Trophy gun, Hillsborough Co. Down

[depaor01]

Hi all,

 

Came across this postcard today. Anyone know the gun's history?

 

 

The Hillsborough Celtic cross survives, but the artillery doesn't.

 

Just pondering its fate - sold? scrapped? 

 

Dave

[Bombadier]

Looks like there were a pair originally 

 

[jay dubaya]

Sorry no date for the photo, they were not there at the unveiling of the War Memorial on 15th May 1922. 2 German 21cm Morsers without shields by the looks of them, they will surely have gone for scrap at some point, it's known not all these war trophies were well received, somewhat understanding for many at the time. An interesting read here regarding other trophy guns in NI 

[trajan]

Fascinating read that! I wonder what "J.H.", writer of the letter “Enemy Guns” published in the Northern Whig on 6th July 1925, would say now were he still around? All these lovely pieces of heritage (writing with my archaeological hat on!) rather mindlessly disposed off - no thought to the future.

 

One thing I would question, though, is the comment in the last article quoted, that the metal used in the German gun was far inferior to that used in British guns. That may be true for artillery - has anyone ever really checked? -  but I have done some metallurgical analysis of German bayonets and the quaility of their WW1 bayonets matches that used in WW2 ones.

[jay dubaya]

On 05/01/2019 at 08:07, trajan said:

Fascinating read that! I wonder what "J.H.", writer of the letter “Enemy Guns” published in the Northern Whig on 6th July 1925, would say now were he still around? All these lovely pieces of heritage (writing with my archaeological hat on!) rather mindlessly disposed off - no thought to the future.

 

One thing I would question, though, is the comment in the last article quoted, that the metal used in the German gun was far inferior to that used in British guns. That may be true for artillery - has anyone ever really checked? -  but I have done some metallurgical analysis of German bayonets and the quaility of their WW1 bayonets matches that used in WW2 ones.

 

I still use my Gustav's over 30 years use and still marching on......and dare I say I'm a Sheffield lad in exile. An interesting 'trophy' that a certain SH commissioned was built by Sheffield Forgemasters, I doubt they had the quality of what the city turned out 120 years ago. The HHU don't appear to have any images of the 2 (Howitzers) received at Hillsborough, maybe someone should let them know?

[Gunner Hall]

As Jay Dubaya says,  Krupp 21cm Morser model 16,  Without shield.  

R