War Trophies New Zealand A7V tank

[Charawacky]

Where have all the war trophies gone?

 

This makes interesting reading

 

http://www.kiamatetoa.com/wartrophies/chapter_three.html

[Niels v]

Some of the ww1 war trophies in the states, eg. Big Bertha and various arty pieces where scraped during WW2 to recycle the metal.

I have seen a video clip of it some where.

[Redherring]

Another interesting site. Thanks for pointing it out.

On the subject of war trophies there are cannons littered around Australia in all sorts of parks & gardens - not all of them trophies! There are many around greater Melbourne and in particular you may wish to check out the pair of Crimean war cannon outside Victoria Barracks in St.Kilda Road on google images. Tsar Alexander the First’s army... 36 pound cannons... cast in 1838 at the Alexander Factory.

Robert

[Pzkpfw-e]

Where did they all go?

Mostly scrapped, many British towns & cities received a "Presentation Tank", few of them survived into the 1930s.

Many guns succumbed to the scrap drives in WW2.

The Yanks scrapped their A7V at the APG in 1942, the surviving Bertha was cut up in the 1950s!

[Niels v]

Here is the short film about scrapping guns on APG

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675042333_scrap_Aberdeen-Proving-Grounds_canon-balls_old-equipment_42-cm-Howitzer

[nz2]

An interesting article to read giving the background to the many captured guns found about New Zealand in parks associated with memorials to troops involved with WW1. Over the years some have disappeared in some cases part of the scare of them being classed as operative weapons saw them removed from display during the threatened Japanese invasion of WWII. In some cases they were not repositioned back in the parks, with some buried still in parks.

Over the years many received only the regular coat of paint while often the wooden spoked wheels decayed and were given replacements of the wrong size.

Now with the centenary of WW1 approaching the importance of the items in the parks is being recognized with attention being played on their history. Captured guns on display are far more numerous than those as used by the New Zealand forces.

Doug