eddy8men

while we were at the vineyard the owners commissioned a film guy to document the find and recovery and he has put this video on youtube. enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AzybfURolk

i've started a thread on the covenanter so please post on that for more updates. cheers

the ground is absolutely great for digging. pure rock/chalk which why i think the tank won't be too bad from the rust. however i have no idea how badly shot up it is.

the recovery also looks to be a straight forward job as the tank is facing up the hill at a 45* angle, which means i can pull it back using the final drives and onto the track. this is my first tank recovery since leaving the army and it seems i got lucky

probably best to start a seperate thread on the covenanter from denbies vineyard before it gets lost inthe buried and abandoned tanks thread.

i'll put the pics up later

the vineyard has hired a film guy to make a publicity video of the excavation and he sent me a few pics from saturday.

got to say john it made for a pleasant surprise

first pic show the top of the tank looking from the front left corner. on the right you can make out the turret ring, to the left the drivers hatch and in the centre the armoured rad louvre.

the second pic shows the drivers hatch in more detail

that's right no turret and i had heard the track was used for the bovy covenanater, there were also roof plates missing and cooling shrouds but there was a reason it got pushed back into the hole and i am under no illusion about the poor condition. if it was easy we'd all have covenanters

let's get it out and see what it's like. i plan to recover it in the next couple of weeks

no news is good news

and the news is good we found it with the first test pit, dug down and hit the rad louvres then dug back to the turret ring and off to the side to the drivers hatch. it all looks quite good. i'll put some pics up later.

we also had a big mag hit in the lower field and was going to dig it when the landowner came up to tell us about the 30" water main that ran through there, probably best to leave it alone

we'll do the rest of the geophys when we recover the covenanter. because we had a good day and were leaving early i decided to stop off on the way home at the rickmansworth cromwell site and do a bit of surveying and right over the spot i was told contained the tank we got a big mag reading, bigger than the covenanter so it looks like the story was true.

2 tanks and a water main in one day

we're loaded up and ready to go :cool2:

i try to farm out as much as i can but it always ends up coming back onto my shoulders anyway so from now on i'll just do my own thing. it's simpler that way.

me and the lads will set off tonight after work and should get to the vineyard sometime after midnight. will do a quick recce and get some kip, then one of us will do the survey while the other two dig the testpit with my mini digger. i hope the tank is not more than 5ft down as that's as far as it will reach ! after that i'll start digging by hand with a spade and a big pole (his name is marek)

been messed about by an archeology guy from a local uni who offered to help and then after xmas has dropped off the radar and doesn't reply to emails or texts, i don't know if he had a reason but a simple reply would have helped.

anyway i've arranged to hire a proton magnetometer and i'm going down on saturday with my labourers to do the survey and maybe dig a testpit over the covenanter

i heard the tank museum were looking for a set of rubber track. might do you a swap

the vineyard are commissioning a short documentary on the recover and restoration so don't worry there will be some evidence of my crimes

it turned out to be a dicky pump and £750 later i have a nos one fitted, i also picked up a 38 ton trailer so i am back on the road (for now)

i decided to paint it a original arfkan green

welcome to the forum

who's this richard guy that i mentioned, i was told he was the archeologist in charge. have i got my wires crossed ?

i have his contact details as there was talk of bringing them in on the covenanter recovery but to be honest the less guys involved with that one then the sooner we'll have it out

i didn't meet dan snow at chalke valley, it was james holland. getting my egg heads mixed up

like it

i met the historian dan snow at the chalke valley history weekend a few months back and he has a mate called richard something that heads the army archeology rehab unit. if we can narrow down any search areas i'll pass them on to him

i've looked on google earth but although i spent 3 years in bulford i can't make head nor tail of it. the lat and long don't tie in with what i would call a huge pit ?

51 14' 46.17N 1 49'40.47W This is the closest I can get, you must remember it has been many years since I was up there. It was in that area that I have marked

adrian this is the message the guy sent me, does it ring any bells with you

Do you remember I think it was called Lavington anti tank (memory on names a bit out these days) it was off from Netheravon. It was where the School of Infantry used to fire their weapons. (That is where I found a live 50 cal ranging round) you would come up onto the range and the butts (if you could call them butts) were on the left a bit further on on the right was a huge crator, when I say hueg I mean huge, in it was this Cromwell, remember it well because it was upside down. At that time there were many Sherman tanks on the range but very few Churchills cannot remember what else was in the pit but there must have been Shermans. Cannot remember at that ime whether there were any comets on that side of the range. If you remember Sling cottages just as you come into Bulford from Tidworth and take the road down past them towards Bulford village just as you reach the bottom where the road turns left ( there is a bridge), going straight on you head up onto the range on the chalk road. Just at the start on the right there is an overgrown track which takes you behind the rifle ranges. About half a mile up there, there was a Comet hidden in the brush in great condition(I had the muzzle brake of off it). This is going back a lot of years now, often wonder if it is still there.

the fella did mention the place was used as an infantry training area. looks like they won't be getting saved then

got a lead on an upturned cromwell that might still be on salisbury plain in what was described as a huge pit that was later filled in. does this ring a bell with anyone

need some hard targets for the cent