Operation Infatuate II: Sherman tanks at Westkapelle

[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.

[MicS]

Just found this new (to me) photo of Crab No.27 on the beach:
No.27 Crab - image078.jpg

Source (last photo): https://erenow.net/ww/47-royal-marin...43-1946/15.php

Still no WD number or name visible, but the Alied Star on the engine deck is clear. Note the peculiar style of the digit '7', quite different from that on the right side of the turret. This might just be the result of uneven wear and tear though:
No.27 Crab 1LBY, AVRE - Westkapelle beach - FO039988 larger.jpg

Michel

[Jakko Westerbeke]

Originally Posted by MicS

Just found this new (to me) photo of Crab No.27 on the beach:

Are you seriously saying I knew one of these photos before you did? No idea where I found it, but I have it on my hard drive in the same size (566 × 420 pixels) that you posted it here. I just tried seeing if it’s in 1940s books about the state of Walcheren at the time, but couldn’t find it; I did spot a (poor quality) picture showing T148656 as well as some of DUKWs and Terrapins that I haven’t seen before, that I intend to scan and post soon

Originally Posted by MicS

Note the peculiar style of the digit '7', quite different from that on the right side of the turret. This might just be the result of uneven wear and tear though:

I think the top right corner just wore off before the rest did, yes.

[MicS]

Originally Posted by Jakko Westerbeke

Are you seriously saying I knew one of these photos before you did?

I've now checked my hard disk too and found that I did download this image, from the same webpage, back in July 2020 but had not filed it in the correct directory, so did not find it (nor remember about it) when seeing it again recently

Originally Posted by Jakko Westerbeke

I did spot a (poor quality) picture showing T148656 as well as some of DUKWs and Terrapins that I haven’t seen before, that I intend to scan and post soon

Excellent!

[Jakko Westerbeke]

It may take a few days, as I’m a bit under the weather — I’ve been having a mild case of COVID for the last few days, and though it feels like I’m getting better, for all I know right now, I’ll feel worse again tomorrow …

For the moment, BTW, here are two more photos I got from Walther du Burck, that I realise I hadn’t posted yet but which I had at hand:

Dandy Dinmont (via Walther du Burck).jpg

This is his father and, I assume, his sisters on/in Dandy Dinmont, by the looks of it when it was parked alongside the houses ca. 1947–48 rather than when it was still in the Zuidstraat.

Minotaur (via Walther du Burck).jpg

And his mother with Minotaur.

[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.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Nice finds, Jakko!

[Jakko Westerbeke]

I also have a printout from the Polderhuis with more photos of the tanks that I’ve never seen, taken in 1945 according to the text on it. It appears to have been made using scans of the original pictures, but the question is: Where are those scans? Possibly on some hard drive at the museum that nobody remembers is there anymore …

[MicS]

Originally Posted by Jakko Westerbeke

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

Attachment 139019 Attachment 139020

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.

The first one is totally new to me. The second one (AVRE A3) is from the same negative as FO039991, only slightly differently cropped:

Street view - AVRE A3, No.10 Gun tank, No.M Crab (left); Gun tank '6 CHERRY', No.22 Crab (right).jpg

Michel

[Jakko Westerbeke]

You’re right, it is the same after all. I thought it was different because most versions of it you see are dark, like the one you posted.

Let me make quick scans of the print-outs of the other photos I mentioned …

Photos 50-51.jpeg

Photo 53.jpeg

Photos 57-59.jpeg

Photo 60.jpeg

These are (from the caption on the paper) all photographs by one Jan Reinder Fijn, that he took when visiting Westkapelle in 1945. But like I said: I have no idea where the scans that these are print-outs from, have disappeared to

[MicS]

Yes, finding the scans would be nice. Finding the original negatives would be even nicer (and even less likely alas!).


My hope is that one day a photo surfaces that shows at least a few letters of Crab No.27's name...

[Jakko Westerbeke]

It might be worth trying to track down the heirs of Mr. Fijn to see if they still have those negatives … Too bad he didn’t get close to the tanks in the sea to take pictures of them, though, else he might have captured the name of No. 27 too.