Britannia in America

[peterhogg]

Did the tank tour Vancouver or Winnipeg?

Winnipeg might be a more likely spot given it's location. If it did come to Vancouver I can take a stab at digging up some photos from the Great War period.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Chris,

a large Company " Frisco " ( 23,000 employes ) based in St. Louis, may even possibly be in existance today ?

LF

Frisco, was the St. Louis - San Francisco Railway, based in St. Louis, and operated between 1876 - 1980.

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Britannia at Camp Upton.

Extract from a Camp Upton report -

" That first winter of 1917-1918 was a hard one with lots of snow, ice and muddy roads "

[centurion]

Chris,

Here is another very interesting link between Britannia and St. Louis, back in 1918 there was a large Company " Frisco " ( 23,000 employes ) based in St. Louis, may even possibly be in existance today ? They produced a monthly in-house magazine " The Frisco-Man ", and in their March, 1918 edition there is an excellent front cover photograph of Britannia with good detail of the tank's rear/stern end showing the exhaust pipe, a view typically not photographed.

Again we have a documented time line, and location, as the inside story refers to Britannia at Camp Upton. Do you know of Camp Upton ? and is there any connection between Camp Upton and Camp Grant ?

Regards,

LF

I have a detailed history of the tank's time at Camp Upton with many photos. From Upton it went to Fort Dix (via new York) and from there to Fort Sheridan and then back to New York. Reports similar to the one in the Frisco Man, which I already have, appeared in papers and magazines all over the USA from Texas to Oregon and even overseas (I have found examples from as far away as New Zealand). There is no direct connection between this article and any visit to St Louis and the only connection between Camp Upton and Camp Grant is that they were both large training areas for the US Army (but about 1,000 miles apart)

[centurion]

Did the tank tour Vancouver or Winnipeg?

Winnipeg might be a more likely spot given it's location. If it did come to Vancouver I can take a stab at digging up some photos from the Great War period.

AFAIK it only visited Hamilton, Toronto and Montreal in 1917 and about a year later revisited Toronto. I have no evidence that it ever went West in Canada. Vancouver would have been most likely as there is a gap in my records after it had been to Los Angeles and San Francisco and it was invited to Seattle from where there would be a good rail connection to Vancouver. However I have no evidence that it actually went to Seattle much less Vancouver

[calibre792x57.y]

Just a point of interest - the rails for the unditching beam were not factory fitted on the Mk IV - they were added in France, which is how you tell a tank that has been there from one that stayed in the UK for driver training etc. It has nothing to do with the production sequence. This class would include most of the touring tanks few of which had seen service in action. SW

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Crowds massed around Britannia on Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

( photo reversed )

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

This is in a Federal government report on the discovery of live munitions in the park that lists all the military events in WW1 in that location. Unfortunately it places the tank as being there sometime between April and Sept 1917 (Britannia did not arrive in the USA until October).

Here is the actual page from the Forest Park report, and as you can see, without any supporting evidence, the report places the mention of Britannia being in Forest Park, as between a documented ( photographed ) event on 6 April, 1917, and another documented ( photographed ) event on 16 September 1917. The report, merely refers to ' 1917 '.

With the lack of supporting evidence, the date period the report places Britannia in Forest Park seems to be an arbitrary date period, and could just as well have been October, November or December 1917, dates after which Britannia arrived in the USA.

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

I wonder if it would help to say what I am still looking for

1. Camp Polk S Carolina - Photo, dates etc I only know she was there on 17th Jan 1919 awaiting shipment to Camp Colt
2. Camp Colt - anything at all

centurion,

You will have to revise your list, as Camp Polk was not in South Carolina, but was in fact some 300 miles North in the next State of North Carolina, close to the town of Raleigh. Camp Polk was set up as a Tank Training Ground in August 1918, and closed in February 1919, during which time, " Britannia " visited Camp Polk.

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Camp Polk S Carolina - Photo, dates etc I only know she was there on 17th Jan 1919 awaiting shipment to Camp Colt[*]

There is an extremely interesting Journal Article " BIRTH AND DEATH OF A CAMP " published in January, 1919, by a presumably local man, Fred A. Olds, in which he writes about the history of Camp Polk, and the Camp's premature closure. He also describes the visit of " Brittania " ( misspelt, or just the American spelling ), and very interestingly, he talks about various other tanks being there as well as Britannia.

" Under the grand stand was the strangest exhibit ever seen in North Carolina, a row of tanks, some like giants, others of medium size, and yet others, the "whippets," tiny indeed. One was an English tank, the "Brittania," which has done plenty of fighting in France. Some carried two cannon, six-pounders, that is firing a shell of that weight, while the little fellows had only one gun. There were "tanks" black, dull gray and some camouflaged, but all grim and warlike in the extreme."

This is the first reference I have seen regarding other tanks being present alongside Britannia.

LF

Here is the complete Journal Article :-

" Fred A. Olds - Birth and Death of a Camp. Armistice Puts an End to the Feverish Activity of Camp Polk, at Raleigh.

From The Orphan's Friend and Masonic Journal, Vol. 43, no. 43 (January 17, 1919).

BIRTH AND DEATH OF A CAMP Armistice Puts an End to the Feverish War Activity of Camp Polk, at Raleigh.

FRED A. OLDS

When the writer was a little fellow, in the days of the civil war, which goes down into history now as the War Between the States and which to tell the truth is dwarfed and set much further back in the past by the Great War, now just expiring, he delighted to go into the camps of the soldiers. How rude they were, yet there was a charm about them. There was, you might be very sure, music of some sort, often by a band, with but few instruments and those well battered and yet, a band! And then too, the war over, the writer used to see the abandoned camps, both Confederate and Federal, and in the fires, now so cold, found many a pound of lead from the bullets of the cartridges of that day, in which the powder was held in paper. With this lead shot were made, by pouring the lead into a groove in a plank and so forming a long bar, very slender, which was pressed into a V-shaped opening in an iron bar, heated greatly and laid horizontally. The melted lead, in little pellets, fell into a bucket of water and there were your shot. This particular youngster can truthfully say he killed hundreds of squirrels with shot thus made.

One of the Confederate camps which was deserted, when that side in the conflict gave up in April 1865, was at Camp Mangum, at what is now Method, three miles west of Raleigh, and now there is another deserted camp, at the same place. It was Camp Polk, the only Tank camp in this country, but when the armistice came, like lightning from a clear sky, the camp simply died a natural death.

Thousands of acres of land had been leased for this vitally important war purpose, for tank fighting is one of the really big things in war today; the landowners who lived on the site had made an exodus to other parts and many were the moving scenes, if a pun is permissible, when they departed to "fresh fields and pastures new."

A small army of workmen, soldiers and civilians, took charge of the construction work and a wooden city had just begun to rise and crown the height. All day long there was a wild rush of construction, of barracks and all the many other things which now mark one of your Uncle Sam's canonments. Steam shovels clattered, mules by the hundreds toiled and moiled, locomotives dashed here and there, and men by hundreds worked their hardest. The writer and his "kiddy cotton pickers" worked several days in the heart of this activity, the children taking it all as the most natural thing in the world. Great trucks dashed by them; train after train, loaded with cheering troops bound for France, the beloved, roared past in those wonderfully brilliant October days. It was a scene never to be forgotten.

And then came the fateful 11th of November and in a few hours the erst-while busy hands of the clock stood still. Orders came for the stoppage, the ending of all work on the camp, and the workers faded away like a mist of the morning.

The State Fair was not held last year, for the tank fighters had been quartered there, the war department having leased grounds and buildings, and having 4,000 picked fighters in tents. Then came the miserable influenza, and caught soldiers and citizens alike in its clutch of death and suffering. But Raleigh, mourning her own, worked day and night for the sick of the camp.

In 1917 Miss Congressman Jeannette Rankin made the address of dedication of the Woman's Building at the Fair Grounds. Little did she or her thousands of auditors dream that in less than a year that building, with its "Better Babies" annex too, would be the quarters of scores of Uncle Sam's officers. Time is whirling, sure enough. In the spacious grounds were rows and rows of tents, each large enough for six men, each tent heated and electrically lighted and with wooden sides covered with tarred paper. Long mess halls, of wood, with tarred paper roofs, were put up, with kitchens attached, and all available space was utilized. There was an overflow camp outside the fair grounds, and at Method, a mile away, there were two temporary camps, one for white engineer troops, the other for colored stevedore troops.

Under the grand stand was the strangest exhibit ever seen in North Carolina, a row of tanks, some like giants, others of medium size, and yet others, the "whippets," tiny indeed. One was an English tank, the "Brittania," which has done plenty of fighting in France. Some carried two cannon, six-pounders, that is firing a shell of that weight, while the little fellows had only one gun. There were "tanks" black, dull gray and some camouflaged, but all grim and warlike in the extreme.

Near the fair grounds was the temporary drill field, carefully graded by the stevedore battalion, used also for aviation purposes. Near what was to have been the main portion of the cantonment was the school of pistol instruction and beyond this the six-pounder gun school and tank fighting zone. The sharp crack of the heavy pistols, calibre 45, and the angry boom of the guns was heard much of the day.

At the pistol school there was built by the busy stevedores a complete system of trenches and dug-outs, like those in France today, only of course in the small. Into these went the men under training, and at the signal began the advance, "over the top." Angle upon angle marked many of the trenches and at the sharp turns there popped into view a "Boche," made of paper, who had to be shot. So the sides of the trenches at the angles are marked by thousands of big bullet holes. One would think hundreds of wood-peckers had been busy there.

At what was to have been Camp Polk there are now piled over 15,000000 feet of lumber, brought there on many a train. Vast piles of it, laid out by the ever-busy stevedores, strike the eye. Now it is to be reshipped and will go to France, it is said. The partially finished railway sidings hold long lines of freight cars. Storehouses, and barracks, in all stages of progress, are before the eye, a lofty observation tower rises beside a highway. But all is still; where there was so much busy life there is now death, for already Camp Polk is little more than a memory.

It makes you think of the epitaph the Irishman placed on the tombstone at the grave of his baby, who had lived but 24 hours:

"Now you were so soon done for,

I wonder what you were begun for."

But when the cantonment construction was begun this country did not look for an end of the war before the summer of 1920. Plenty of people will now step up and gravely assure you "I knew all the time it would end by Thanksgiving day." You do not have to reply to these people; all you have to do is to think of Ananias and his successors of the edition of 1919. The liar, like the poor, "we have always with us," and so it will remain until the end of the world.

And so today, there beside the railways, the Seaboard and the Southern, is the camp which is dead, never to be tenanted; there are the spaces cut in thick woods, which were to have been roads; there are cotton-fields, yellow-white with the hanging locks, only picked here and there; with farm houses which but lately were surrounded by tents full of Uncle Sam's men, and the busy scenes, now gone forever, make you think of a man who dies suddenly; one moment so active, so strenuous, so virile, the next a mere inert mass.

Signs are all about, "Laborers wanted;" in the big corrals the contractors' mules had their homes and frolicked like children on their Sunday holidays. Gone are the contractors, laborers and mules. The camp is dead. It was to have been for 16,000 men. A few of these had come, and now these, except a handful, are at Camp Greene, Charlotte; the stevedores are removing everything from the fair grounds except the original buildings; the tanks go to Camp Benning, at Columbus, Ga., where the U. S. owns a large reservation and it is to become the permanent tank camp for the whole country. The emblem of the Tanks is a black cat, the slogan is "Treat 'em Rough."

There could not possibly be a finer lot of men, all "hand-picked," to use a phrase, than the Tankers. They represented all the United States. Some had come thousands of miles to get in this exciting department of fighting; from Australia, from Alaska, and other far-away places. There was in the brigade here a great-grandson of General Robert E. Lee and a grandson of General U. S. Grant. Men of all professions, but all brave fellows, were in the ranks, or rather in the Tanks, as privates and proud of it, wild to go to France and have it out with that most odious, treacherous and cruel of all beasts--the Boche. Death is a trifle to the "Tanker," whose cry is "Give 'em Hell, Boys!" You can hear it, as you can hear ringing, ringing, that other cry of the American troops as they rushed the German positions and beat their proudest picked troops, "Remember the Lusitania!"

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Here is a photograph of a visiting French tank in Boston - did other tanks accompany Britannia, and could the French tank be one of the ' other ' tanks seen with Britannia at Camp Polk ?

LF

[centurion]

There is an extremely interesting Journal Article " BIRTH AND DEATH OF A CAMP " published in January, 1919, by a presumably local man, Fred A. Olds, in which he writes about the history of Camp Polk, and the Camp's premature closure. He also describes the visit of " Brittania " ( misspelt, or just the American spelling ), and very interestingly, he talks about various other tanks being there as well as Britannia.

" Under the grand stand was the strangest exhibit ever seen in North Carolina, a row of tanks, some like giants, others of medium size, and yet others, the "whippets," tiny indeed. One was an English tank, the "Brittania," which has done plenty of fighting in France. Some carried two cannon, six-pounders, that is firing a shell of that weight, while the little fellows had only one gun. There were "tanks" black, dull gray and some camouflaged, but all grim and warlike in the extreme."

This is the first reference I have seen regarding other tanks being present alongside Britannia.

LF

Here is the complete Journal Article :-

" Fred A. Olds - Birth and Death of a Camp. Armistice Puts an End to the Feverish Activity of Camp Polk, at Raleigh.

From The Orphan's Friend and Masonic Journal, Vol. 43, no. 43 (January 17, 1919).

BIRTH AND DEATH OF A CAMP Armistice Puts an End to the Feverish War Activity of Camp Polk, at Raleigh.

FRED A. OLDS

When the writer was a little fellow, in the days of the civil war, which goes down into history now as the War Between the States and which to tell the truth is dwarfed and set much further back in the past by the Great War, now just expiring, he delighted to go into the camps of the soldiers. How rude they were, yet there was a charm about them. There was, you might be very sure, music of some sort, often by a band, with but few instruments and those well battered and yet, a band! And then too, the war over, the writer used to see the abandoned camps, both Confederate and Federal, and in the fires, now so cold, found many a pound of lead from the bullets of the cartridges of that day, in which the powder was held in paper. With this lead shot were made, by pouring the lead into a groove in a plank and so forming a long bar, very slender, which was pressed into a V-shaped opening in an iron bar, heated greatly and laid horizontally. The melted lead, in little pellets, fell into a bucket of water and there were your shot. This particular youngster can truthfully say he killed hundreds of squirrels with shot thus made.

One of the Confederate camps which was deserted, when that side in the conflict gave up in April 1865, was at Camp Mangum, at what is now Method, three miles west of Raleigh, and now there is another deserted camp, at the same place. It was Camp Polk, the only Tank camp in this country, but when the armistice came, like lightning from a clear sky, the camp simply died a natural death.

Thousands of acres of land had been leased for this vitally important war purpose, for tank fighting is one of the really big things in war today; the landowners who lived on the site had made an exodus to other parts and many were the moving scenes, if a pun is permissible, when they departed to "fresh fields and pastures new."

A small army of workmen, soldiers and civilians, took charge of the construction work and a wooden city had just begun to rise and crown the height. All day long there was a wild rush of construction, of barracks and all the many other things which now mark one of your Uncle Sam's canonments. Steam shovels clattered, mules by the hundreds toiled and moiled, locomotives dashed here and there, and men by hundreds worked their hardest. The writer and his "kiddy cotton pickers" worked several days in the heart of this activity, the children taking it all as the most natural thing in the world. Great trucks dashed by them; train after train, loaded with cheering troops bound for France, the beloved, roared past in those wonderfully brilliant October days. It was a scene never to be forgotten.

And then came the fateful 11th of November and in a few hours the erst-while busy hands of the clock stood still. Orders came for the stoppage, the ending of all work on the camp, and the workers faded away like a mist of the morning.

The State Fair was not held last year, for the tank fighters had been quartered there, the war department having leased grounds and buildings, and having 4,000 picked fighters in tents. Then came the miserable influenza, and caught soldiers and citizens alike in its clutch of death and suffering. But Raleigh, mourning her own, worked day and night for the sick of the camp.

In 1917 Miss Congressman Jeannette Rankin made the address of dedication of the Woman's Building at the Fair Grounds. Little did she or her thousands of auditors dream that in less than a year that building, with its "Better Babies" annex too, would be the quarters of scores of Uncle Sam's officers. Time is whirling, sure enough. In the spacious grounds were rows and rows of tents, each large enough for six men, each tent heated and electrically lighted and with wooden sides covered with tarred paper. Long mess halls, of wood, with tarred paper roofs, were put up, with kitchens attached, and all available space was utilized. There was an overflow camp outside the fair grounds, and at Method, a mile away, there were two temporary camps, one for white engineer troops, the other for colored stevedore troops.

Under the grand stand was the strangest exhibit ever seen in North Carolina, a row of tanks, some like giants, others of medium size, and yet others, the "whippets," tiny indeed. One was an English tank, the "Brittania," which has done plenty of fighting in France. Some carried two cannon, six-pounders, that is firing a shell of that weight, while the little fellows had only one gun. There were "tanks" black, dull gray and some camouflaged, but all grim and warlike in the extreme.

Near the fair grounds was the temporary drill field, carefully graded by the stevedore battalion, used also for aviation purposes. Near what was to have been the main portion of the cantonment was the school of pistol instruction and beyond this the six-pounder gun school and tank fighting zone. The sharp crack of the heavy pistols, calibre 45, and the angry boom of the guns was heard much of the day.

At the pistol school there was built by the busy stevedores a complete system of trenches and dug-outs, like those in France today, only of course in the small. Into these went the men under training, and at the signal began the advance, "over the top." Angle upon angle marked many of the trenches and at the sharp turns there popped into view a "Boche," made of paper, who had to be shot. So the sides of the trenches at the angles are marked by thousands of big bullet holes. One would think hundreds of wood-peckers had been busy there.

At what was to have been Camp Polk there are now piled over 15,000000 feet of lumber, brought there on many a train. Vast piles of it, laid out by the ever-busy stevedores, strike the eye. Now it is to be reshipped and will go to France, it is said. The partially finished railway sidings hold long lines of freight cars. Storehouses, and barracks, in all stages of progress, are before the eye, a lofty observation tower rises beside a highway. But all is still; where there was so much busy life there is now death, for already Camp Polk is little more than a memory.

It makes you think of the epitaph the Irishman placed on the tombstone at the grave of his baby, who had lived but 24 hours:

"Now you were so soon done for,

I wonder what you were begun for."

But when the cantonment construction was begun this country did not look for an end of the war before the summer of 1920. Plenty of people will now step up and gravely assure you "I knew all the time it would end by Thanksgiving day." You do not have to reply to these people; all you have to do is to think of Ananias and his successors of the edition of 1919. The liar, like the poor, "we have always with us," and so it will remain until the end of the world.

And so today, there beside the railways, the Seaboard and the Southern, is the camp which is dead, never to be tenanted; there are the spaces cut in thick woods, which were to have been roads; there are cotton-fields, yellow-white with the hanging locks, only picked here and there; with farm houses which but lately were surrounded by tents full of Uncle Sam's men, and the busy scenes, now gone forever, make you think of a man who dies suddenly; one moment so active, so strenuous, so virile, the next a mere inert mass.

Signs are all about, "Laborers wanted;" in the big corrals the contractors' mules had their homes and frolicked like children on their Sunday holidays. Gone are the contractors, laborers and mules. The camp is dead. It was to have been for 16,000 men. A few of these had come, and now these, except a handful, are at Camp Greene, Charlotte; the stevedores are removing everything from the fair grounds except the original buildings; the tanks go to Camp Benning, at Columbus, Ga., where the U. S. owns a large reservation and it is to become the permanent tank camp for the whole country. The emblem of the Tanks is a black cat, the slogan is "Treat 'em Rough."

There could not possibly be a finer lot of men, all "hand-picked," to use a phrase, than the Tankers. They represented all the United States. Some had come thousands of miles to get in this exciting department of fighting; from Australia, from Alaska, and other far-away places. There was in the brigade here a great-grandson of General Robert E. Lee and a grandson of General U. S. Grant. Men of all professions, but all brave fellows, were in the ranks, or rather in the Tanks, as privates and proud of it, wild to go to France and have it out with that most odious, treacherous and cruel of all beasts--the Boche. Death is a trifle to the "Tanker," whose cry is "Give 'em Hell, Boys!" You can hear it, as you can hear ringing, ringing, that other cry of the American troops as they rushed the German positions and beat their proudest picked troops, "Remember the Lusitania!"

Yes I know where do you think I picked the info up from?

[centurion]

Here is a photograph of a visiting French tank in Boston - did other tanks accompany Britannia, and could the French tank be one of the ' other ' tanks seen with Britannia at Camp Polk ?

LF

No and No

A number of American Army Renault FTs and US made 6 tonners (which were nearly identical) toured the USA in 1919 to raise money to pay for what the war had cost through the sale of bonds. That is one of them. They appear have come from a number of bases including Camp Colt and Camp Grant but not Camp Polk which had already closed. They had an advantage over the earlier Britannia in that they could be transported by lorry and visit places not directly on the rail network

[truthergw]

This google duel looks like it may well take the place of Kursk as the greatest tank battle.

[centurion]

A 1919 Victory Loan parade in Seattle

A visit to Cherry Vally

[centurion]

This google duel looks like it may well take the place of Kursk as the greatest tank battle.

I'm not using google

[Lancashire Fusilier]

This google duel looks like it may well take the place of Kursk as the greatest tank battle.

Along with reference books, the internet/Google is a fantastic source of information, and is a great medium for sharing information with most of the information/photographs in this thread having come from the internet at one time or another. Personally, I often use Google as an information source, as I suspect does everyone else with a computer.

Here is another great photograph ( from Google ) of Britannia displaying her might during a house demolishing display on her U.S. tour.

Regards,

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Yes I know where do you think I picked the info up from?

I am not sure, however, it certainly needed to be pointed out that Camp Polk was in North Carolina and not South Carolina, that is the difference between saying something is in Sussex, when it is really in Norfolk.

Also, remember that many members, like myself, reading this thread, are seeing this information and photographs for the first time and are not overly familiar with the subject as is the OP.

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Two American Movie/Cinema posters, possibly for a film used to promote the visit of Britannia to the US.

Both posters specifically mention " Britannia ".

[centurion]

Along with reference books, the internet/Google is a fantastic source of information, and is a great medium for sharing information with most of the information/photographs in this thread having come from the internet at one time or another. Personally, I often use Google as an information source, as I suspect does everyone else with a computer.

Here is another great photograph ( from Google ) of Britannia displaying her might during a house demolishing display on her U.S. tour.

Regards,

LF

In Baltimore

[centurion]

Two American Movie/Cinema posters, possibly for a film used to promote the visit of Britannia to the US.

Both posters specifically mention " Britannia ".

Wrong again I'm afraid. [Google can be a great gold mine but you do need to define the ore to remove the fools gold and other dross before posting from it which in turn often requires knowing something about the subject] One poster promoted a war exposition Hero Land in New York (24/11/1917 to 12/12/1917) in which the tank took part. Hero Land probably deserve a couple of threads in its own right, every "Allied" nation had an exhibition (including Brazil, Japan and Portugal). Large amounts of captured German and KuK ordinance was displayed. The British part of the exhibition used a large number of wounded servicemen (and it was noted that the number of arms and legs did not add up to the number of attendants X 2.) . The basement of the building contained a trench system for the delectation of vistors (see what a dug out is like not) Britannia used a piece of ground next to the building to do twice daily demonstrations. It has been suggested that this had been earmarked for the NYFD to do a display which might explain their future problems with the tank. The horizontal posterwith changed word was used to promote a later film of the tank crushing things, knocking down trees etc. The Hero Land ) poster shown was not the official one and was used (with different wording) to promote a number of expositions in a number of cities (some of which Britannia was not involved in but which showed the film)

British soldiers at Heroland with Trench Howitzer

[centurion]

Official Hero Land poster

BTW whilst the bulk of Camp Polk was in North Carolina the satellite area where the tanks were housed was in South Carolina (never rely on a single source)

[Carmania]

According to a contemporary newspaper report Britannia was in St Louis at least on Saturday 11 May 1918 and Sunday the 12 May. It became stuck in the mud of the River des Peres and was there for 20 hours before it was towed out by three trucks on the Sunday.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Wrong again I'm afraid.

British soldiers at Heroland with Trench Howitzer

No, I am not wrong, as I did specifically say these posters were " possibly for a film ", and it would seem from your explanation that they did in fact have a connection with Britannia, albeit somewhat unofficial, and besides, the purpose of a Forum is to discuss, and learn.

By my posting the " Posters ", it gave you the opportunity to explain how the posters were actually used, post a great photograph of the Heroland exhibit, and a picture of the approved " Britannia " poster, ( a copy of which is freely available on the internet ). Sounds like this Forum is working perfectly.

I keep reminding you, that not everyone is an expert on this subject, some of us are here to learn. When you open a thread, always bear that in mind, and expect to encounter a few drivers using " L " plates, even though you may find them somewhat annoying.

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

BTW whilst the bulk of Camp Polk was in North Carolina the satellite area where the tanks were housed was in South Carolina (never rely on a single source)

centurion,

With regard to North and South Carolina, USA., I know that area particularly well.

Camp Polk was in Wake County, North Carolina, which is one of the northern North Carolina Counties, and I doubt very, very much that " the satellite area where the tanks were housed was in South Carolina ".

From where Camp Polk was located, near to the town of Raleigh, North Carolina, it is about 120 miles heading South to the border with South Carolina.

Why would any Army house their tanks in a " satellite " in South Carolina, and then drive them or transport them on a 250/400 miles round trip across State Lines to use a training area or tank firing range in another State, at a Camp specifically set up as a tank training and tank firing range with some 20,000/22,000 acres at their disposal, I am sure they had more than enough room to house their tanks at Camp Polk, North Carolina.

I have attached a map of North and South Carolina ( two completely separate States ), look for the town of Raleigh, North Carolina, it is located just South of the towns of Durham and Chapel Hill, and then kindly specify the location of the town in South Carolina used to " house " the tanks, which could be anywhere from 120/250+ miles from Camp Polk. I would also like to know your source for this highly questionable " South Carolina satellite tank housing area ".

LF.