77mm m96 nr 6532 Hamel gun

[Rod Bellars (RIP)]

well back is down still and here is another gun from the collection missing parts and makes an interesting story . I have four 96 77mm guns and always chasing sight arms breach blocks and related operating gear as well as original wheels if anyone has them .

Here is basic history of war trophy guns to start with nearing wars end 1917-18 era CW Bean official Australian war historian convinced government a memorial had to made in every town to sacrifice of Australian troops in WW1 which was greater and longer than USA for instance. an unknown fact.

Some towns in the early part of the war like Ballarat had their male populations decimated if the unit they were all in had a bad day on the front and units were no longer recruited by district after such disasters , a fact also found out in UK to be detrimental to towns by the "pals" brigades . The resultant damage I believe for these mass exterminations of males from an area is still being recovered from now in rural Victoria and one only has to survey some of the avenue of honours of trees planted for each fallen soldier surviving today.As you drive through rural towns you see sometimes there are more trees than current population in the town never recovering from such a loss

Anyway the government encouraged units to take German souvenirs from equipment to cannons and tanks especially when the war was over!, a large number being taken after 11/11/18 while troops waited for ships home and these guns and related relics were sent home in mass and later distributed to first state and national war museums who got important pieces many being lost when interest declined in state war museums and then local army units and finally towns and districts .

The allocation was simple based on numbers in area and people supplied to the war and towns applied for guns tanks , planes , wagons etc along these lines ie for each multiple of 500 one got a field gun or 250 a mortar ,50 a machine gun etc and they were given to the recipients by the war trophy committee, that when it folded up had no further interest in these items and a trustee system was to look after them passing ownership and maintenance to each successive trustee in area . Some ignorant self interested people will say they are still government property but this is not the case except in rare occasions of guns loaned from the national collection and forgot about ie the German 210mm at Redhill near Mildura is one such gun .

large numbers of these guns were distributed and redistributed over the years and when people lost interest many were scrapped and buried a common occurrence or dragged off to a horders place . Also during distribution some towns sick of the war refused their allocated trophy ie one I have here being such a case captured by 17btn and others got very upset a rival town got a bigger better gun than them . Subsequent fighting led to another load of guns arriving in Australia to appease these people after the initial distributions . These guns often if the breach block is missing are not recorded as they came from French capture parks and weapons assessment areas and had blocks added on shipping and not matching gun and records were kept on these guns by you guessed it the breach block number .

we are not talking small numbers here either I estimate over 4000 maxim machine guns were given out and up to half of these still survive even though many have been illegally held for many years and approximately 1800 artillery pieces may have been brought back approx 10% at a guess of german artillery strength at any given time !!

again many of these guns survive and some people since Bill Billet wrote his book of wich i am reffered to as the collector , go on local misguided but well intentioned crusades to preserve their item usually doing a dulux restoration .Putting the item back out in the open to rot and be vandalized further sadly with a fresh coat of paint, patina blasted off allowing new rust to form and sometimes even an invented history of local capture tied to some fellow who initiated the project but at least they did something I suppose and did not scrap it .

Many guns captured in the early part of the war have lost their history and I have managed by studying shots earmark a few significant guns for my attention to recover and restore if the current owners allow and also have recovered a few of these already .


here is the story of one such gun one of the most ignored by me but yet significant guns I have ever found and I had to refuse it twice!!!! to end up buying it for salvage of parts before researching its history outlined here proving a point!! never destroy anything to do up something else before you research it .

where do we start probably when I first found this gun in the mid 80s in Ararat Victoria the town it had sat in since the war and it was up on a hill in a fellows back yard who had salvaged it from the tip earlier when dumped there for a long time under a pile of dirt when the local army base closed probably in 50-70era. The gun was painted in a park grey colour and its back was broken by severe rust brought on by being buried in the centre trail area and was far from attractive the fellow who owned it thought it was a gold bar and at the time i was turning up large numbers of these so was selective what I could waste my meager resources on always an issue as costs of recovery and storage come in to it when you are living at mums and are allowed one shed and fighting officials just to be able to pursue your interest at every angle .
I was one of the first recovering such and many were still going to scrap and i did not like to see that even on guns i did not see worth recovering so promptly put the word out on the gun it was there to be saved if any beginners wanted it and it very quickly was taken by Policeman in South Australia who had great ideas for it but failed to eventuate anything past recovering it and it changed hands a couple of times and I refused it again being offered to me "strike two" as the yanks say .

Then while attending a South Australian gunshow and winning a bit in their local casino and having not much to buy with my ill gotten gains I was approached by Kevin who runs the local auctions and offered the gun again , "third time lucky " I had just recovered a rare 96 na17 anti tank gun and needed parts and thought what the hell if i can convince a local to drag it over for me i would get it and Stewie was forthcoming although a little upset as he too was thinking of getting it and ended with him dragging it across to Monbulk Victoria for me next time he came across thanks again Stewie .

after a bit of time sitting in a shed, i went to Canberra and researched all my new finds in the town files held in the library and cross checked them to war trophy cards held in research section and unit histories a laborious task but before deciding the final fate of anything i do this as I heard someone in NSW cut up a supposed VC winners gun to do up another and then found the error of his ways doing it the other way I believe .

The gun had been issued to 2nd battalion 21 st infantry on disposal here in Ararat and had been captured by the 21st battalion on 4th of July 1918 at a place until then not known to me other than one of the many places you hear called Hamel from that period . I also researched the card that gave the storage depot it was shipped from and ship to Australia etc and unit forward observers records and learned about Hamel and its significance to our country and the USA .

This gun was captured on 4/7/18 at Hamel and was wheeled out to face attacking whippet tanks only to run into 200 Aussies with fixed bayonets , according to forward observer notes they "ran from their gun, cowardly" but there are a few holes in it that show they needed persuading . This is a very significant gun as it was early recorded use of anti tank artillery, first battle of Australian troops under Australian command and first unofficial use of USA troops under Australian command 4/7/18 a significant anniversary for USA . Not to mention the greater significance of the first gun captured by Australians under Australian command in war

Gun was presented to unit that captured it and when unit closed all items on base were disposed of as per defence authority and gun ended in local tip with other items under a large pile of dirt on the trail for many years until a local salvaged it. As it was quite significant to the country, I decided to start restoration of it . The trail had been destroyed centrally by time under dirt and we replaced the steel here with new and managed to save the original top cover awaiting riveting back on here .

As this gun was such a significant item to local history i offered it to AWM for swap for three duplicate surplus guns in their stores from ww2 which they rejected saying they had a better example of that model gun in the collection, a shocking statement for a museum dedicated to preserving significant historical relics to the country !! ie .It was first gun ever captured by Australians under Australian control ie Monash and he pioneered co-ordinating air ,armour and infantry in the attack which was highly successful and impressed the Germans so much they did it back at start of ww2 "Blitz kreig " let alone first battle of USA troops in WW1.

Sadly i believe the "better example of that model gun in original paint " at AWM I have since heard a recent curator sandblasted it and blew off all the original paint and duluxed it and put it on display and it has now been hidden after complaints so maybe was best they did not get it but I thought I had better offer them such a piece of national importance first

now to shots this gun is also written up on a French site mentioned in an earlier post

shot one

front of Hamel gun showing bullet strikes awaits further work

shot two

side shot of gun showing work on trail reconstruction

shot three
Hamel docs of delivery


shot four

Forward observer notes note referance to tank gun later to be anti tank gun sorry shot upside down and cant rotate flat earther here doing well to get this far

shot five
another shot of gun








Rod Bellars