Landships II

wingate · Corporal

E-Company,Palestine 1917

Gwyn Evans · Legend

Hello Wingate. Welcome to the Forum.

As a start, I suggest you do a search for Gaza on the Forum search engine. Quite a number of threads will come up with alot of information on E Company.

Thanks for posting the photos. They are fascinating. I'm not sure how much you know about tanks, but the one on the left is a Mark I Male; that on the right is HMLS (His Majesty's Land Ship) Tiger, a Mark I Female. Are these photos you've inherited? They are completely new to me.

Lady Wingate, your grandfather's tank, was a Mark IV according to my records but I don't seem to have a photo of it.

At some point, you may like to pay a visit to The National Archives at Kew, London. They hold the War Diary for E Company. You may also be able to trace some of your grandfather's service records there.

Hope that helps.

Gwyn

Rhomboid · Field Marshal

Here is a photo of Lady Wingate. I have a copy�of the war diary for the Egyptian Expeditionary Force�detachment of E Bn. - PM me if interested. Thanks for posting those photos; as suggested by Gwyn, they don't appear to have been in general circulation. If you have others, or any info regarding your grandfather's service, I'm sure many of us would be interested.�

Mark Hansen · Legend

Here's a shot of Lady Wingate.

Rectalgia · Legend

The nearest of these in shot - http://cas.awm.gov.au/screen_img/P03613.005 is Lady Wingate according to the AWM.

LincolnTanker · Commander in Chief

Palestine 1917

Mark Hansen · Legend

RE: E-Company,Palestine 1917

andiS · Captain

Great bit of stowage on the second picture!

LincolnTanker · Commander in Chief

Mark Hansen wrote:

The only mods that I know of as far as comfort goes is riding on the roof and moving without sponsons. And that was (obviously) not in combat.

Thanks Mark, great photo. I like to see photos of tanks with their crews.

I suppose comfort is a relative thing.

�

philthydirtyanimal · Commander in Chief

Has anyone else noticed that in Wingate's first photo (of the male) the men are wearing quite the variety of headgear? There are steel helmets, pith helmets and service caps. Maybe it shows my own ignorance, but whenever I pictured the Palestine theatre I always mentally�placed the men in pith helmets, service caps, slouch hats or turbans; never steel helmets.

Ironsides · Legend

Hi PDA thats a good pic that is...�I think in a non combat situation most troops wouldnt want to wear a Tinhat it must have got awfull hot, Ive certainly seen pictures�of British troops in palestine carrying helmets but wearing service caps instead...

Cheers smile

-- Edited by Ironsides on Monday 26th of April 2010 01:01:44 PM

philthydirtyanimal · Commander in Chief

It also looks as though some sort of camouflage paint scheme has been applied. If you look at the sponson there are darker spots that could not be shadows or oil leaks. Shadows or oil leaks were previous explanations/doubts for some of the other photos of the tanks in Gaza, whenever� the question of camouflage or colour of the 'Gaza tanks' was raised.

I have read that to camouflage the tanks they poured oil on them in splotches and threw sand on, to stick in the oil. So maybe they are oil stains after all, but not from leaks (as there is nowhere they could have leaked from in those positions), but from the deliberate application of it.

wingate · Corporal

Hi All,

I was quite taken aback by all of the response, many thanks. I have anclosed some more photos taken from my Grandfathers album. I do have others of the tanks and thier interiors, also the recovery vehicles if anyone is interested but many are of poor quality.

philthydirtyanimal · Commander in Chief

Those are amazing photos. I've never seen any of them before. Thank you for posting them.

LincolnTanker · Commander in Chief

What great photos, I think you should post the other photos. It all adds to our knowledge.

I see on Photo 5, Sir Reginald, there are what I suspect are sand guards/deflectors on the inside of the front horns, I for one have not seen them before.

Mark Hansen · Legend

Those photos are gold! I haven't seen any of these photos before and the photo of Sir Reginald is the first I have seen that shows the entire tank; previous ones showed a piece of sponson or a shape under a tarp. Please do post the rest; the quality is irrelevant.

The sand deflectors I have seen before but only on another photo of Kia-Ora. This photo shows them very well.

philthydirtyanimal · Commander in Chief

Wingate, I understand the photos are personal to you, but have you considered donating copies to The Tank Museum?

Gwyn Evans · Legend

Wingate, these are absolutely fantastic photos. Thank you so much for sharing them.

One thing - it is very difficult to find the names of tank crews from WW1. Just for the record, could you tell us your grandfather's name? And do you have any other details about him such as his service number?

Many thanks again.

Gwyn

Gwyn Evans · Legend

The internal photo you've posted is a Male, as we can see 6 pdr ammunition tubes, so it's not Lady Wingate as might be expected. I need to study it closer and with references to hand to make out if it's a Mark I or IV.

Do any of the other internal shots show any metal plates with four digit serial numbers on them, by any wild chance? (If so, I'm going to buy a lottery ticket because it will be my lucky day!)

Gwyn

wingate · Corporal

My grandfather was Albert Mitchell and before the war he worked as a chauffeur. On joining up he was put put into the Royal Sussex reg, but soon transferred to the motor machine gun sevice. From here he went into the heavy section.

He service numbers were:
8680
38140
302093

Ablert never spoke of his time in the tanks apart from driving Lady Wingate but we do know he held one of his officers in great esteem as he carried a paper cutting of Sec-lt Carr all his life.

I am writing my family history and seeking information to understand Albert's life during WW1. It must have been some experience to go from driving a wealthy empolyer around the country lanes of Sussex to driving the ultimate war machine of the time on the desert sands of Gaza.

Regading Bovington, my father sent the origional photos to them for scrutiny several years ago and I have noticed that one of my Grandfathers photos has made it's way into general circulation.

wingate · Corporal

And here are some more photos

Mark Hansen · Legend

Incredible! 1 week ago I had not seen a clear picture of Sir Reginald and now there are two, one of each side! Thanks very much for sharing those photos.

Rhomboid · Field Marshal

Thanks for posting these photos, Wingate. 2/Lt. Carr's sad fate is described in the war diary. The�story of his tank, HMLS Nutty, at the Tank Redoubt is recounted at some length in Vol VII of the Australian Official History. This is available online from the Australian War Memorial site.

Gwyn Evans · Legend

This is absolutely marvellous information. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

Gwyn

MK1 Nut · Hero

Hi Windgate

Thank you for sharing with us.

It is information like this that reminds me how lucky I am to be a member of this site.

Helen xx

tanks3 · Major

Wingate,

Does the album contain any other names?� In particular I am interested in a chap called Roberts who I believe was the driver of HMLS Tiger which I have always presumed to be part of E Company in Gaza.� Can you throw any light on this?

Tanks3

kenbb48 · Corporal

Wonderful pictures, It will help future research on this part of the war.It does honor to your grandfathers service to his country. Thank you.

wingate · Corporal

Tanks3:
Sorry, there are no names in the album, but on the photos last posted the tank showing it's underside was titled "Tiger".

Rhomboid:
Many thanks for the information, it has been very helpful.

Mark:
I am going to post the last photos from the album, there is one more of Sir Reginald showing a little more of the front.

-- Edited by wingate on Sunday 16th of May 2010 11:25:58 AM

wingate · Corporal

And finally, here are some of the men of E-Company but sadly there are no names to put to the faces:

tanks3 · Major

Wingate,

Thanks for sharing these pictures.� Priceless

Tanks3

Mark Hansen · Legend

Are any of the WD numbers known for any of the tanks that went to Gaza?

Gwyn Evans · Legend

Not to me.

Gwyn

Rhomboid · Field Marshal

'736' can be seen on one of the sponson trailers with the EEF detachment. All of the Gaza MkI's seem to have the spaced armour bolts. 701-738, along with all the female MkI's, were built by Metropolitan. Perhaps the spaced armour�variant was particular to a sequence within the Metropolitan production run.��

Mark Hansen · Legend

Gwyn Evans wrote:

Not to me.

Gwyn

Well, there's one now. I picked up a copy of "ANZAC: An Illustrated History 1914 - 1918", ISBN: 9781740666244 and one of the photos in it is of "War Baby" from the AWM (B02002) and probably located elsewhere. At low magnification there is no number visible but at the size it is reproduced in the book a faint 574 can be made out. Attached is the photo with a close up of the number.

Gwyn Evans · Legend

Yes, that fits. 574 is otherwise unaccounted for.

How many Mk I Females were there in Palestine? I know of four, namely HMLSs Kia Ora, Nutty, War Baby and Tiger. But when inputting 574 into the database I note I have a curious gap with 568 - 573 inclusive missing. If the tanks for Palestine were all shipped direct from England (were they?) could they all have been from this production sequence, with War Baby as the last?

Gwyn

Mark Hansen · Legend

I'm pretty sure�that it's 4 of each, male and female. Another feature has caught my eye in Wingate's photos further up the page. The photo of Otazel with the shell damage is the photo of interest. It may be damage to the photo itself but does that look like parts of the Petrograd inscritpion behind the sponson opening?

Date: Oct 10, 2014

October 2014 - Two photos have been listed on E bay by Argo photo shop which also show 574, the number is just about visible on one of the photos. Both are of much better quality than the one above and were presumably taken post war.