Heading back

Weather is being kind again, cool but sun shining and blue skies. Leave Cambrai at 09:30 and head over to the Cambrai Memorial at Loureval.Ferry not until 13:35 so time for a meander cross country to avoid the Peage, and also to visit one or two more sights.
You can't come to Cambrai and not visit the Cambrai Memorial to the Missing at Louverval.
Its yet another memorial for missing soldiers of the Uk and South Africa, this time for 7048 of them who died at the Battle of Cambrai 20 Nov to 3 Dec 1917and have no known graves.

Louverval is only just down the road from Cambrai towards Albert, so I plot a route from Albert to Arras and come across signs for the village of Wailly.

There's Orchard Cemetery CWGC but not much else - there's some pics in previous posts of Flirt II here .This is where the Tank Training School was prior to the battle and there are a number of pictures in the IWM collection showing tanks in training here, including many of Flirt II (F4).(Dog and officers!)

Flirt II at Wailly Tank Training School 21 Oct 1917, in preparation for the Battle of Cambrai (http://www.iwmprints.org.uk)

Compare that with this pic taken of Flirt II abandoned in Bourlon a few months later

 

 

Its then Arras to St Pol - this is the place where the unkown soldier in Westminster Abbey was brought from. It's a very busy town traffic wise and I stop for Frites in the town centre.

 

 The weather is turning for the worst, really grey skies and the A26 is a dozen or so miles away so I opt for 2.70euro toll for the final stretch to Calais. Five mins of heavy rain followed by hail which lies in drifts on the road surface - interesting, but I follow a truck which breaks a path. Only a few minutes of this, just as well seeing as I didn't suss out what was happening straight away when the handling went a bit squirrelly.

Get to the ferry with 40mins to spare but there was a 30 min delay, just long enough to stand there and get another soaking for 5 mins.

 

Last off - not even pointing the right way either

One last visit on the way home and its into Ashford to have a look at their tank in the high street.

Another MkIV WW1 tank - only eight left in the world and I've seen three of them on this trip.

 

So thats the tank trip over. A good interesting couple of days following FlirtII as best I could.

 

However all is not as it seems and Flirt II in Lincoln may not be FlirtII after all but some other tank - apparently an announcement is imminent as its real identity has recently been confirmed.(so Philippe tells me but would divulge no more than a gallic shrug).

It means a return trip may be on the cards in the future tracing the Lincoln tank's 'real' activities.

**Update on the tank in Lincoln known as Flirt II is that during filming of the interior in November 2013, a serial number was discovered barely visible under the paint (Philipe told me about this as he was asked to check Deborah at the time to confirm her serial number was in the same position). The number didn't belong to Flirt II but to a tank called Daphne also built in Birmingham at the Metropolitan Carriage Works. Daphne was first used for training by F Battalion of the Tank Corps, and then transferred to 12th Company D Battalion who provided her with the name Daphne.

On 21/22 August 1917 whilst waiting to go into battle at Ypres, Daphne was hit by a shell, damaging her roof and was handed over to the Salvage Company.( D Battalion war diary.) Little more known after that, but in 1919 she was used as one of the Presentation Tanks and ended up in a park in Gloucester. In 1945, she was transported to Bovington and at some point painted to look like Flirt II and set up as a static exhibit at the gates to Bovington camp until the 1970's when Lincoln Tank Group managed to get her to Lincoln on permanent loan ending up in the Museum of Lincolnshire Life in 1989 still believed to be Flirt II.**

 

Hello, I know this really is a lot to ask, but I wonder if you would consider removing the information posted on your blog about the origin of the tank "Flirt II" at Lincoln. There is a huge amount of research going on trying to pin down the true story and some of the current stories doing the rounds are mere supposition which are muddying the water. An announcement will be made in due course, when the people who identified the tank will be given the credit they deserve and the full story can be told. Until then, things are a bit 'up in the air' but I assure you, I'll be in touch as soon as possible. Thanks very much and all the very best, Richard Pullen Chairman Friends of the Lincoln Tank

 

Seeing as I had inadvertently stumbled on a very close version of the tank's real history, I was more than happy to immediately comply with Richard's request and pulled the update info straight away, only adding it again to this page once the announcement had been made and after I had met the gentleman in question.

The person who has confirmed the identity of the Lincoln tank following some substantial research is a gentleman called Gwyn Evans. He did a very interesting talk at Lincoln regarding this and I was fortunate enough to meet him and Richard Pullen at that event.