Staghound Range Target recovered in Canada

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Tried to find an earlier thread about the (in)famous Staghound in a bog "somewhere in Canada".

Originally Posted by Darrell Zinck

Who here has offered to recover the Winchester Bog Stag for the RCD? I'm likely to be tapped by the DCO tomorrow to be involved in this recovery.

I am sure it was discsussed over the years on this forum, but now, 6 years later, Darrell's question was answered by Robin's thread on HMVF:

Since about 1996 or there abouts, the location of a WW2 Staghound hull has been known of by a small number of people.

Even less have seen it.

During the Second World War there were many airfields set up across Canada to train allied pilots to fly. It was all done under the British Commonwealth Air Training Program or BCATP for short.

Since the end of the war the many of the airfields have been closed and the buildings torn down and the runways ripped up.

The hangars were all the same design and used massive British Columbia fir beams, I was involved in building a cottage that used some reclaimed beams. Beautiful timbers.

The location of this vehicle was in the impact area of the Winchester airfield and infact located in a bog. From the end of winter to freeze up the area has about two to three feet of water, a peat like bottom, and willow bushes taller than your head. In winter the bog does ice over in some areas but the ice cant be counted on. The Winchester bog is located south of Ottawa, in Eastern Ontario, Canada.

I was told of the vehicle around 1998 and went looking for myself. I decided that the best way to find it was to look from above. I enlisted the help of a friend of mine who has an Aeronca Champ and flies from an airfield close by. From the pictures of the hull I had been shown the turret was off. From the air it did not take many passes to see a totally man made perfect circle in the swamp vegetation.

Using a nearby track with a dog leg close to the hull I made mental notes as to where it was.

On the ground a while later using that mental image from the air I walked out from the dog leg the 400 yards or so through the willows, fighting each step all the way. By pure dead reckoning and luck I walked right to it the first time. Trust me, navigation in the bog is very difficult as it is featureless with no points of reference.

Since that time many skilled people have attempted to walk out to it using GPS coordinates taken from satellite images. Many of those attempts failed. One could walk within feet of it but never see it.

Over the following years I visited a number of times more to make my own recovery appreciation plan. The location was "top secret" locally as a few undesirables had designs on it. Early on the Canadian War Museum declined any interest in it as too much work would have to be done and they had other projects.

Eventually the Royal Canadian Dragoons showed an interest and worked up a plan to pull it out using heavy assets within the unit. Sadly operational deployments and cut backs and budget restrictions put paid to public assets being used. A local benefactor in the shape of a contractor with big excavation equipment was nurtured and sweet talked into coming on board by the Guild of the RCD. the Guild has some kind of plan for the vehicle.

Over this past winter the recovery was scheduled and two big excavators were deployed to go dig it out and drag it back to terra firma and load it onto a trailer. Sadly I had work commitments that stopped me attending. Those involved in the recovery failed to take pictures at least as far as I have been told.

Today the hull and turret recovered from beside it sit on a trailer in a storage yard pending plans and funds being readied for the next stage of the RCD Guild's plan to do something with it. It is not up for swap or trade I am being told.

I will, over the next few days, post all the pictures I have of it when seen a few weeks after the extraction, sadly taken with a cell phone so the quality is not great.

I have a total of 19 pictures and will post just a few to start.

Regards
Robin

59dccb2d92eab_stag19.jpg.3fc5a2b1908e059d2ac4871f8e7ac0a2.jpg 59dccb2da90c2_stag18.jpg.5b500117ad9973c03ca32ba989d7b225.jpg 59dccb2ddca1c_stag16.jpg.e83bbe6ce77f9410d159fc58469c1c0d.jpg