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Chobham Tanks


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Hi .Does anyone have any information regarding the two ww2 tanks that lay out on Chobham Common up until the mid sixties ?. They stood or rather lay out on the side of the hill that is and has been for many years used by the model aircraft enthusiasts just opposite the tank factory, back in the fifties and sixties the area was a collecting point for ice cream vans that gathered on a weekend around what was known as the Clump "a group of pine trees on the highest point a few hundred yards from the tanks , I cant remember what type they were although I seem to think that they might have been Valentines as they had a rather low profile and no turrets these had been replaced on both by a roughly cut piece of half inch flat plate "they may have originally been bridge carriers" !!..doubtfully that they were left by the army more I think were used by a demolition crew and just discarded when the clear up of a variety of war time installations out on the common came to an end ..any info would be apreciated as it ties in with an ongoing project ...

Edited by andy brown
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  • 4 weeks later...
Hi .Does anyone have any information regarding the two ww2 tanks that lay out on Chobham Common up until the mid sixties ?. They stood or rather lay out on the side of the hill that is and has been for many years used by the model aircraft enthusiasts just opposite the tank factory, back in the fifties and sixties the area was a collecting point for ice cream vans that gathered on a weekend around what was known as the Clump "a group of pine trees on the highest point a few hundred yards from the tanks , I cant remember what type they were although I seem to think that they might have been Valentines as they had a rather low profile and no turrets these had been replaced on both by a roughly cut piece of half inch flat plate "they may have originally been bridge carriers" !!..doubtfully that they were left by the army more I think were used by a demolition crew and just discarded when the clear up of a variety of war time installations out on the common came to an end ..any info would be apreciated as it ties in with an ongoing project ...

 

I played on the common as a lad in the late 60's and remember the clump,the tank factory, but don't remember the tanks. On the other side of the clump (opposite the road and dirt car park) there was a riveted steel target plate, about 4 1/2' wide 3' tall with about 20 armour piercing shells in it-great fun with dad's hammer trying to whack them out. Opposite the road that ran past the clump is a open valley with a huge crater in a hill on the far side, and on the slope down from the road there were plenty of tanky bits and a few links.

Other tanks around that neck of the woods were;

3 shermans without turrets-parked opposite the range wardens hut at Ash Ranges

1 complete Sherman- in the woods at the back of the RAMC school Mytchett

I complete Cromwell-next to Mytchett place

Chobham ridges ranges, and the back of Pirbright Camp were also littered with tank targets

Terry

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