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Remembered Today:

Names of Tanks - personal


OpsMajor

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A very obvious (and probably dumb!) question: How did the tanks get out to Palestine - shipped in bits and then assembled or shipped whole? Was the distance and effort involved the reason for the very small numbers used, or was it that the terrain was not deemed to be suitable?

Dave

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Shipped whole, or at least very close to whole, on the SS Challester.

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Thanks Gareth

And then railed to the front line I guess?

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Yes. The E Coy War Diary says that the tanks were loaded on Railway Trucks on 24 Jan 17 ready to proceed to Gilban. They were then offloaded on 25 Jan 17.

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HMLS Ole-Luk-Oie.

Having stalked this wonderful forum for a while, I finally get to contribute a little bit!

Ole Lukøje (in today's spelling anyways - literally Ole-shut-eye) is the Danish equivalent of the sandman.

It seems that black humour isn't a recent invention.

/Dan

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There was a tank at 3rd Ypres called Gordon. There was also a tank with the same name as my mother in law. So far I have resisted the temptation to tell her.

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There was also a tank with the same name as my mother in law. So far I have resisted the temptation to tell her.

Battleaxe?

(She was a Mk IV in B Bn)

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Battleaxe?

:D

Eileen - but it might have been renamed from Battleaxe! I would need an awful lot of brave pills to tell her!

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:D

Eileen - but it might have been renamed from Battleaxe! I would need an awful lot of brave pills to tell her!

Eileen II, no 2807, with crew E38 commanded by 2Lt Carter, was knocked out on the 23 Nov 17 during the Battle of Cambrai and subsequently captured by the Germans. I don't have any notes on the original Eileen.

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Eileen II, no 2807, with crew E38 commanded by 2Lt Carter, was knocked out on the 23 Nov 17 during the Battle of Cambrai and subsequently captured by the Germans. I don't have any notes on the original Eileen.

There were two of them :o

I think the first Eileen was at Ypres I will try and get to my PC later and check. I could be mistaken and it could be Cambrai in which case the full title of Eileen II wasn't used when referred to.

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Eileen II, no 2807, with crew E38 commanded by 2Lt Carter, was knocked out on the 23 Nov 17 during the Battle of Cambrai and subsequently captured by the Germans. I don't have any notes on the original Eileen.

I've found Eileen along with the others and as you said, November 1917 but not named as Eileen II and I read the 2nd Lt's name as Canter but it could be a typo in the document. Bion, if I recall got a bit mention for heroics and possibly recommended for a VC but played it down afterwards. Also, I wonder if Egbert knew we had a tank named that!

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  • 11 months later...

Lt. Hugo Armitage - Commander of tank D50 - " Dandy Dinmont ".

I have this photo in my family collection. My Uncle William Robert Cox was a driver in Tank D50. I believe the photo of Lt Hugo Armitage here matches the photo of the Officer in the centre. My uncle is the soldier at the far right back row. Is there any way I can find out who the other crew members were? Also I would be interested to know which battles this tank was involved in. My Uncle survived the war and was awarded the Military Medal. post-113516-0-27018100-1407271776_thumb.

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hello Margaret

Welcome to the Forum and thank you for sharing this photo.

From their uniform, I would guess that this photo was takem near Ypres in the sumer of 1917.

But I could be wrong

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I have this photo in my family collection. My Uncle William Robert Cox was a driver in Tank D50. I believe the photo of Lt Hugo Armitage here matches the photo of the Officer in the centre. My uncle is the soldier at the far right back row. Is there any way I can find out who the other crew members were? Also I would be interested to know which battles this tank was involved in. My Uncle survived the war and was awarded the Military Medal.

Margaret,

Welcome to the Forum, and thank you for posting such an important and interesting photograph. Actual photographs of WW1 tank crew members are quite rare, and I doubt that this particular photograph has been published before. I sincerely hope that a Forum member has the details of your Uncle's fellow crew members from tank D50 ' Dandy Dinmont ', and will kindly post the information for you.

Again, many thanks for posting and sharing such a wonderful photograph.

Regards,

LF

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I have this photo in my family collection. My Uncle William Robert Cox was a driver in Tank D50. I believe the photo of Lt Hugo Armitage here matches the photo of the Officer in the centre. My uncle is the soldier at the far right back row. Is there any way I can find out who the other crew members were? Also I would be interested to know which battles this tank was involved in. My Uncle survived the war and was awarded the Military Medal.

Margaret,

You may also wish to contact the Tank Museum at Bovington in Dorset, whom I am sure would love to have a copy of your family photograph, and they may also be able to assist you with details of some of your Uncle's fellow crew members in tank D50.

Here are the Museum's contact details :-

Bovington Tank Museum -

Curatorial & Collections.

T: 01929 403329

E: curator@tankmuseum.org

Regards,

LF

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Thank you LF. I have emailed Bovington and will let you know if they come up with additional information.

Margaret

Please, let us know if you get any further details.

Regards,

LF

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The 3rd Ypres crew D50 were in tank 2335 and it was commanded by Lt Dobinson. The tank was knocked but I don't knwo what happened to the crew, I will check in more detail tonight. The D50 crew at Cambrai were in tank 8045 commanded by Lt Armitage (who is pictured in LF's post #17).

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Just out of interest, The Great War : Coventry's Story exhibition at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry features Water Atkins, a crewman in D20 - Daphne. There is a short film about him based on his letters home to his mother during the war. Sadly, he died in February 1917 from a wrongly administered dose of chloroform during an operation to remove his appendix.

TR

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A most interesting reply from the curator at Bovington

Re: D50

Unfortunately, we have very little on the actions of D50 but we can confirm that D.50 `DANDY DINMONT' tank No.8054 (Male tank) was commanded by Lt. H.E. Armitage of No.12 Section, 12th Company D Battalion at the time of the Battle of Cambrai 20th November - 7th December 1917. A book was written about the battle of Cambrai in the late 1990s and the author managed to recover D.51 `DEBORAH' which is kept in a barn at Flequieres. As I know Phillipe I have asked him if any new information has turned up regarding D.50 as there are quite a few individuals researching the various tanks and D.51 was one of the other two tanks in No. 12 Section (the other being D.49 DOLLAR PRINCESS).

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The crew photo is interesting in that. whilst all the ORs appear to wear tank arm badges and MGC capbadges, only the SNCO seated on the left of the commander is not wearing an S-pattern buckle. he is wearing the plain leather belt worn by those who origianally served in the HS MGC (iei pre Christmas)

Spotter, you may say (sad but true), and so what?

Well, i agree that it is a little spotterish but it probably reveals that most of the crewmen were transferees to D Battalion in early 1917.

And I would love to know the SNCO is.....

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Super photo Margaret, thank you so much for posting. Its good to put a name to some of the faces. The above all seems correct and on the basis that D50 was under Dobinson at Ypres on 22nd August and is not noted as in action on 20th September it seems a reasonable deduction that this photo of crew D50 is in the later summer/autumn, probably just prior to Cambrai where they were in action on 20th November.

If you have any more info on letters or diaries etc they may shed more snippets of information that will help to complete more of the picture.

Edited by Geoffrey Churcher
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  • 4 years later...

Hi there, new to the forum, hope this is the right place to post this item. I have seen two pictures of F12 Friar Tuck (2321 - Male) in German hands after being captured at Cambrai in November of 1917.

I'm wondering if anybody has any information with regard to F12 and its activities on the 31st July 1917 at 3rd Ypres, I believe it attached, broke down and was eventually ditched near to or at two farms, namely Bossaert and Setques farms just north of the Wieltje to Gravenstafel road. F12 was supporting the 1/10th (Scottish) Liverpool Kings Regiment of the 166th BDE and the 3/5th Lancashire Fusiliers of the 55th (West Lancashire) Division. I'm keen to try and find any photographs of this tank at this location (or as near as possible to it). Main reason being to see if the two farms mentioned are in the photograph. Setques farm was still on many trench maps as late as May 1918, although no longer there, Bossaert farm is still there to this day and can be found on most trench maps. I'm also trying to see what condition the road was in at the time of the start date for the 3rd battle of Ypres in that area, the Wieltje to Gravenstafel road. The Wieltje to St Julian road in the same area seems to be in reasonable condition, if the well known photograph of Dop Doctor D32 is anything to go by. Any material on the crew would also be appreciated, I believe it was commanded by 2Lt Ryric. A.

 

Many thanks for your time, regards, Gary.

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  • Admin

Welcome to the forum Gary

 

There are a couple of F12 threads elsewhere on the forum that might be of interest to you (but please don't post your request again in any of those as duplicating does cause confusion)

 

If you reply to this you will have made the 2 posts necessary to access the private messaging system and can then contact other users direct vi that.

 

Good luck with your search

 

David

 

 

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