Hawk Posted July 14, 2008 Share Posted July 14, 2008 Right bear with me on this one:sweat: Who owns thishttp://http://the.shadock.free.fr/Surviving_Panzers.html Then go to Commen wealth tanks then A27(m) Cromwells and Centaurs etc. and then photo 16 of 28 who owns this Cromwell the site comments it may be Adrians. If anyone cam answer I would be grateful. Cheers, Luke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Barrell Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 Hi Luke, I don't own that Cromwell but I did! I restored it for display and sold it to the group who were building the memorial, I assume it is 'owned' by the trustees of the memorial association. It is actually another Centaur dozer with an ex-range turret and tracks and new sheet metal and dummy gun. There is nothing inside it at all! I had originally bought it as spares for mine and felt the memorial was a good use for it. My Cromwell is patiently waiting it's turn for restoration in the back of my shed. It has an interesting history. Delivered new as a Cromwell IV to 1st RTR in Thetford Forest in May 1944. Driven on it's tracks to Boyton for range practice, a round trip of approx. 100 miles. Transported to Trimley and prepared for wading then loaded onto an LST at Felixstowe. Landed on Arromanche on 7th June 1944 under the command of Capt. Phillip Clapperton, troop leader of 2 troop, A sqdn, 1 RTR. The tank was called Annous. I lose track at this point, though I have corresponded with the commander of the next tank in the troop who remembers Capt Clapperton moving up to sqdn HQ when needed. Lord Carver told me Capt Clapperton was sqdn quatermaster and joked that must be why the tank had survived, he obviously looked after it! It was converted to a Charioteer in 1951 (ish) and after serving with the TA, was sold to the Jordanian Army. The operated them for some years and modified the turret traverse using some Sherman parts all purchased from Chris Wilkinson at St Albans! Eventually it ended up being knocked out and captured by the Israelis before being brought to the UK by the Budge collection from where I purchased it in 1993. I know all of this because it still had it's Cromwell plate fitted and all the numbers tally with the record cards at Bovington and the 1RTR order of battle for 6th June 1944. To finish, I had thought it would be great to see if Capt. Clapperton was still around. Purely by chance, whilst clearing some old paperwork from my office, I flicked through an old sales brochure for Kings Steel at Norwich. The name rang a bell and upon checking the record cards, several Cromwells were sold to 'G King and son, Norwich', a friend of mine remembering them scrapping tanks there in the late 50s. More bizarre was finding an area sales manager for Kings was a Phillip Clapperton! I knew a rep who used to work for Kings and the next time I saw him, asked him if he knew Phillip. He confirmed he was the right age and believed he had served in tanks. He also knew where he was living. Sadly, upon contacting Phillips daughter, he found out he had passed away three weeks earlier. I never did find out if he was the right man but it is an unusual name. I am aware of some critiscism directed towards anyone 'converting' a Charioteer back to a Cromwell and I can understand that view. However, mine had a fair bit of damage to the turret which itself had been modified by the Jordanians and having found it's wartime history, my mind was made up. The other ex-Budge Charioteer is in better condition and is to be restored as a Jordanian vehicle. A couple of ex-Finnish Charioteers have been 'restored' back to Cromwell but frankly not very well and are now neither one or the other. I will do mine properly. Adrian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joris Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 Adrian, what else do you have in your shed waiting restoration and can you post some pictures? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Barrell Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 Hi Joris, my tagline tells what I have of my own, only the M3A1, which I am attending to at the moment, and the Cromwell are not restored. I do have other projects here though. My M10, which I sold, is in for some repairs to the hull before the new owner restores it, we are doing a Ram 2 which involves fitting a new floor throughout as well as bulkheads and sponsons, a Sherman turret having a new bustle fitted and various other parts being made for other projects. I will seek permission of the owners before posting pics though! Adrian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joris Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 Wow, do you make a living out of restoring tanks or is it just a hobby? I'm guessing there are not too many people that know how to restore a tank. You sure know how to keep busy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Barrell Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 I don't make a living from restoring tanks alone. In fact, I don't restore them as such. I only make parts, repair parts and undertake repairs to hulls and turrets. We don't do blasting, painting, wiring and all the other things that make a restoration. I do all those things for my own vehicles though. I get a great deal of satisfaction from making parts as close to original as I can. This often means making tooling. A case in point is Sherman front wings. The originals have a large rib pressed in them and are then curved to shape. It is not possible to do this without the tooling. First I have to work out the exact design from very poor originals. I then have to figure out how to make it, design and make the tooling and then produce them. It would be possible to just make a flat plate or weld a half-round bar on but it would not be 'right'. That's what I enjoy the most, the problem solving. Of course, sometimes you must do a cost/ benefit analysis but some people want it right regardless (almost) of cost and that is a good thing for the MV world. I am glad there are one or two people who are prepared to have vehicles restored from absolute wrecks, I know from doing my Sherman just how much hard work is involved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joris Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 Yeah it's must be great to make such restorations possible! I do hope you have an apprentice whom you can learn the tricks of the trade. Would be a shame if all your lessons learned would be for naught. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Barrell Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 That is a problem actually! Not many people see the difference between 'as it was' and 'that will do'! I will need to find somebody in the next year or so, if anybody has engineering skills and wants to work on tanks in Suffolk, let me know! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joris Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 I'd love to work on tanks but have no engineering skills and live nowhere near Suffolk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowtracdave Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 That is a problem actually! Not many people see the difference between 'as it was' and 'that will do'! I will need to find somebody in the next year or so, if anybody has engineering skills and wants to work on tanks in Suffolk, let me know! I wish more people did appreciate the 'as it was' attitude -not in the same league by any means but I got one of the unimog drop sides back today having dropped it off for repair last week - having looked at it I think I'll now scrap it . If I had wanted it bodged and poorly welded I could have saved some money & done it myself . Having given it over to somebody who call themselves professional engineers I had expected better - a lot better . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joris Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 Return it and demand your money back mate! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawk Posted July 16, 2008 Author Share Posted July 16, 2008 Cheers Adrian, that was a very interesting and informative answer. I wondered why it didn't run at the weekend! It was looking pretty good outside, it seemed to have been primed with a red gloss? Bovingtons Comet didn't look too healthy inside. Cheers, Luke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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