Howitzer at Sanctuary Wood museum

[WilliamRev]

Concerning the howitzer that sits outside the Sanctuary Wood Museum - I'm sure that plenty of you know the one I mean. Am I right identifying it as a German 5.9 inch howitzer? If not what is it, and more importantly is there a 5.9 inch howitzer still in existnce that I can visit?

Cheers, William

[Tom Morgan]

William, it's a French Schneider Howitzer. (155mm I think).

Tom

[WilliamRev]

Ah yes, I seem to remember the word Schneider wriiten on the gun when I looked at it, and not knowing much about artillery-things thought that it was a German make. Thanks for that identification.

Are there any German 5.9 inch howitzers left that I can visit? The reason that I ask is that I have a long-term project to work out what my grandfather was doing on every day throughout the Great War, and on the 18th July 1916 on Bezantin Ridge, just 50 yards beyond the Bezantin-Le-Grand to Longueval Road, he was buried alive and within minutes dug up just in time by his Sergeant and a group of men, after (as the 1st Royal Scots Fusiliers war diary says) the battalion were busy fortifying the German trenches which they had just captured, and were heavily bombarded by "5.9s".

He was very unwell with concussion and internal-injuries and subsequently with shell-shock for six months or so, and I intend to post more on this subject in due course when I have unpicked the numerous letters and medical reports which I have found in his war-record.

William

[calibre792x57.y]

Try the Army Museum, Brussels. There is certainly at least one in there. If I could work out how you post photos on this site I would send you a picture!! SW

[WilliamRev]

And I've found that there is a German 5.9, captured from the Turks at Galipolli, on display at Victoria Barracks in Australia. But that's quite a long way to travel from West Sussex.....

[Story]

How about a virtual walk-around?

http://www.landships.freeservers.com/150mm_sfh_02_walkaround.htm

[SiegeGunner]

Are there any German 5.9 inch howitzers left that I can visit?

Pedantic, I know, but there is no such thing as a German 5.9" howitzer - it's a 15cm or 150mm howitzer.

[Paul Reed]

Try the Army Museum, Brussels. There is certainly at least one in there. If I could work out how you post photos on this site I would send you a picture!! SW

You're right, there is certainly one in there somewhere, I just don't have a picture of it, just this general view of the artillery.

[WilliamRev]

That's great - a lot closer than Australia! (And I'll bear in mind that 5.9 inch howitzer was just the British name for it!)

[ph0ebus]

Hello,

Have a look here and see if there is one that is closer to you. There are a few variations called a 150 mm howitzer so I am not certain which is the type you are seeking:

Surviving Great War Artillery

-Daniel

[WilliamRev]

What a fascinating website - thanks for the link!

The kind of 150mm (as I have now learned to call it) I am especially interested in is whichever kind the German artillery were likely to be firing at Bezantin Ridge on 18th July 1916 (when my grandad was buried alive by one!)

William

[CharlieBris]

There's a choice of two different 15cm howitzers - the 15cm sFH 02 (schweres Feldhaubitze) or the later 15cm sFH 13. The sFH 13 had two main versions -

"kurz" - short L/14 barrel or "lange" - L/17 barrel. For a 1916 date the shorter barrel version of the sFH 13 is more likely.

Ralph Lovett in the US has collected and restored all of the 15cm howitzer versions and has documented them on the website - www.lovettartillery.com.

There are very few WW1 guns left in the UK - most of the captured guns were scrapped in WW2.

Edit: I should have pointed out that the Germans also used a fair number of captured guns, especially Belgian guns like the 149mm 1887 Krupp/FRC gun.

http://www.ammsbrisbane.com/documentation/Krupp_FRC.html.

There are about 7 15cm howitzers surviving in Queensland - an excuse to escape from the northern winter.

regards,

Charlie

[johnreed]

Here is a photo of the Breech of the 15 cm Schnider outside at Sanctuary Wood.

John

[WilliamRev]

Thanks for the picture. Now that I have started looking in various books for references to the German "5.9 inch howitzer" I keep finding it being refered to as a particularly hated weapon by the British troops. It seems that a direct hit could destroy quite a few yards of trench sending tons of earth/mud in the air: this would tally with my grandfathe',s account of him being flung through the air and landing in a shell-hole, followed by a ton of mud which landed on top of him. He was wounded by a bullet in June 1916 and badly gassed in October 1918, but he desscribed being buried alive by the howitzer shell on 18th July 1916 as the very worst experience of his life.