It is perhaps fortunate that military vehicles can be appreciated in various ways. Some have technical aspects that impress, while others are more orthodox in design but

are historically interesti ng by virtue of having played a key role in an acti on, campaign or war. Then there are the few vehicles that interest because of a connecti on with a notable individual – Monty’s staff car, for instance, but while there are plenty of types that ti ck the fi rst two boxes to some degree,

very few ti ck all three... However, the newly restored 7.5cm Sturmgeschütz 40 Ausf G (Sd.Kfz. 142/1) that has just rolled out of the Weald Foundati on’s workshops in Kent is, I would argue, one.

Although the concept behind the StuG family didn’t fi nd much favour among the western Allies, the Germans wholeheartedly adopted the idea of mass-producing assault gun and/or tank hunter versions of tanks. It was an eff ecti ve way of shoe horning a

powerful gun (albeit with limited traverse – a mere 24 degrees in the StuG III’s case) into a compact, low profi le vehicle that was more economical to manufacture than a conventi onal turreted tank. Such was the success of the StuG III that conceptually similar vehicles followed, but it was the Panzer III-based StuG that led the way.

The example newly restored by the Weald Foundati on was manufactured by Mühlenbau und Industrie AG (MIAG) of Braunschweig in

14 MILITARY MACHINES INTERNATIONAL OCTOBER 2014

John Blackman gets an exclusive look at

the Weald Foundation’s latest restoration StuG Survivor

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Lower Saxony. The chassis number indicates that it left the factory in December 1943, but that is not really where our story starts. We would like it to, but nothing whatsoever is known about the vehicle’s history between it leaving MIAG and its surrender to the Allies in May1945. Speculati on that it survived Normandy and/or Arnhem is just that, speculati on. Given the life expectancy of German armour at that ti me it is indeed remarkable that the StuG survived so long,

OCTOBER 2014 MILITARY MACHINES INTERNATIONAL 15

StuG Survivor

ABOVE...The gun only had 12 degrees traverse each side of dead centre so the driver would frequently have had to swing the enti re vehicle to bring the weapon to bear, and his vision was extremely limited.

RIGHT...The StuG arrives at the Weald Foundati on’s workshops.(Courtesy Weald Foundati on)

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but the only thing we know with absolute certainty is that it was ‘acquired’ by Canadian Army Captain, Farley Mowat, who in June 1945 appointed himself commanding offi cer of the First Canadian War Museum Collecti on Team, a unit of his own inventi on.

We relate some of his story separately, but essenti ally he set himself the task of collecti ng as much of the German war machine as possible and shipping it back to Canada. Mowat’s own paperwork regarding his more-or-less unoffi cial project confi rms that a 7.5cm StuG G 40 (L/43) assault gun, chassis number 96105 that had been assigned to the defence of Amsterdam and was recovered from the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada aft er the German surrender in the Netherlands. What is not noted is the unit to which the StuG belonged. And, by

the way, at that stage of the war there would have been no identi fying markings on the vehicle beyond the Balkenkreuz.

WEALD FOUNDATIONMike Gibb, principle of the Weald Foundati on, is enti rely committ ed to researching every aspect and detail relati ng to the vehicles in his charge, and in the case of this parti cular StuG, he has been assisted by David Ridd and valuable input from noted Canadian military historian and author, Harold Skaarup, however, ascertaining the StuG’s parent unit has proved parti cularly problemati c.

“We’ve traced the existi ng strength reports of the German units in the Netherlands that had StuGs at the ti me,” he explains, “and we’ve basically taken the biggest and most well-

known out of the equati on because there is an existi ng photo of the StuGs it surrendered, none of which are middle or late-period StuG Gs. A good candidate at the moment is the 6th Fallschirmjäger Division, which had a StuG unit att ached. Where it surrendered is in the area that we believe the StuG was recovered. Unfortunately, while there are many photos of German Fallschirmjäger units surrendering their kit at Soest, photos of the vehicle park they are not in the sequence. Luckily, to determine what the StuG looked like at the ti me of capitulati on, we can refer to photos taken of it on a Canadian base.”

On November 15 1945 Mowat’s collecti on including the StuG steamed into Montreal harbour aboard the SS Blommersdyke. It arrived to a less than rapturous recepti on

16 MILITARY MACHINES INTERNATIONAL OCTOBER 2014

FAR LEFT...The broken cylinder head. Any other engine in this state would almost certainly be scrapped, but the fact that it was a rare Maybach engine ensured it was saved. (Courtesy Weald Foundati on)

LEFT...The cylinder is seen here parti ally welded during the restorati on process that resulted in a successful rejuvenati on of what could very easily have been a scrap engine.(Courtesy Weald Foundati on)

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but at least the StuG avoided being sold for scrap, and spent many a year sitti ng outside various Canadian Army bases. It then went to US

collector Fred Ropkey in return, so the story goes, for his having restored a Sherman on behalf of the Canadian government. According to informati on gleaned from the internet, the StuG was subsequently purchased by Perry Kehr around 1990 and then, in 1999 aft er having been restored to some degree, sold on to Joe Fazio in California where it was used for batt le re-enactments by the Midwest-based 2nd Panzer Division living-history group.

Short clips uploaded to YouTube in 2008 show that the StuG had been fi tt ed with Schutzen (armour side skirts) or at least the brackets to support them and, judging by the speed of its progress, the original Maybach HL120TRM had by then been replaced by the GMC V12 engine that was sti ll in place when the StuG arrived in the UK. A year later the StuG was spott ed at a Brent Mullin’s open day and then, in February 2010, sitti ng on the dockside at Galveston, Texas, awaiti ng shipment to Southampton. A certain amount of speculati on followed as to the vehicle’s desti nati on but, as some suspected, it was headed for the Weald Foundati on for restorati on. And where bett er? The Weald Foundati on (or Sdkfz Foundati on as it was bett er known at the ti me) had already executed a quite remarkable StuG III restorati on.

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCEThat previous StuG, also an Ausf G manufactured by MIAG in late October/early November 1943 and fi tt ed with a Topfb lende

gun mantlet (widely known as the Saukopf, or sow’s head, mantlet), also had a remarkable back-story. It was one of 12 aboard the SS Sante Fe, which was sunk by a Russian submarine on 24 November 1943 while en route to Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. It was fi nally recovered in 2002 and, as you can imagine, 60 years immersed in the Black Sea had taken its toll; a dense mass of crustacea had penetrati ng every nook and cranny of the vehicle... or those elements of it that had not simply rusted away, however, the point is, it was a diffi cult restorati on that provided the Weald Foundati on with valuable experience. Of course, with the arrival of the Mowat StuG, Mike Gibb and his team were able to compare the two vehicles in detail.

“There wasn’t an intact MIAG StuG around for us to have a look at,” Mike Gibb points out, referring to the period when the ’Black Sea’ StuG was being restored. “There was a MIAG in a Canadian museum but that had taken a lot of shell fi re aft er serving as a range target. I believe it was an April 1943. That’s the one we used in terms of colour reference. Then we had a wonderful series of photos from the Tank Museum of a captured MIAG, now destroyed, from January or February 44, but then this one came along and we were able to compare step-by-step the research which we had conducted initi ally for our November 1943 MIAG StuG with one that was built just a month later.”

The point about this StuG is that although well-travelled and somewhat used, not to say abused on occasion, it was remarkably complete as Mike Gibb testi fi es. “It was the most intact vehicle I’d ever come across. Unless excepti onally lucky – and it’s almost unheard of now to fi nd something in a barn – one usually has to contend with a vehicle

OCTOBER 2014 MILITARY MACHINES INTERNATIONAL 17

collector Fred Ropkey in return, so the story

but at least the StuG gun mantlet (widely known as the Saukopf, or

ABOVE...The lack of a turret meant that the StuG had a low profi le that made it hard for enemy tanks to see, and perhaps more importantly, hit it when on the batt lefi eld.

LEFT...The StuG’s fully restored Maybach engine seen here in situ before the rear engine cover was replaced.(Courtesy Weald Foundati on)

LEFT...The two StuG IIIs restored by the Weald Foundati on. The most recent, on the right of the photo, was acquired in 1945 by a Canadian Army intelligence offi cer, Captain Mowat, during a largely self-moti vated crusade to collect as much German war material as possible.

14-22_stug2.indd 17 07/08/2014 21:29

18 MILITARY MACHINES INTERNATIONAL OCTOBER 2014

that has been pulled out of a river or the like, but what you normally fi nd are bits thereof. You never get something that has all of its drivetrain components, all of the original casti ngs, all of the original road wheels,

the swing arms… everything. There was even an engine, albeit with serious problems, and a gearbox, although that was chewed up. And although many parts had been completely cleaned of any original paint, there were other parts that hadn’t been sand blasted quite so thoroughly.”

That said, the Weald Foundati on team then had to ascertain to what extent the vehicle had been tampered with aft er its arrival in North America, the replacement of the engine was obvious, but what else?

“We were looking at this vehicle when it fi rst arrived,” Mike Gibb recalls, “and couldn’t understand why there were all these, let’s say,

modifi cati ons, and we automati cally concluded that they must be wrong; that is not how it left the factory. But remember, this thing left the assembly line as determined by the chassis number around December 1943, but there are others things on the vehicle that point to very early 1944. Steel return rollers came into use just at that ti me – the return rollers on our October/November vehicle were rubber – so it was just at the cusp of the change.”

“There were also retaining bars for track links added for additi onal protecti on and a rain guard that went between the gun and hull. Where normally there would be a canvas skirt, this vehicle had a metal plate that went on top, and which was lot more sensible than a bit of canvas that, between January 1944 and May 1945, would have worn out, however, because we were provided with a series of photos of it at various bases in Canada, we could see that these genuinely were fi eld modifi cati ons and the vehicle had not been meddled with aft er reaching Canada.”

MACHBACH REVIVEDWe’ve already menti oned that the StuG’s original engine had been replaced by a late-sixti es GMC V12, but it sti ll came along with the vehicle. There was no questi on that the GMC had to come out, but, as the

that has been pulled out of a river or the like,

the swing arms… everything. There was even

ABOVE...Both of these StuG III were manufactured by MIAG only a couple of months apart during late 1943. The most obvious diff erence is that the right-hand vehicle has a Topfb lende gun mantlet, perhaps bett er known as the Saukopf, or sow’s head, mantlet.

ABOVE LEFT...This photo shows the spare secti ons of track stowed on the verti cal wall at the rear of the fi ghti ng compartment.

LEFT...The gun sight aperture seen here in the raised positi on. Note that the sight itself retains its original warti me fi nish and has not been restored or repainted.

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OCTOBER 2014 MILITARY MACHINES INTERNATIONAL 19

original Maybach was severely damaged, what replacement opti ons were there? That’s a questi on you could answer yourself… very few, and not just because the world isn’t awash with Maybachs. As Mike Gibb explained to me, nowadays it’s not just the problem of fi nding an incredibly rare engine of component, which is diffi cult enough in itself, there must also be no questi on as to origin or ownership, parti cularly in light of recent cases. As a result, the decision was taken to see if they could resurrect the original engine. That task largely fell on the shoulders of Paul Duncan and Andy Gardner.

“The original engine was in a very bad state; a big end cap had come off ,” Andy explains. “There was a smashed and mangled big-end shell and a lot of debris in the engine. It seems that the con rod had come round with the cap hanging off , or it had got trapped between the crank and the sidewall of the crankcase. Although it hadn’t broken a piece out, it had eff ecti vely swollen and cracked a porti on on the lower side of the engine and several cracks had broken through the main bearing housing. We also found that someone had wound bolts in and pushed out the bott oms of the bolt pockets.”

“The repair was my fi rst task aft er joining the Weald Foundati on in March 2012 and took about three weeks. It involved pre-heati ng to

MOWAT’S PRIVATE ARMYFarley Mowat was born in Ontario on 12 May 1921. Despite being encouraged by his father, Angus, a veteran of the Great War, to join the Army, Farley was set on joining the Royal Canadian Air Force and learning to fl y. Unfortunately for him (but perhaps fortunately for us) the RCAF was not as keen on him as he was on them. Therefore, falling back on his father’s advice, young Farley enlisted with the Hasti ngs and Prince Edward Regiment, known as the Hasty P and by 10 July 1943, he was a subaltern in command of a rifl e platoon and found himself parti cipati ng in the initi al landings of Operati on Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily.

In his book, ‘My Father’s Son’, Mowat remarks that in its initi al stages the campaign in Sicily was an “exhilarati ng if exhausti ng experience for those that escaped death or muti lati on”. But as the acti on moved into Italy and there began a long and bitt er struggle, the experience became more exhausti ng that anything else. Following a parti cularly stressful period during the Moro River campaign at the tail end of 1943, Mowat departed the front line and was appointed to the staff at Brigade HQ.

Although the aforementi oned My Father’s Son provides a very good account of Mowat’s service in Italy, we must fast-forward to April 1945 when the now Captain Mowat, based at Eindhoven in the Netherlands was serving as a Technical Intelligence Offi cer. His task was, as he puts it: “to scour the batt lefi elds and beyond for examples of new military horrors being deployed by the Jerries against our lads.”

You might have thought that such a task would have kept him fully occupied, but he found ti me to become involved in what was sold to senior staff as a ‘liaison group’ between the NBS (the Dutch underground forces), HQ 1 Canadian Army and the HQ of General Johannes von Blaskowitz, commander of the German forces in the Netherlands who, it was thought, was interested in a separate armisti ce with the Allies. That this involved a somewhat nerve-wracking trip behind enemy lines to visit the German HQ has no parti cular bearing on our story except to show the calibre of the man.

With the liberati on of the Netherlands came a period of inacti vity for Mowat and a sense of unease concerning the developing situati on. There was a growing sense that the Americans and Briti sh were ‘hoovering’ up as much as possible of the German war machine so they alone could benefi t from its technical advances such as the V-2 rocket. Prior to the liberati on, Mowat had formed an excellent working relati onship with the commander of the NBS, Colonel Michel, who was no more impressed with the Netherlands being excluded from the race to benefi t from German military science than Mowat was about Canada being likewise sidelined. So they came to arrangement whereby Mowat conti nued searching for interesti ng German war material but instead of sending it back through channels, he deposited it at a barracks taken over by the NBS at Ourderkerk, near Amsterdam. The NBS would supply warehousing, vehicles, labour, technicians and guards and, in return, Mowat would collect two

of everything, one for Canada, one for the Dutch.Then, when it seemed likely that Mowat

might be re-absorbed into the general pool of intelligence offi cers, he convinced senior staff that he should collect some of the most fearsome weapons in the German arsenal for shipment back to Canada where they could be displayed to show the Canadian people what their Army had been up against. Having got some measure of agreement, Mowat appointed himself commanding offi cer of the First Canadian War Museum Collecti on Team, which was ostensibly put under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Harrison of the Historical Secti on, 1 Canadian Army. He wisely made it clear that the less he heard from or about Mowat’s acti viti es the bett er.

The collecti ng spree commenced in the Netherlands but Mowat’s unit was soon ranging far and wide to acquire, purloin and, technically at least, steal an incredible amount of material. On 10 July 1945, Mowat reported that he had at Ouderkerk 14 tanks and self-propelled guns including a Tiger II and Panther (and presumably the featured StuG), 23 special-purpose vehicles ranging from a Schwimmer to a 15-ton armoured half-track, 40 arti llery pieces and an enormous amount of ancillary items and small arms. By 22 July he had also got hold of, among other things, a Jagdti ger and a V2 rocket.

The latt er was stolen from under the noses of its Briti sh Army guard whom the Canadians had liberally dosed with Dutch gin. While they were ‘three sheets to the wind’, Mowat’s team rolled the V2 off its railway fl at car onto a one-man submarine trailer hooked up to a Mack tractor unit and made off with it. When the proverbial hit the fan shortly aft er – V2 technology being highly secret – Mowat had his men build a fake wooden conning tower onto the missile and paint the whole thing blue to further the illusion that it was a submarine prototype.

Incredible though it may seem, on 26 October 1945, Mowat’s private army – around 700 tons apparently – was loaded aboard the SS Blommersdyke at Antwerp. Canada had itself a fantasti c collecti on of German war material. But there was a problem. The Canadian command didn’t know it had it, and when it found out, didn’t want it or the C$76,000 shipping bill incurred getti ng it to Montreal. In the event, the arti llery and lesser vehicles were sold for scrap off of the dockside while the armour went to Camp Borden. Much of that was subsequently destroyed by a fi re a few years later. A few items, such as the StuG, survived.

As for Farley Mowat, an incredible individual and perhaps the world’s fi rst, and most aggressive, collector of military vehicles, he left the Army shortly aft er returning to Canada and became a best-selling author and a ti reless environmentalist. He died on 6 May 2014, six days short of his 93rd birthday. The book referred to here, ‘My Father’s Son’ (ISBN 978-0-395-65029-5) was published in the early nineti es is an account of his warti me service drawing upon lett ers between himself and his father. It is a fascinati ng read and, although the book does not appear to be widely available new in the UK, can be found on the used market.

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20 MILITARY MACHINES INTERNATIONAL OCTOBER 2014

ABOVE LEFT...Looking across the breech guard at the loader’s positi on.

ABOVE RIGHT...Looking up from the commander’s positi on at his periscope. It is incredibly cramped inside the StuG’s fi ghti ng compartment, parti cularly to the left of the breech.

BELOW...Spare track links were carried on the hull front and rear, and beneath the idlers, as shown in this view of the fi nished StuG.

14-22_stug2.indd 20 07/08/2014 21:31

get the area up to temperature and then welding an inch and peining it, welding another inch and peining it, and so on. It was quite an involved repair, and something new for the Foundati on to start with an engine that badly damaged and to resurrect it.”

The ‘peining’ (or peening) process that Andy refers to involves tapping the new weld down with a ball-pein hammer, causing

it to expand and help relieve the tensile stresses that develop both in the weld and the surrounding area on cooling. Preheati ng the area to be welded and preventi ng it cooling too fast aft er welding by the use of an asbestos blanket or similar, likewise helps to prevent stress cracks occurring.

That the process was worth the eff ort as evidenced by an engine that runs very well indeed, in fact somewhat bett er than that in

OCTOBER 2014 MILITARY MACHINES INTERNATIONAL 21

ABOVE RIGHT...From the loader’s positi on showing some of the ammuniti on racks plus a machine pistol and gas mask holder directly within reach.

RIGHT...To the left of the breech showing the gun sight and controls, some of the radio equipment and, top left , the commander’s periscope.

ABOVE...The breech and rear wall of the fi ghti ng compartment.

ABOVE RIGHT...The driver’s compartment, which he could only have accessed via the fi ghti ng compartment aft er fi rst dropping the back of his seat.

14-22_stug2.indd 21 07/08/2014 21:31

the ‘Black Sea’ StuG did at fi rst! Mind you, a lot has been learnt about the fi ner points of setti ng up these rare engines since then. “The process is a lot more thorough now,” Mike Gibb confi rms. “When we put an engine or gearbox together using parts from multi ple sources we make sure that those parts are actually in tune with each other.”

Experience wasn’t the only thing gained during the restorati on of the Weald Foundati on’s own StuG. A useful stock of parts was also accumulated. “We didn’t have to go out to anybody or anywhere to get missing items because we had everything required following our previous project,” Mike Gibb explains. “When you try to collect the parts for a vehicle you always end up buying multi ples. So we already had what we wanted, for instance internal drivetrain components, radio and intercom-related parts and instrumentati on.”

What was parti cularly interesti ng for the team was to note the diff erences between StuGs built only months apart by the same manufacturer let alone by diff erent

companies. The Germans appear to have been constantly changing things for no obvious reason, dashboard layout and illuminati on for instance. Of course, requests for changes might be acted upon faster by one manufacturer than another, a good example being the track guard retainer brackets on the MIAG StuG, which were fabricated in contrast to an Alkett -made vehicle from the period that would have had pressed brackets. You can see from photos of the StuG during its ti me in Canada as a gate guardian that it sat slightly nose down. As a consequence a signifi cant amount of water had pooled in the forward part of the hull resulti ng in the wrecking of some torsion bars and corrosion of the original gearbox casing. The fl oor plate was also damaged by corrosion but what was saveable revealed some of the original colour and also off ered a reminder that the two major StuG manufacturers, MIAG and Alkett , used plates with a diff erent patt ern – the former used a diamond patt ern while the latt er employed a square-patt ern plate.

CAMOUFLAGE SCHEMEIn terms of fi nishing the vehicle with an accurate paint scheme, the fact that its service history is, at the moment, unknown isn’t so much of a hindrance. As we have already indicated, unit markings would not have been present on a vehicle at that stage

of the war and the paint scheme would have been dictated by the theatre of acti on rather than being unit-specifi c. Despite the fact that the StuG had been sand blasted at some stage, there were sti ll traces of Zimmerit around various components. Once stripped down it became clear that what the team had fi rst suspected might be dried mud was the remains of a coati ng of the non-magneti c paste applied to many German armoured vehicles between December 1943 and late 1944. To maintain the ‘as found by Farley Mowat’ look, the team have applied their own suitably batt le-scarred layer.

By the way, lest you think for one moment that the new layer of Zimmerit is fi ller, ti le grout or something similar, it isn’t. The team went to the trouble of mixing the paste to the correct chemical formula. Proof if any were needed that the amount of ti me and eff ort that the Weald Foundati on puts into researching every detail of the vehicles it restores is quite astounding, but then the results are astounding. It matt ers not whether the viewer will ever realise that the colour of paint on a component is shade perfect, or that the Zimmerit was mixed to the original formula. Mike Gibb and his team know, and they won’t sett le for anything less.

At the ti me of writi ng it isn’t clear where the StuG will be appearing but there are no plans to ship it back to the US in the near future.

22 MILITARY MACHINES INTERNATIONAL OCTOBER 2014

BELOW...Rear three-quarter view of the fi nished StuG showing the spare wheels located on the engine deck, rear exhaust shrouds and the starti ng handle on the rear hull plate.

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