Com-Central.net

Would anyone happen to know where these are located??

1....Somewhere.in.Detroit





2.....Somewhere.in.Texas




3.......Just.somewhere

Middle one's a Japanese Type 94, 37mm anti tank gun.

Dear Colleague,
lower photo shows German 15cm howitzer model 1902 or Japanese Type 38 (Krupp license 1911). City can not determine.

silverhawkauthor.com/b...s_326.html
www3.plala.or.jp/takih...38-150.htm

I'm sorry folks, I know WHAT they are, but what I'm trying to figure out is WHERE they are?

Top German 10.5cm Naval Deck Gun, I think, pretty sure
Middle Japanese 47mm
Bottom German 15cm sFH 02

I figure maybe some of us might see them someday
and Thanks for taking the time to comment

Here are a few more mystery pieces I have located on Google Earth, anyone in the area of any of these that could get me a photo would be appreciated, Thanks ahead of time.....

CA, Porterville, W Olive Ave........................36° 3.953'N 119° 3.612'W
GA, Chickamauga, Cove Rd/ W 14th St.......34° 51.992'N 85° 17.701'W
IL, Belleville, 212 Eiler Rd........................... 38° 32.756'N 90° 4.409'W
MI, Genesee, W. Carpenter Rd...................43° 4.591'N 83° 45.820'W
NH, Tilton. 122 Winter St............................43° 27.064'N 71° 36.088'W
NJ, Denville, 9 Legion Pl............................. 40° 53.641'N 74° 29.107'W
NJ, Franklin, 57 Mitchell Ave........................41° 7.153'N 74° 34.715'W
NV, Gabbs, 1st St/ A Ave............................38° 51.424'N 117° 55.784'W
OH, Cardington, Park St.............................40° 29.872'N 82° 53.820'W
PA, Shamokin, Shamokin Cemetery............40° 47.194'N 76° 33.219'W

The one in Belleville IL is a M1897 75 mm gun on an unknown (and badly eroded) carriage. If my memory serves, and that is always a crapshoot, I believe that this is a French weapon rather than one of the US copies produced during and after the First World War.

Formerly located in a city park on the north side of West Main Street in Belleville, when I first saw it in the early 1970s, it still had its wheels (or rather, the remains of them) and was half buried in the ground near a baseball diamond.

It went "missing" for ten years or so, at least to me. Then, I had a day to kill in the area while my wife was visiting her great grandchild, so I decided to track the thing down.

It had been moved to its current location some time during the period 1985 - 2008, cleaned up a bit and stripped of the remains of the shield and wheels, and mounted on a set of concrete plinths, overlooking a baseball field or two.

From the looks of it, it is outside of a small veteran's post of some sort or other. There used to be (in the early 1970s) a couple of 40 et 8 and last bottle clubs in the Belleville area, so it is possible that the building may be one of their (former) facilities. (There are not all that many 40 et 8 posts still in existence - south Saint Louis has one that still has regular fish fries, but without any World War I veterans tending the fry baskets these days.)

Other than the missing wheels and shield, the piece is in pretty good condition. Probably that was a side effect of being buried in the ground for so long at the prior location. When I visited, there was no plaque or other sign on or near the weapon. I think that the Nordenfelt-style rotary breech is present (and welded shut).

I have a full series of photos of the thing, but they are all packed up in a storage pod that is supposed to be eight hundred miles from where I sit, so I can't help you there.

The light grey German piece in the photo a couple of postings up looks suspiciously like one located on the courthouse lawn in Corydon IN, the first state capital located at the farthest southeast corner. It too is in excellent condition, as is the light Minenwerfer located on the opposite side of the building.

And, I'm wondering why these pieces were singled out but not all of the others. Southern IL is pretty well populated with war relics and trophies, in my opinion far in excess of what should be found in such a sparsely populated area. From Spanish American War weapons (including a QF gun off of a 1890s monitor and a 75 mm fieldpiece in (literally) the middle of Gawd awful nowhere to the east of Effingham IL), to the massive German 150 mm gun (complete with separate carriage for transporting the barrel) over in Prairie du Rocher IL, on the Mississippi River bottoms to the south of Saint Louis, to the half-battery of Japanese field pieces over in the northeast quadrant by Danville, the things are everywhere. Benton IL has a relatively mint German 155 gun from the Second World War. (There's another one of these in a traffic island up in Evanston IL.) There are also a few guided missiles scattered about, often in very small towns.

Hell, they even have a former Soviet infantry mortar (set safely in concrete) in Eldorado IL. And a German artillery battery wagon (no gun, just the battery wagon) up in Calhoun County.

Southern IN, on the other hand, has a considerable number of Minenwerferen - Corydon, New Harmony, a small town south of Indianapolis (which has two of them at the city cemetery, mounted on either side of a steel plate from the USS Indiana, holed during the battle of Santiago).

And, northern IN has (somewhere) one of those massive Japanese spigot mortars from the last year or two of World War II. It used to be right by the main drag on the way downtown to the outlet mall from the Interstate, but it was relocated when they built their high school stadium, and I haven't been able to find it since.

Then there's the aerial torpedo parked outside of a small factory in south Chicago IL, that honking big U boat at the Museum of Science and Industry, a mysterious British howitzer barrel set on a stone plinth in a forest preserve south of Des Plaines (without any explanation as to why it is there), and a lonely 40 mm mount up on the site of former Fort Sheridan, next to a bunch of million dollar McMansions on the shores of Lake Michigan.

This is the stuff outside of the military museums, of course. The Cantingy facility up in Chicago, the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Indianapolis, the Soldier's Memorial in Saint Louis, the Missouri Veteran's Home in north Saint Louis County, the Rock Island Arsenal in (surprise) Rock Island IL), the museums at Fort Leonard Wood in Saint Robert MO and the magnificent Liberty Memorial in downtown Kansas City are all crammed with similar pieces of ordnance.

Toss in all of the American Civil War vintage stuff on courthouse squares, and you've got a couple of hundred spots to visit (or have your surrogates do it for you.) Iffen you're looking to collect all of them, you've got a formidable task ahead of you. Taking the entire states of IN, IL and MO under consideration, you could wear out a couple of cars driving around to view them all.

"And, I'm wondering why these pieces were singled out but not all of the others."

Hi Terry, thank you for Belleville info and the reason I'm looking for these selected pieces is that I happen to have found them on GE and unable to ID them from GE (no street view). I figured some of the Forum members might be located close to them.

I have seen lots of pieces in the IN, Il area, we do seem to have a glut of military hardware close by. The German 15cm sFH 02 in the photo above is NOT Corydon, IN, as Corydon is just down the road from me. The photos above are from the internet with no exact location.

"And, northern IN has (somewhere) one of those massive Japanese spigot mortars from the last year or two of World War II. It used to be right by the main drag on the way downtown to the outlet mall from the Interstate, but it was relocated when they built their high school stadium, and I haven't been able to find it since"

I think this might have been scrapped out, but I can't prove that. A good research project for someone in the area.

Would you happen to have a better location for the Evanston German piece?

Thanks for the response, AJ

I saw the Evanston piece while trying to find a shop from which I have both bought and sold saxophones. As this was pre-cell phone camera days, and as Evanston is a bit of a traffic pain most of the time, I never was able to stop to check it out more closely. (When I saw it, I was in a hurry to hit the shop, return the rental car, and get back to my flight at O'Hare.

I've since visited Evanston again, but (again) I was on a tight timeline, and couldn't find a cop in a hurry to ask about it. I do know that it is in the midst of Evanston, not in a park off to the side somewhere. (The one next to downtown Benton IL is a lot more accessible.)

As for the spigot piece, I spent an hour with the city engineer, and she made a few calls to try and run it down. She even gave me a list of veteran's posts in the town, thinking that one of them might have inherited it. Only one was open (a typical American Legion sort of place, with old coots sitting at a bar, smoking away and nursing their beers. None of the long time members could recall the weapon specifically, but one of them remembered the garish red-white-blue paint job given it for the Bicentennial

I recognized it in an instant when we visited the town to hit the factory outlet mall downtown. Unfortunately, this was before digital photography, and I had already exhausted my film supply at the time. So, no photos then, and when I visited a couple of years ago. Bummer.

1....Somewhere.in.Detroit, Located 2200 W Grand Blvd,
42° 21.521'N 83° 6.198'W



Still looking for the others

Curious enough to rerun the list through Google Maps since street view is updated and extended there may be decent images of the pieces.
Got a hit on the howitzer at Cardington, OH (attached). It seems to be a 155mm M114.

Regards,

Charlie

Noticed there was a suggestion earlier that the 15cm howitzer may have been in Corydon. IN. Went looking and there certainly is a 15cm sFH 02 and as the guy says, an lMW outside the courthouse.

Regards,

Charlie

I'm 20 miles from there. Its not the Corydon piece...but no idea where yet............we'll find them one day, the Detroit piece was well hidden.

Sounds like a challenge....

The sFH 02 seems to be in a park on the corner of Sierra Madre Bvd and S. Hermosa Ave, Sierra Madre, CA. (34.161759, -118.056681).

I can't get an image from street view similar to the original because there is a "no parking" sign which obstructs the angle the original image was taken from.

I have a vague recollection the 37mm Type 94 was mentioned on this forum a few years ago.

Regards,

Charlie (in Australia)

Another 15cm sFH 02 in Pawtucket, RI (41.878991, -71.377768).

Regards,

Charlie