Operation Infatuate II: Sherman tanks at Westkapelle

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Thanks for that Jakko. Good to see this small artefact was saved sometime before the interior was ravaged by the weather.

Did you decipher the hull serial number in the end?

[Jakko Westerbeke]

I was told somebody brought the plate into the museum at some point, but I don’t know when (or who) that was. The serial, I got to 2030 plus one unreadable number as being the most likely — see page 44 of my book

[Jakko Westerbeke]

Today, I got an e-mail from one Walther du Burck, who sent me this photograph, and graciously allowed me to post it here as a small contribution to historiography:

Cock o'the North ca 1947.jpg

It shows his father and sister with Cock o’the North. I estimate the photo to have been taken in 1947 or ’48, based on the houses being built in the background and the road surface having reached the tank’s axles. Red Tod is also just visible behind the pile of bricks in the left background.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Nice photo - thanks for sharing it here, Jakko

[Jakko Westerbeke]

The other day, I purchased the booklet Zware tijden: Domburg en Oostkapelle 1944-1945 by Laurens Priester (Domburg, 1990, no ISBN). This describes the events in the two villages in the title during the years indicated (the main title translates as “Hard Times”), and in it, I spotted this photo that I don’t remember seeing before:

84FDBFFA-627C-47C4-941D-851046C9324F.jpeg

It’s captioned as having been taken in the Burgemeester van Teylingenpark in Domburg, but not dated. As the LVT (4)’s track is broken and there are no weapons on it, I’m assuming it was probably abandoned.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Interesting photo, not seen it before.

Is the LVT4 named "Coup d'Essai" or "first attempt", "a trial run"?

[MicS]

Originally Posted by Jakko Westerbeke

The other day, I purchased the booklet Zware tijden: Domburg en Oostkapelle 1944-1945 by Laurens Priester (Domburg, 1990, no ISBN). This describes the events in the two villages in the title during the years indicated (the main title translates as “Hard Times”), and in it, I spotted this photo that I don’t remember seeing before:

Attachment 131700

It’s captioned as having been taken in the Burgemeester van Teylingenpark in Domburg, but not dated. As the LVT (4)’s track is broken and there are no weapons on it, I’m assuming it was probably abandoned.

Nice find Jakko!

I only have one other photo of COUP D'ESSAI:

COUP D'ESSAI - LVT4 79 ASRE - PR2011.0001-14-0.jpg

Source is the Donald Carson fonds from the Provincial Archives of Alberta:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/albert...57638183401235
which I trust you already know, and which has a number of other great photos shot on Walcheren.

COUP D'ESSAI naturally belonged to 79 Assault Squadron RE;

Michel

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by MicS

Source is the Donald Carson fonds from the Provincial Archives of Alberta:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/albert...57638183401235 which I trust you already know, and which has a number of other great photos shot on Walcheren.

Michel, thanks for sharing that link. Have seen many of Carson's photos before, but found some new ones in here.

A few LVT4 seem to have been quite stationary after the landings:

11874872204_f71db4dc87_b.jpg

[Jakko Westerbeke]

Originally Posted by MicS

Nice find Jakko!

I only have one other photo of COUP D'ESSAI:

Cool, we’ve just doubled our knowledge of the vehicle I had kind of assumed there would have been machine guns on it, but it seems there were none.

Originally Posted by MicS

Source is the Donald Carson fonds from the Provincial Archives of Alberta:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/albert...57638183401235
which I trust you already know

Yep, as you can see there, I provided location data in the photos I could place. Too bad nobody behind the scenes bothered to actually place the photos on the map Flickr provides for that purpose

Very hard to tell where this particular photo was taken, of course. Somewhere in the dunes, so I’d guess at Westkapelle, but it could well be Domburg or somewhere between the two.

[Jakko Westerbeke]

Originally Posted by Jakko Westerbeke

Attachment 131700

Here’s a better version of that photo:

Coup d'Essai.jpg

With thanks to Ivo from the Polderhuis museum, who came across it on Facebook in a post by one Toon Franken (as I don’t do FB, I can’t provide a link to it).

[Jakko Westerbeke]

Two more photos I don’t think I’ve ever seen:

00003248.jpg 00003226.jpg

The first one is T148656 sometime in the late 1950s, after it had been stripped of anything that was loose and the scrap merchants’ torches cut off some of the rest of it. The other looks very similar to other photos of the tanks left in the village (of course) but not quite the same as the others I’ve seen.