schweboo

The wreck is SS Thistlegorm: http://www.schweboo.com/html/ss_thistlegorm.html Above is a link to some pictures...and the now identified mystery vehicle Best regards Chris

Richard Many thanks for your comments on the identification of the land vehicles. I am not surprised that there are identrification errors, many of which have been repeated over the last decade. I will add some explanatory text onto my website - which is now used by some of the dive centres in Sharm el Sheikh. At least some of divers on the Thistlegorm will then have a better idea of what they are looking at.... Best regards Chris

I am totally convinced - the picture is exactly what I saw on the Thistlegorm - except that the tower on top of the trailor has been taken off so that it will fit in the hold. I wonder of the "trailer" shown in my sketch attached to my email is actuallly the tower, dismantled and stored on the back of the trailor during transit The internet is a very powerful tool! Many thanks Best regards Chris

Andy Thanks for your response. The Blenheim tail planes on the Thistlegorm had been wrongly identified as "Spitfire wings" in the past. I have looked at a lot of pictures of armoured cars and have found not that look anything like these two vehicles. They both seem to have a winch like object at the rear - perhaps they were towed...but for what purpose? The guys at Bovingdon did not think that they are armoured cars - at least not a model that they recognised. One suggestion is that the electrical stuff could be part of some arc welding equipment - but the vehicles seem too big and too well protected to be something like that... Best regards Chris

Hi I live in London and have been asked if I can track down the identity of a vehicle on a WWII wreck in the Red Sea. The wreck is a British freighter sunk waiting to go up the Suez canal. The wreck is full of trucks, jeeps and aircraft parts - and two vehicles that I have not been able to identify... I do not have a HMV of my own. When I am not diving, I try to keep busy - flying and playing rugby - when I can get a free moment. I also have two children Best regards Chris

All Attached are photographs (and a crude plan and side view) of one of two vehicles to found in one of the holds of the wreck of SS Thislegorm - a British freighter lying in 30m of water in the Red Sea. Sunk in 1941, the wreck is still full of Bedford trucks, BSA motor cycles - and aircraft parts (Bristol Mercury engine parts, Blenheim bomber tail planes and engine exhaust rings, and Westland Lysander wings). Having recently identified the aircraft parts and written an article published in the Diver magazine, a reader wrote to me asked if I could also identify the "mystery vehicles". Thus far, I have drawn a blank. The interior of the vehicles contains some electrical equipment (see photograph) with what look like coils and a dial. In terms of size, the vehicles are about as big as a Hummer. They seem to be armoured - and appear to my untrained eyes be quite crudely made. More pictures of the Thistlegorm and these vehicles can befound on my website: http://www.schweboo.com/html/ss_thistlegorm.html Click on the shell casing to get to a slide show. I have tried the Bovington tank museum and RAF Hendon - they are as baffled as I am and would also like to know what they are! Any ideas most welcome. Best regards Chris Mystery vehicle.bmp