Hi David,
Thanks for taking time to share your thoughts!
The Overloon museum opened on may 25th 1946 in the wooded area on the Eastern edge of Overloon, bascially on the original battlefield. "Avalon" was there from the start. In the early days the museum tried to replicate the battlefield as much as possible, with weapons, shrapnel, boxes and vehicle parts littering the area around the vehicles. After a few years the "litter" was put indoors in a museum building and a path was created along the outdoor exhibits.
It seems that at some stage the vehicles were put on proper hardened surfaces, until the early 2000's when all vehicles and guns were put indoors in the new large museum building.
As far as I can tell Avalon and Cookie stayed in approximately the same location from 1946 to the early 2000's. "Approximately", as it seems they did end up a bit closer to eachother.
I presume "Cookie" isn't in the colour picture and the picture with the children, because Cookie is either obscured by Avalon, or it's just outside the frame.
The picture with the children is part of a series all taken at the same date and one also shows "Cookie" with the rurret reversed. These pictures are dated June 13th 1946, so only a few weeks after the museum opened.
The coloured picture is dated 1946/47 and is from a series that also includes the Panther and Cromwell tank, other well known Overloon exhibits.
Attached is an early picture of the museum with scrapnel and ammo boxes littering the museum grounds. On the left you will see "Cookie" with the turret reversed and on the far right you can see "Avalon".
source: NIOD through
https://beeldbankwo2.nl
Also attached is a picture of Cookie from the same series as the ones with the children sitting on Avalon. June 13th 1946.
source:
https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onde...field=overloon
The third picture shows Cookie with Avalon in the background.....the blurry picture in my ealier post is in fact a section I cut from this picture. This picture is dated May 27th 1946.
source:
https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onde...field=overloon
.