An interesting story for you tankers, WWII tanks being saved in Belarus
A story of how some people turned their hobby into a business, follow this link http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180312-the-salvagers-who-raise-world-war-two-tanks-from-the-dead
I'm sure some of you tankers (you know who you are) will enjoy reading about this small team in Belarus who are saving and restoring WWII tanks.
Thanks George for posting, you know I like tanks quite a healthy bit 🙂
Appreciate you're sharing this with us, George. Take care, my friend.
What a story. There's all sorts of interest; tanks, a family working together, tanks, the engineering, history, tanks. Thanks for posting this article, George.
Seem to be quite a few of these projects recently- often in Eastern Europe. Saw one where a StuG was pulled out of the mire. They cleaned it up and drove it up a hill.
Here’s one of a B-17 in New Guinea, I think it was, rescued by Australians.
1 attached image. Click to enlarge.
Is that the Swamp Ghost? That's the only E model left anywhere.
Yes, that's Swamp Ghost. Was out at Planes of Fame for a couple years, then ended up at Pacific Heritage Museum at Pearl Harbor.
very cool story!
Amazing indeed ! Thanks for the story on the tanks ...
That is amazing. Restorers are a unique and dedicated bunch of folks. And their restorations run! Even better!
Sounds like a great endeavor!
Fascinating story.
There's tons of stuff still out in those forests. One has to remember that 80% of the fighting in World War II happened on the Eastern Front. What the Western Allies did was almost a sideshow in comparison (the total US deaths from all theaters isn't as much as what the Soviets lost at Stalingrad alone).
The P-40B that was restored at Chino and is now at Paul Allen's museum in Seattle came out of a forest where it had crashed outside Archangel in 1943. Both the flyable Bf-109Es (Including the one flown by Marseille in the Battle of Britain) came from forests outside Leningrad). Both of the flyable IL-2s came out of the Belarus swamps.
Attached is a photo I took of the P-40B during its first public flight back in 1998 - hard to believe it's been 20 years.
1 attached image. Click to enlarge.
Thanks for posting the link, George! I imagine that besides the permit, the recovery team has to have some solid financial backing.
It's great that the folks in this story now get paid for doing something they like. Personally, I hated doing repair work, but recovering and restoring these old pieces of history would be more fun!
Nice info. thanks.
Finding KV-1 tanks is a big deal and then restoring them to running condition is even more monumental. YouTube has several documentaries of the families listed in the BBC piece. Here is one I found to be interesting;