he successfully recovered this tank (in approx 1982?) and it is now set up on the sea front as a lasting memorial dedicated to the men that lost their lives.....

final note: This same man made a very detailed and accurate map of all the under sea wreckage he found and it was because of him that it was conclusively proven some of the US DD tanks were indeed launched way too far off the coast to have a hope of getting to the beach......in direct contradiction of the general instructions issued to the officers in charge of the landing ships......
........one DD tank was in fact found just over 4 miles from the coast...post war there was some small consideration of charges to be perhaps pressed in some cases of 'negligence' by some of these landing craft crews ....however......... it was quietly decided that no blame should be apportioned to what was put down in the history books as a tragedy of war.............. Hope this helps.

 

[thekatt]

Hi, nice post, thanks, one of the other considerations about the final positions of the drowned tanks, is the tidal flow. On Slapton sands in Devon stands a Sherman tank, Slapton sands was used by the Americans, for practice for the DDay invasion, as the beach was a match for those to be invaded. The account from Slapton can be read, and also the stupidity of the American commanders there, and the loss of life.. After a great storm, in the late 70,s, a man was walking the beach and came across the Sherman tank washed up on the beach, this was then hauled up the beach and now rests as a memorial to the soldiers, the villagers who had to give up their homes, and of course DDay. With tidal flow, and currents, after a while the tanks will have been moved about by the sea, until they offered least resistance to the currents, they would then have become partially embedded in the sea bed in the line of least resistance, this is a possible explanation for the final positions the tanks were found in.



Andy

 

[smiffy]

...... one of the other considerations about the final positions of the drowned tanks, is the tidal flow.............On Slapton sands in Devon............. After a great storm, in the late 70,s, a man was walking the beach and came across the Sherman tank washed up on the beach, this was then hauled up the beach and now rests as a memorial to the soldiers................tidal flow................ this is a possible explanation for the final positions the tanks were found in.



Andy

yeah hear your point Andy ... a few points though.......
.......It was quite clearly orderd in the general instructions issued to the tank landing craft something like..... 'the DD tanks should be launched as closely as possible...... ideally under 1000 yards...and particular attention must be paid to the level of swell on the day .......'
.....even given a bit of tidal movement over the years maybe .... (and I dunno if I agree a 34 ton Sherman could be moved that far once it had settled on the sea bed???) ..
..its hard to justify one being found over 4 miles off the beach.....
........unless of course it had somehow 'fallen' there off a passing tank landing craft that was on its way to the beach.... although no such incident was ever recorded??...and no wreck that it may have sank with was anywhere near it................

and regards Slapton Sands .......
........the Sherman there was not 'found on the beach'..........it was hauled up the beach however only as the conclusion of a very long and protracted mission to lift it off the seabed much further off the beach where it was in apporx 150 feet of water......... ..the method they used was to 'float' it off the seabed and then to pull it towards the beach using the same flotation devices to keep it bouyant........ to a point where it was almost out of the water ..then it was hauled up the beach.....you may have seen photos of just this part of the operation and been misinformed perhaps?...
.No offence intended mate.....I'm not getting 'niggly' with you......some of the newspapers articles over the years regarding this particular 'recovery' leave a lot to be desired for accuracy...... you can be forgiven for getting it a bit wrong....... cheers Bob

 

[thekatt]

yeah hear your point Andy ... a few points though.......
.......It was quite clearly orderd in the general instructions issued to the tank landing craft something like..... 'the DD tanks should be launched as closely as possible...... ideally under 1000 yards...and particular attention must be paid to the level of swell on the day .......'
.....even given a bit of tidal movement over the years maybe .... (and I dunno if I agree a 34 ton Sherman could be moved that far once it had settled on the sea bed???) ..
..its hard to justify one being found over 4 miles off the beach.....
........unless of course it had somehow 'fallen' there off a passing tank landing craft that was on its way to the beach.... although no such incident was ever recorded??...and no wreck that it may have sank with was anywhere near it................

and regards Slapton Sands .......
........the Sherman there was not 'found on the beach'..........it was hauled up the beach however only as the conclusion of a very long and protracted mission to lift it off the seabed much further off the beach where it was in apporx 150 feet of water......... ..the method they used was to 'float' it off the seabed and then to pull it towards the beach using the same flotation devices to keep it bouyant........ to a point where it was almost out of the water ..then it was hauled up the beach.....you may have seen photos of just this part of the operation and been misinformed perhaps?...
.No offence intended mate.....I'm not getting 'niggly' with you......some of the newspapers articles over the years regarding this particular 'recovery' leave a lot to be desired for accuracy...... you can be forgiven for getting it a bit wrong....... cheers Bob

hi, I stand corrected, the tank was rescued not washed up.



andy

 

[cptpies]

..its hard to justify one being found over 4 miles off the beach.....
........unless of course it had somehow 'fallen' there off a passing tank landing craft that was on its way to the beach.... although no such incident was ever recorded??...and no wreck that it may have sank with was anywhere near it................

One scenario that might account for this is if the LCT was damaged rather than sunk and the crew of the tank decided to head for the shore anyway rather than sit useless offshore. There's no way it would have made it 4 miles in which is why it was found where it was. I've no evidence for this but it's a possible answer.

Some further details have come back to me regarding the floundering of the DD's dropped closer inshore. IIRC the crews were using church steeples as aiming markers. However as the longshore current pushed them laterally off course they naturally rotated to remain pointing at the designated steeple and thus got gradually more broadside to the swell until they swamped. That's the theory proposed in the TV programme mentioned earlier in the thread.