Two Captured VIMY Minenwerfers need your help

Doesnt need the explosives... lol Im sure we could find a field that needs an extra piece of steel dropped into her...
 
RangeRover said:
Thanks for making this happen, Wayne. Would be great to see some progress images as the work is done.
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Everyone who donated is going to be sent a series of updates and other information at a later date. After 100 years of being exposed to the elements, it would take a hundred thousand dollars and a couple of years to fully restore them, (IF we could get the parts,) so the best that can really be done is to do some repair work and try to preserve what is still left.

Things like cement work on 100 year old cement, etc.

 
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Alternative to consider might be putting them on display indoors,away from elements.No matter what kind of paint one uses mother nature will eat it away with wind,rain and sun.
 
donor said:
Alternative to consider might be putting them on display indoors,away from elements.No matter what kind of paint one uses mother nature will eat it away with wind,rain and sun.
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We had thought of that but it is a problem of space and some other considerations. Waterford is at a High School grounds, and there are "elements" that are not happy about these "tools of Death" near their siblings. The educators are enthusiastic about it, but it could be a bit touchy with todays attitudes towards such things.

There is one Company in Kingston that does preservation on Monuments and such, and they advertise on doing these old War Trophies without charge as a service. They are going to be contacted in the future.
 
Buffdog, my emt came back expired. I didn't realize it was never cashed. If it works with you I can always stop at the museum some time and give it to you there. Im in Brantford almost every weekend....
 
Gonna diverse again here. :d Used to be a German howitzer on display at a road side in the Crowsnest Pass at one time. gone now, anybody have any idea what happened to it ? there were also some MG 08 sled mounts, no guns, still there last time I drove by. Lethbridge has a couple of German artillery pieces.I gather, captured German ordnance was distributed widely and easily, by any organization that wanted them. shame it's come to such a sad end. this is oneof the Lethbridge guns.

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Grizz
 
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Inquiring minds should check the Simcoe Reformer April 12th edition

http://www.simcoereformer.ca/2017/04/12/wdhs-plays-host-to-piece-of-historic-battle

WATERFORD - An incredible piece of history has apparently been hiding in plain view in Waterford for the last 95 years.

Everyone who has attended Waterford District High School knows the old cast-iron cannon at the corner of Brown Street and Main Street South is a tribute to the men and women of Waterford and the former Townsend Township who served their country in the military.

However, it has only recently come to light that the cannon is, in fact, a German mortar captured by Canadian forces at Vimy Ridge in France 100 years ago.

The armament’s history was researched by Wayne Stairs of St. George, a former resident of Waterford and a past member of the 56 Field Regiment in Brantford.

Stairs, 67, has been a military buff for about 50 years. He decided to get to the bottom of the cannon during a drive through Waterford earlier this year.

Stairs was able to trace the history of the gun after locating its serial number “1930.” Stairs has cross-referenced the number with several archives related to the Canadian military and its experience in the First World War.

Stairs says enemy guns were eagerly collected during the conflict and distributed throughout the Commonwealth as trophies and monuments to the fallen. Whether your community received one or not depended on the extent of local enlistment and how generous your community was during war fund-raising drives.

“You have to understand the Victorian attitude toward guns,” Stairs said at WDHS Wednesday. “If you captured an enemy gun it was a great honour; if you lost one of your own guns it was a great disgrace. You may as well have gone out and shot yourself with your own pistol.

“If you captured an enemy gun, that meant it could never again be used against you.”

Students at WDHS have been enlisted to fortify the monument now that the school understands what it has. The gun has been well-maintained over the years and shows no signs of rust or deterioration.

“We’re going to refurbish the site and keep it as long as we can,” principal Rob Malcolm told students at an informal ceremony Wednesday. “I hope this gives you an idea of the sacrifice these boys made.”

Stairs has determined that the trench mortar was made by the German industrial giant Krupp. The cannon was designed around 1907 for breaking through heavily fortified French forts and other battlements.

The mortar was used to lob shells filled with explosives. The shells themselves would have been 10 inches around and 40 inches long.

Stairs said a three-person commission in Ottawa was responsible for allotting trophy armaments from the First World War in 1919.

A total of 125 guns seized at Vimy were distributed across Canada. All but 14 were melted down during a nation-side scrap metal drive in 1942 in support of Canadian forces during the Second World War. For reasons unknown, the cannon in front of WDHS was never disturbed.

That same scrap drive saw two large cannons from the War of 1812 that sat for decades in Powell Park in Port Dover taken away and recycled. History buffs such as Stairs say that was a great expenditure for little payback.

“They collected less than 500 tons of scrap in that drive,” he said. “That wasn’t even enough to build one-third of a boat.”

Retired teacher Bob Stevenson of Waterford was head of history at WDHS from 1965 to 1996. He was astonished to learn there was a Vimy gun in front of the school all these years.

“I was shocked,” Stevenson said Wednesday. “I knew it was there. But I always wondered why they would have a gun as an emblem of an educational institution.”

Stairs knows of two other mortars identical to the one at WDHS. One is in front of the Tavistock Legion while the third is in a location he is not ready to disclose.
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More media coverage of this! John and the Wolverine crew get a mentioned in dispatches...

https://www.norfolknews.ca/news-story/7245510-cross-country-effort-to-preserve-waterford-s-vimy-ridge-mortar/

The effort to preserve the First World War-era mortar outside Waterford District High School (WDHS) — the first German gun captured by Canadian soldiers at Vimy Ridge — has gone national.

When John Hipwell, owner of Wolverine Supplies, a gun store in Virden, Manitoba, learned that mortars in Waterford and Tavistock, Ont. had been captured during the Battle of Vimy Ridge but had fallen into disrepair over the decades, he donated a pair of gift certificates from his store as raffle prizes to raise money for the mortars’ upkeep.

Military history enthusiasts from coast to coast responded to the call for help, donating $1,270 toward the Waterford mortar.

That money will be used to pour a new concrete foundation, paint the mortar, plant a native garden at the site, put up a plaque and information panel commemorating the gun’s history, and build a cross-section replica of the kind of shell the mortar would have fired on the battlefield.

Hipwell was not surprised with how many donations rolled in, some from people who had no connection with Waterford but wanted to do their part to preserve an irreplaceable piece of Canadian history.

“These types of artifacts tend to get scrapped,” Hipwell said, explaining that some people are uncomfortable with the violent connotation of military weapons on public display.

“But really, they’re symbols of the supreme sacrifice that a lot of young men paid. The absolute horror they experienced cannot be imagined.”

Norfolk residents have amateur historian Wayne Stairs to thank for unearthing the Waterford mortar’s patriotic provenance. In January, with the 100th anniversary of the battle looming, the St. George resident made it his mission to find out how many guns captured at Vimy Ridge were still in existence, and where they could be found.

Stairs, who hails from Brantford, knows Norfolk well. He had a cottage in Port Ryerse and lived in Waterford for a short spell before moving to Manitoba, where he met Hipwell. The veteran of the 56th Field Regiment has had a lifelong interest in military history, and artillery in particular. He noted the serial number of the mortar and resolved to find out where it came from.

He cross-referenced military records found in the national archives with private databases of military ordnance in Canada to confirm that the gun had indeed been captured at Vimy.He then matched official military diary entries from the battle with maps of the trench system during the battle, and the land around the Vimy memorial as it looks today, to determine to within 250 yards where the gun had been taken.

His announcement caused a stir in Waterford, whose residents had no idea their “cannon” had ties to a pivotal First World War battle.

That’s not surprising, Stairs said. When military trophies — as the captured guns were officially known — were distributed after the war, little information about their origins came with them.

“I’ve located three Vimy Ridge guns in the past three months, and the people didn’t know,” he said. “When I saw that was a Vimy Ridge gun, I thought, we have to do something about that.”

During a brief ceremony last Wednesday, April 12 — 100 years after the last day of the battle — WDHS principal Rob Malcolm gave the students who will work on maintaining the mortar some perspective about what happened that day in northern France.

“There were boys — and I do say boys — your age fighting on that battlefield,” Malcolm said.

He thanked Stairs for bringing the mortar’s history to the school’s attention and “asking people across Canada to donate money” toward its upkeep. The principal said it was “phenomenal” to learn the true history of the mortar during the Vimy Ridge centennial, Canada 150 and the high school’s 125th anniversary year.

Manufacturing and green industries teacher Peter Wall said his students are excited to get working on the replica shell.

“It’s stuff like that that gets the students excited. They’re having a lot of fun with it,” Wall said.

The plaque and signage will share the mortar’s significance with residents and visitors to town, Malcolm added.

“Then it becomes an attraction … and a real community piece,” he said.

After a century sitting exposed to the elements, Stairs said the heavy steel weapon — which weighs 1,700 pounds and took a crew of 21 men to move and operate — likely can’t be restored to its original state.

“The thing to do now is preserve what you have,” he said, adding that thanks to the private donations, “no public funds are being used for this.”

To those uncomfortable with the idea of a weapon on public display, Stairs said to think of it from the postwar perspective.

“The idea was not to glorify war,” he said. “It was a tribute or a monument to the people who helped win that war, whether in the military or otherwise.”

Stairs noted that whichever institution receives a captured weapon becomes its custodian. He is pleased that the high school is keen to embrace the challenge of preserving their piece of national history.

“Rob and his crew were fantastic. As soon as they knew what they had, they got to work,” he said. “Now that they know what it is, they’re going to think about it differently, and have that pride in it. There are only 14 Vimy guns in Canada, and one is in Waterford.”

From his store in Virden, nearly 2,500 kilometres away, Hipwell sees the work to restore the mortar from a national perspective.

“I may be in Manitoba, but this is for all Canadians. And those Canadian troops who died there came from all over Canada,” he said.
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Number 848 is a 17cm (170mm) Minenwerfer, claimed by the 8th. Battalion CEF but that marked out and its capture was awarded to the 16th. Battalion, CEF.

It was captured on 8.8.1918 near Aubercourt, and the Ledger shows it was shipped to Stamford, Ontario.


The 17cm mMW is the smaller brother to the 25cm sMW. The carriages are very similar and from a distance they look the same but the 25cm Minenwerfer can be identified by the cut outs in the upright side panels.
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wheaty said:
They LIED about your age....
Never trust a newspaper who cannot get the pertinent facts correct!!! :)##
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Too funny!!

I was thinking the same thing but could not bring myself to type it. ;)

As always, Buffdog you are a wealth of knowledge on Canadian military history and it's always a pleasure to read your posts as well as yak on the phone.

Great work my friend.
 
buffdog said:
Number 848 is a 17cm (170mm) Minenwerfer, claimed by the 8th. Battalion CEF but that marked out and its capture was awarded to the 16th. Battalion, CEF.

It was captured on 8.8.1918 near Aubercourt, and the Ledger shows it was shipped to Stamford, Ontario.


The 17cm mMW is the smaller brother to the 25cm sMW. The carriages are very similar and from a distance they look the same but the 25cm Minenwerfer can be identified by the cut outs in the upright side panels.
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Thanks buffdog.
 
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