Operation Infatuate II: Sherman tanks at Westkapelle

[Jakko Westerbeke]

For the last two years or so I’ve been working (on and off) on what will be a PDF net.book covering the vehicles left behind at Westkapelle after the war. Interesting to see that this thread began around the time I also started digging into this very subject. Some good stuff here that I hadn’t discovered or worked out on my own yet, and also a lot of conclusions that I had also drawn independently

Let me begin by saying I’ve been assigning letter-number codes to keep vehicles straight. With four AVREs, three Crabs and three bulldozers on the beach alone, I felt this was pretty much a necessity, to avoid having to repeat things like “the AVRE facing the sea” or “the bulldozer by the end of the antitank wall” all the time. Let me show you what I mean:

Tankwrakken op Westkapelle 2020-04-15 kaart.jpg Tankwrakken op Westkapelle 2020-04-15 luchtfoto 1946.jpg

These are JPEGs exported from the net.book as I have it in Adobe InDesign at the moment (yes, they’re in Dutch; I’ll do an English translation when I’m done writing the text). On the colour map, the pale lines represent the village during the war, based on a 1942 energy company map and a 1944 British map as used in the landings. White boxes point out the 1940s situation, yellow boxes the modern one.

On to some specifics:

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

The (as of yet) unidentified Sherman V Crab on LCT 1005 was commanded by Lieutenant S.A. Miller
(…)
I do not know its name or Turret number, but it has a WD census number ending with “...53”:

I make it T-14…53 but I can’t make out the middle two numbers.

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

Sherman V, T-148829?, name WOLF OF BADENOCH, Turret No.10
(…)
In July 1946, it still proudly displays its turret number "10", while the hull side is adorned with random paint splashes. Could this be the result of a house painter cleaning his brushes?

It certainly looks like that to me. I’m more puzzled by the dark patch at the rear of the righthand side of the hull — I’m wondering if this isn’t green paint, also from someone cleaning a brush but more neatly?

I think its WD number is T148323, but like you, I can’t be sure. I’ve also wondered why the paint is darker where the numbers were. It looks like they flaked off the tank, but then why is the paint underneath darker than what’s left around them? Based on my understanding of the type of film likely used and the colours of British tanks leads me to think that if the tank was overpainted in British colours, this kind of flaking would expose either American OD or SCC 2 brown, both of which should appear lighter in photos than SCC 15 paint, not darker. But there’s also a darker patch where the first aid kit has been taken off the hull rear.

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

Another ca.1945 photo showing Turret No.2. According to the caption of this photo it is located at the address Markt 92-96 in front of the monumental house "'t Herenhuis". Markt is a section of the road adjacent of the long Zuidstraat, so this caption helps us to pinpoint the location more precise.
Attachment 97958
(Source)

This tank was in front of the house of Westkapelle’s most prolific photographer, Neeltje* Roelse (1921–2008, later Flipse-Roelse after she married), who lived in the middle of that row of three houses. Anyway, the got moved backwards and forwards a couple of times, as I’m sure you’ve also figured out by now

* Commonly called “Nee”, English pronunciation “nay”.

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

Sherman V Crab, T-148656
(…)
Circa 1946, still in the same spot and still complete but the WD census number seems to have been painted out. Maybe because it has been struck off census?
Note the road wheel missing from the left rear bogie:
Attachment 97949
(Source)

As best I can tell, this picture was taken from the window in the roof of the Roelse house.

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

Sherman V Crab, T-148656
By 1960 it had lost its flail booms and was left as a memento halfway on the dyke, on the land side:
Attachment 97951
(Source)

It’s in a field at the foot of the dyke, behind the Westkapelle war museum that was housed in the Leitstand (fire control bunker) for the German coastal battery MKB “Westkapelle” (known as W15 to the British). In modern terms, if you look at this map, it’s more or less to the left of where it says “Dominicus B.V.”

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

Thanks Patrice.

Attached is a post-war picture of two Armoured Dozers which got stuck on Red beach at Westkapelle:

Attachment 110543

The one on the left is actually just the armoured cab and the winch. For some reason, somebody appears to have removed the actual dozer and left these. The dozer originally faced more or less east, but in the photo above, the cab is the other way round and lying on its side. The only explanation I can think of is that the dozer was salvaged, and of course nobody needs an armoured cab on it — but it’s kind of perplexing that they would have gotten the thing to run after having been submerged twice a day in salt water for a year or more …

The general area here, BTW, is known as ’t Stort (“the Dump”) because rubble was dumped there after the war, mostly behind the antitank wall. Until the dyke was strengthened in the mid-1980s, you could still see sections of round brick wall lying there, that came from the windmill on the dyke that had been destroyed in the bombardment.

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

the south side of the breach

That area is known as Erika — technically, the dune top with the radar station is. In the 1940s the dune was known as platten dune (“flat dune”), but during the war the Germans built radar posts there, known as Monika I, Monika II and Erika; the latter name appears to have stuck for the dune after the war. To anyone from Westkapelle, the area pictured above would be bie Erika (“near/in the vicinity of Erika”).

It’s this area that I’m currently trying to figure out too, by the way. There’s little material to go on, though.

[David Herbert]

Well done Jakko,
It is good to have new eyes looking at this in such a thorough manner. Welcome to the forum.

On the question of the two armoured dozers, I can see why you formed the opinion that you have but the winch is bolted to the rear of the actual tractor not to the armour so it is very unlikely that it would have been removed and left when the rest of the machine was salvaged. The winch would also have had a good value as either a winch or scrap (if damaged) so would not have been left without good reason. I suspect that actually just the tracks and frames had been removed but have no evidence for this.

David

[Jakko Westerbeke]

Originally Posted by David Herbert

Well done Jakko,
It is good to have new eyes looking at this in such a thorough manner. Welcome to the forum.

Thanks

Originally Posted by David Herbert

On the question of the two armoured dozers, I can see why you formed the opinion that you have but the winch is bolted to the rear of the actual tractor not to the armour so it is very unlikely that it would have been removed and left when the rest of the machine was salvaged.

There’s at least one picture in which you can tell that the cab and probably the winch have been left behind, but the rest of the dozer is gone:

't Gat - Tanks 8.jpeg
(sorry, no source as I didn’t record where I found this)

On the very right of the photo, there’s obviously the cab on its side and what to me looks like the winch behind it.

I’m greatly puzzled by the pronged thing on the edge of the water, by the way. I first thought it was a bulldozer chassis or the arms of the dozer blade, but on inspection of the parts in the Resicast armoured dozer kit, I found it to be the wrong shape for either.

[Alex van de Wetering]

Jakko,

Great to see you here!

I’m greatly puzzled by the pronged thing on the edge of the water, by the way. I first thought it was a bulldozer chassis or the arms of the dozer blade, but on inspection of the parts in the Resicast armoured dozer kit, I found it to be the wrong shape for either.

I do think they are the arms of a dozer.....but maybe not D7, but D6. I think you see the arms and the two smaller arms that connect to the corner of the blade, that alows it to set the blade at an angle. I can see that someone salvaged the crawler part of the dozer leaving the blade, winch and armor at the beach.

[David Herbert]

Jakko and Alex,

I have to agree about the cab and winch, having now seen the photo in post 71. I am sure that the pronged thing is the blade frame with the blade still attached. It is up side down and with the blade angled away from us - to the left if it was still on the tractor. The sharp 'prong' pointing to the left in the photo is the lower corner of the blade. I suppose that the guy that dismantled the tractor may have come back for the remaining bits the next day - he may not have had the ability to recover the tractor in one piece given that the tanks and tractors could not move on that beach.

David

[Alex van de Wetering]

I am sure that the pronged thing is the blade frame with the blade still attached. It is up side down and with the blade angled away from us - to the left if it was still on the tractor. The sharp 'prong' pointing to the left in the photo is the lower corner of the blade.

David, that's the odd thing.....it does look like the blade is upside down, but the arms are definately not upside down. They have a kink upwards to clear the dozer suspension, so the arms face the normal way up. Maybe the thing we thing is the point of the blade is actually some other piece of steel laying a few feet away from the dozer(?)

The armour lying on it's side identify the dozer as a D6; The D6 was the only one that had the sides completely parrallel, while the D7 had the armor slightly sloping outwards.

The one on the left is actually just the armoured cab and the winch.

Do you mean the one in the picture Hanno posted in post 64 ? Than I would have to disagree. The armour and winch are still the right side up, and you can see the left and right track next to the dozer and I think I even see the edge of the blade. To me it looks like the dozer has completely sunk in the beach, as Hanno also mentioned, in which case the picture predates the picture you posted yesterday.

Alex

[Jakko Westerbeke]

Originally Posted by Alex van de Wetering

Do you mean the one in the picture Hanno posted in post 64 ? Than I would have to disagree.

You’re right, I was confusing two pictures.

Originally Posted by Alex van de Wetering

the picture predates the picture you posted yesterday.

Most are hard to date accurately anyway

[David Herbert]

Originally Posted by Alex van de Wetering

David, that's the odd thing.....it does look like the blade is upside down, but the arms are definately not upside down. They have a kink upwards to clear the dozer suspension, so the arms face the normal way up. Maybe the thing we thing is the point of the blade is actually some other piece of steel laying a few feet away from the dozer(?)

Alex

Sorry Alex but I think that you are wrong. When viewed from the side of a complete dozer, the braces that set the angle of the blade are parallel to and lower than the top edge of the blade frame as seen in Michels photos. That fits in with the whole assembly being upside down on the beach. Also in the zoomed photo you can see the circular saucer shaped depth plates just behind the blade that help to control depth of cut.

In Michel Saberly's photos you can see that he has highlighted that these dozers has their Cat works numbers painted onto the front of the armour. These are in the 1T series which denotes that they are tractors built under licence from Caterpillar. A Cat built D7 would be a 7Mxxxx and a D6 would be a 4R or 5Rxxxx depending on track gauge. Cat works numbers, for say 7M D7s, started at 7M1 and ran to 7M9999. The next D7 would be a new prefix, in this case 9U1 which ran to 9U9999 and then another new prefix. Changes were brought in as required and a new prefix did not necessarily mean a new model but often did. There are a lot of 3T and 4T D7s about which are post war license built 7Ms.

David

David

[Jakko Westerbeke]

Now you point it out, yes, it does look like that This would probably mean that this dozer (S11 using my numbering, “A” by Hanno’s) was a D6A, right? I’ve not been able to find a photo of it that shows the exhaust pipes clearly enough, but if, as Alex says, this is the arm type used on the D6 then it probably came from this dozer.

The other option is the dozer at the far side of this group (S53/“C”), which was a D6 if I’m not mistaken (though I only learned how to tell them apart by reading this thread ). On the other hand, if that had been disassembled, why would they drag the blade all the way here?

[Alex van de Wetering]

I have been meaning to post some pictures of D6 and D7 dozers to show how one can tell them apart, but looking for pictures I noticed that Michel Saberly has already done that a few years ago.

Attached pictures are by Michel Saberly.

[Jakko Westerbeke]

Originally Posted by David Herbert

I suppose that the guy that dismantled the tractor may have come back for the remaining bits the next day - he may not have had the ability to recover the tractor in one piece given that the tanks and tractors could not move on that beach.

It looks like the winch was left on the beach:

Tanks in 't Gat vanaf strand.jpg
(source)

This is a photo from 31 July 1947, and the cab and winch are there but the arm isn’t. It still surprised me that the tractor would still have been operational, but maybe the winch wasn’t and so it was left behind, while the blade was salvaged for re-attaching to the tractor?

[Alex van de Wetering]

Sorry Alex but I think that you are wrong. When viewed from the side of a complete dozer, the braces that set the angle of the blade are parallel to and lower than the top edge of the blade frame as seen in Michels photos. That fits in with the whole assembly being upside down on the beach. Also in the zoomed photo you can see the circular saucer shaped depth plates just behind the blade that help to control depth of cut.

Hi David,

I see what you mean....the blade and arms are indeed upside down and I was wrong. But, has the whole assembly been cut from the dozer with a torch maybe? As there seems to be something odd with the shape...(last kink towards the pivot point seems missing)

The arms actually pivot from the brackets that you can see from the outside of the tractor at a point about midway between the top rollers but quite low down. The weight of the tractor is carried by a big leaf spring pivoted to the sump on a normal tractor (I am not sure if it is a solid mount on these) which is higher than the blade arms so there is no need for the arms to avoid it. The underside of the arms are sloped upwards at the ends to give better ground clearance when the blade is up. In the zoomed photo you can see the circular saucer shaped depth plates just behind the blade that help to control depth of cut.

That's what I don't agree on; the arms on an Armoured dozer are shaped over the transverse leaf spring, as they would otherwise interfere with the spring. You can't curve the arms under the leaf spring, as that would very much limit the up and down movement of the arms and blade. The shape might be a bit different between D6 and D7, but you can see the idea here on the surviving D7 dozer.
Dozer blades that attach to the ouside of the dozer suspension don't have this problem obvisously, as there is no spring, so the arms can be straight.

Picture source: https://www.militarymodelscene.com/d7-rmoured-dozer

[David Dunlop]

Jakko.

Can you clarify something for me?

In your colour aerial photo with the wartime overlay of the location outlined in white, there is what now appears to be a large, white sand public beach in the area marked “t’ Gat”. In the Northwest corner of this photo you can clearly see the cluster of assorted armour that never made it ashore and the outer white lines of what appears to be the original wartime shoreline pass roughly North/South down through that area before swinging off to the East at the bottom of the photo.

Was the land flooded out subsequent to the wartime landing, never diked back off and reclaimed, or am I just getting the information wrong from the two photos? I was so interesting in tracking the postwar movements of some of the armour, I only just noticed this possible loss of land mass.

I cannot help think some of that armour did more travelling in town after the war than they managed during the landing.

David