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Mortymoose
Honorary Master
- Joined
- May 26, 2013
- Messages
- 13,287
Allright, let's do a bit of history again...
Whilst growing up here in the 70's , there was a Sherman Tank parked in one of the parks and two more down at the local Moth Club. I always could understand the two tanks down at the Moth's , seeing that this was where all the old army men from WW2 hung out..... until I was old enough to realise that the war never occurred in this part of the world. "What on earth where those tanks doing here?" , well from a previous posting, some of you will recall that the mine purchased surplus army stock after the war and modified them to suite their mining operations.....
If any of you are interested more in the history of the Sherman Tanks of the NAMIB, I include a copy/paste of an old timer... Bob Molloy!
"Those tanks were mainly Shermans. The Eighth Army when it was fighting the Afrika Corps under Rommel couldn't wait to get rid of them. They were death traps. The Afrika Corps called them Tommycookers - one hit and they burned like a torch.
I first came across them at Central Fields when CDM picked up a clutch of tanks from the Army which had been in storage for yonks. My job was to fit the tank with electrics so that they could be turned into stackers for the bucket excavators.
First the tank had to be stripped of its gear. Amazing how much lethal stuff the Army left there. One sparkie I knew came across a half belt of what looked like 50 calibre which he proceeded to fire off by jamming each cartridge in a vice and hitting the impact end with a hammer. Spectacular! The first shot ripped a massive hole in the workshop roof. After that he moved out into the open with a portable vice and riddled the vegetation with the ammo that Montgomery's finest omitted to fire at the Afrika Corp.
Each tank also had very elegant petrol driven charging units used presumably to charge the tank batteries. They were high priority when tank stripping and were usually the first item to disappear. God knows why as the entire town was behind the security wire in those days and no-one had their own car at home. I never did figure out what the new owners did with them. I remember Brian Shepherd, then a foreman at North Electrical, triumphantly carrying one away but then he had a good reason. He had actually fought in Shermans in North Africa and had fond memories of his mates in those days. Doubtless he took it home for nostalgia sake. Today I imagine all those charging units are all dumped somewhere south of town as it was impossible to remove anything from the mine once it had entered. This applied even to much loved household items too large for the X-ray system, giving rise to many tearful farewells as those leaving could take only personal possessions. My favourite radiogram (who would even known what such a thing was today, then it was state of the art) and various other items had to be sold off at fire sales prices.
And on that score, people did in fact pimp their houses even though they knew they could take away very little. Mine (then 9/1st Avenue, though I hear the numbering has changed) was surrounded by three metre high hedges of quince which gave large crops of fruit every year, it also had vines from which wine and, dare I say it, even my own version of witblitz was made. On the Second Avenue side it had the town's largest and most spectacular Jacaranda tree when in flower, imported from Starke-Ayres in Cape Town and planted with ceremony one sunny Sunday morning. Apart from the usual lawn, flower beds and concrete pathways the house also had a fully fitted garden toolshed with all electrics, bench and vice, a little Rotunda for afternoon teas at weekends, customised lighting not to mention wall to wall carpet and non-CDM furniture, and a jungle gym, roundabout and swing for the kids - much of it the result of 14 years of weekend work. And that was hard won, considering we worked a standard 48 hour six-day week in the early years, plus an expected 100 hours overtime a month.
Should add that my house was by no means the most well-pimped. Most of the expats excelled at customising their dwellings, some even to the extent of altering internal walls. Some even paid for French windows in the lounge opening out onto a verandah. There must surely be some examples of that still around.
But we were talking of the Shermans. For the sparkies, refitting the tanks consisted of installing a 60 horse squirrel cage motor and switchgear, and a small solenoid operated hydraulic brake system that acted on the drive shaft. All driven from a single external wheel system mounted on one side of the tank plus emergency stops on both sides. the wheel accessed single and double track drive as required so that the tank could be steered. The very effective braking unit operated on the dead man system i.e if the operator's hand was removed from the control wheel the tank stopped. It was virtually idiot-proof and I never recall even the most raw recruit ever making a mistake with that system.
While all that was going on the fitters mounted a swivelling conveyor belt stacking system on top. The whole was designed in-house, creating a very economical way of equipping the mines in the postwar years when imported machinery was impossible to access. No idea who the brain was behind it but he certainly deserved kudos. Most things were done on that basis in those days. I recall resurrecting ancient Siemens Schucker AC motors with brush rings and lead bearings and putting them into service when all else failed. I think most sparkies today would look askance if asked to pour a lead bearing, scrape it to tolerance and refit it to a motor that dated back to the days of Augustus Stauch. There must be dozens of them still lying around in the desert, particularly in G area.
These tanks were still in use as stackers when I left in '67 so they must have been scrapped later than that. We also had a few DUKWs for transport, forgotten what the initials stood, for they were used as amphibian troop carriers during the war. The Transport Department ripped off the ampihibian sides and removed the propellors, leaving us with very useful truck type vehicles that handled the sand well. I last saw one in the scrapyard at Central Fields. "
Whilst growing up here in the 70's , there was a Sherman Tank parked in one of the parks and two more down at the local Moth Club. I always could understand the two tanks down at the Moth's , seeing that this was where all the old army men from WW2 hung out..... until I was old enough to realise that the war never occurred in this part of the world. "What on earth where those tanks doing here?" , well from a previous posting, some of you will recall that the mine purchased surplus army stock after the war and modified them to suite their mining operations.....
If any of you are interested more in the history of the Sherman Tanks of the NAMIB, I include a copy/paste of an old timer... Bob Molloy!
"Those tanks were mainly Shermans. The Eighth Army when it was fighting the Afrika Corps under Rommel couldn't wait to get rid of them. They were death traps. The Afrika Corps called them Tommycookers - one hit and they burned like a torch.
I first came across them at Central Fields when CDM picked up a clutch of tanks from the Army which had been in storage for yonks. My job was to fit the tank with electrics so that they could be turned into stackers for the bucket excavators.
First the tank had to be stripped of its gear. Amazing how much lethal stuff the Army left there. One sparkie I knew came across a half belt of what looked like 50 calibre which he proceeded to fire off by jamming each cartridge in a vice and hitting the impact end with a hammer. Spectacular! The first shot ripped a massive hole in the workshop roof. After that he moved out into the open with a portable vice and riddled the vegetation with the ammo that Montgomery's finest omitted to fire at the Afrika Corp.
Each tank also had very elegant petrol driven charging units used presumably to charge the tank batteries. They were high priority when tank stripping and were usually the first item to disappear. God knows why as the entire town was behind the security wire in those days and no-one had their own car at home. I never did figure out what the new owners did with them. I remember Brian Shepherd, then a foreman at North Electrical, triumphantly carrying one away but then he had a good reason. He had actually fought in Shermans in North Africa and had fond memories of his mates in those days. Doubtless he took it home for nostalgia sake. Today I imagine all those charging units are all dumped somewhere south of town as it was impossible to remove anything from the mine once it had entered. This applied even to much loved household items too large for the X-ray system, giving rise to many tearful farewells as those leaving could take only personal possessions. My favourite radiogram (who would even known what such a thing was today, then it was state of the art) and various other items had to be sold off at fire sales prices.
And on that score, people did in fact pimp their houses even though they knew they could take away very little. Mine (then 9/1st Avenue, though I hear the numbering has changed) was surrounded by three metre high hedges of quince which gave large crops of fruit every year, it also had vines from which wine and, dare I say it, even my own version of witblitz was made. On the Second Avenue side it had the town's largest and most spectacular Jacaranda tree when in flower, imported from Starke-Ayres in Cape Town and planted with ceremony one sunny Sunday morning. Apart from the usual lawn, flower beds and concrete pathways the house also had a fully fitted garden toolshed with all electrics, bench and vice, a little Rotunda for afternoon teas at weekends, customised lighting not to mention wall to wall carpet and non-CDM furniture, and a jungle gym, roundabout and swing for the kids - much of it the result of 14 years of weekend work. And that was hard won, considering we worked a standard 48 hour six-day week in the early years, plus an expected 100 hours overtime a month.
Should add that my house was by no means the most well-pimped. Most of the expats excelled at customising their dwellings, some even to the extent of altering internal walls. Some even paid for French windows in the lounge opening out onto a verandah. There must surely be some examples of that still around.
But we were talking of the Shermans. For the sparkies, refitting the tanks consisted of installing a 60 horse squirrel cage motor and switchgear, and a small solenoid operated hydraulic brake system that acted on the drive shaft. All driven from a single external wheel system mounted on one side of the tank plus emergency stops on both sides. the wheel accessed single and double track drive as required so that the tank could be steered. The very effective braking unit operated on the dead man system i.e if the operator's hand was removed from the control wheel the tank stopped. It was virtually idiot-proof and I never recall even the most raw recruit ever making a mistake with that system.
While all that was going on the fitters mounted a swivelling conveyor belt stacking system on top. The whole was designed in-house, creating a very economical way of equipping the mines in the postwar years when imported machinery was impossible to access. No idea who the brain was behind it but he certainly deserved kudos. Most things were done on that basis in those days. I recall resurrecting ancient Siemens Schucker AC motors with brush rings and lead bearings and putting them into service when all else failed. I think most sparkies today would look askance if asked to pour a lead bearing, scrape it to tolerance and refit it to a motor that dated back to the days of Augustus Stauch. There must be dozens of them still lying around in the desert, particularly in G area.
These tanks were still in use as stackers when I left in '67 so they must have been scrapped later than that. We also had a few DUKWs for transport, forgotten what the initials stood, for they were used as amphibian troop carriers during the war. The Transport Department ripped off the ampihibian sides and removed the propellors, leaving us with very useful truck type vehicles that handled the sand well. I last saw one in the scrapyard at Central Fields. "
