Tank Museum

Ok so if you haven’t read the introductory articles Dad was (TEC-5) in a halftrack in Battery A of the 467th AAA throughout his European campaigns. I have some earlier articles and referred google maps in this series about the specifics of the 467th AAAW campaigns and attachments throughout the war.

Dad’s unit #4 of Platoon A had two vehicles an M-15 and and M-16 halftrack.

The M15 mounted one 37mm automatic cannon and two .50 cal machine guns with all three bores being parallel. Dad was in the M15 and the other track in their unit was the M16. The M16 used a quad-mount of four .50 cal machine guns. There was a place to sit in the back the gunner (sighter) would sit to control firing with two foot pedals left and right. Hand cranks were used to control horizontal and vertical rotations. We were discussing this during the trip and Dad told me as a gunner in the crew he had relatively short legs and the firing pedals were a little far away creating a problem! His buddies solved the problem by taping wood blocks to the pedals so he could reach to more easily fire. No problem, expensive equipment with limitations .. innovate in the field..

Here is a top view of the M15 with the firing foot pedals that follows (minus wood blocks).

Below is a modern restoration demonstration of a quad .50 halftrack on youtube in case you want to see one on the move.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qig25332VOA

Back to our story, we are hoping to find a restored AAA halftrack during our trip and we were lucky enough to be near the world’s largest tank museum which is in Southern England.

http://www.tankmuseum.org/

Ok, remember these halftracks are extremely rare today there are perhaps a few around the world that have been restored and we are not sure they have one. We got up early and our plan was to hit the tank museum in the morning and then Portland Bill, Dorset in the afternoon then return to Portsmouth. We got in the rental car and drove to the tank museum, no problems. Parked and walked inside and the first impression was that it was huge. The first part of the museum was really nice:

Old tanks from World War I: one called the “Little Willie”. Dad loved that since it was his nickname. Oops that was a secret! Really he’s a short basketball player and his name is William. We all had a good laugh.

Also Tigers, Panzers, Shermans all in rows and rows that seemed to go on forever in several warehouse like buildings. But after 40 minutes or so a tank is a tank right? Its getting a little repetitive and still no AAA halftracks..we want halftracks! We are getting towards the back of the museum and starting to lose hope.

Then a sign appears pointing to a non-inviting, semi-closed hangar area

“ EXPERIMENTAL VEHICLES -> THIS WAY”

The proprietor tells us its for strange vehicles and things that did not quite make it to deployment but as he recalled there just might be a halftrack back there you could look and see. What did he say he doesn’t really know whats back there but theres a chance? We proceed to check it out.

Weird stuff appears as we made our way through the cluttered hanger area. Its the Island of Misfit Toys.

(1) First thing I see is stand-up tank that fits one standing man like a small jiffy john with small set of motorized treads on the bottom and a little tiny gun hole to shoot out.

        - The sign should read “HUMAN DEATH TRAP!”

        - I see why that one didn’t make it.

(2) Passing other early robotic tanks and other weird collectables that could easily be from an H.G. Wells novel. Captain Nemo rejects!

Getting ready to give up on the AAA halftrack and leave but we look around one more corner. And there she is dressed up in her .50 caliber quad turret splendor. Its not the M15 configuration that Dad rode on but its one of the M16s used in their close-knit unit as the companion vehicle and its cleaned up, restored, and looking new. Truly unbelievable, because we never expected to really find one. We poke around it and take some pictures with Dad. He’s happy, we’re happy its a good day because we came a long, long way and we got dealt a fullhouse. Nice!

 

 

Next: Portland Bill