MLU FORUM - opportunity knocks (Sherman M4A4 s/n 18688)

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opportunity knocks (Sherman M4A4 s/n 18688)

A little more on this one's journey

https://www.khou.com/article/news/lo.../285-613019564

One of 7,499 M4A4s produced by Chrysler’s Detroit Tank Arsenal between July 1942 and November 1943. Ex' range target from Salisbury Plain, then Northern Ireland, the Normandy Tank Museum in Catz, France, Texas and and the Museum of the American G.I. of College Station.

Sherman V s/n 18688

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Originally Posted by maple_leaf_eh (Post 286341)

One of 7,499 M4A4s produced by Chrysler’s Detroit Tank Arsenal between July 1942 and November 1943. Ex' range target from Salisbury Plain, then Northern Ireland, the Normandy Tank Museum in Catz, France, Texas and and the Museum of the American G.I. of College Station.

Adrian Barrel shared a photo of it while on Salisbury Plain in the early 1990's:

Attachment 128435

In 2016, when it was autioned by the Normandy Tank Museum and sold for €347.200 excl. 20% fees:

Attachment 128436

And some background story of what happened when previous owner Tony Buzbee — a trial lawyer, Marine veteran, the grandson of a Normandy vet — parked the fully operational tank on the street in front of his home on Houston’s swankiest residential thoroughfare: https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-dai...ver-oaks-tank/

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traffic cops had papered the Sherman with three parking tickets in six days

Which windscreen wiper did they put those behind, then? :)

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a website compiled by Sherman obsessives, who maintain a database on all 87 surviving World War II-era Shermans.

Only 87? Oh, the 87 whose serial numbers are known or strongly suspected …

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Although the catalog states that the tank “bears the colors of the 2nd Armored Division ‘Hell on Wheels,’” it does not claim those markings were original or if they were added during the restoration, and if the latter, on what basis. As the catalog puts it: “This Sherman is in the exact same configuration as the tanks engaged during the summer of 1944,” and then the prose shifts neatly to the feats of the 2nd Armored Division, which indeed helped spearhead Operation Cobra from the Normandy beachhead deep into France. Nowhere does it say that Cheyenne was actually one of those tanks, Duke points out.

I’m sure it doesn’t need to be pointed out to anyone who frequents this forum that an M4A4 in the US Army in Normandy would have been exceedingly unlikely :)

I followed the auction when it closed. A last minute bump of US$5,000 to a total of US$355,000 did not meet the reserve bid.