Operation Infatuate II: Sherman tanks at Westkapelle

[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

[David Herbert]

Hi Alex,

After I typed the second part that you quoted in your last post # 80 I realized that it didn't add up so deleted it and replaced it with the first part that you have quoted. Well done for getting both !

However you have shown that the arms do indeed go over the suspension spring (sorry) so I think that the explanation is that the arms on the beach have had the pivot points cut off them where the arm bends down to the pivot - so about 30" removed. Looking at the zoom of the beach photo one can persuade oneself that one can see a cut box section.

For the benefit of others the suspension spring is a massive transverse spring the ends of which engage with the track frames just in front of the forward top roller. The track frames themselves pivot on the shaft that goes through the sprockets which also rotate around that shaft.

David

[Alex van de Wetering]

Hi David,

so I think that the explanation is that the arms on the beach have had the pivot points cut off them where the arm bends down to the pivot - so about 30" removed

I agree......it does seem they took the easy way out, by just cutting the arms off!

Well done for getting both !

I pressed the quote button, but it took me a while to find a picture to display what I meant. When I did find a picture and posted, I noticed the original text was missing! I did however post, as I think it help us learn more about these Armoured dozers, vehicles I have always found very fascinating.

Alex

[Jakko Westerbeke]

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

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?

You’ve got it exactly right: the old dyke ran as the pale lines show, then curved more to the southeast just below the map until it got to the dune now known as Erika; from there it continued on to the southeast. When the dyke was reconstructed after the war, it was built in a big curve the other way — the footpath along the top is clear on the aerial photo, and pretty much follows the curve of the new dyke — to connect the remaining part of the old dyke to Erika. A sandy beach then formed at the foot of the new dyke. (The lake marked “De Kreeke” at the lower right also didn’t exist before 1945 — that area was farmland back then.)

If you want to see how the coastline changed because of the RAF’s actions, http://topotijdreis.nl is a good resource: type “Westkapelle” into the search box at the top right, then play with the date slider along the left.

“’t Gat”, BTW, translates as “the Gap” — the reason for that name is probably obvious

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

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

Crab T148656 certainly did