Com-Central.net

Hi Guys-
There was a documentary on the other night that showed a Sherman DD being lifted off the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Italy. I am pretty sure this is the same DD we've heard about in the past. I did not see the documentary myself, one of my co-workers did and told me that just after breaking the surface the cable broke and the DD went back to the bottom, end of documentary. Do any of you know what happened next? Has this DD since been recovered?
With thanks-
Geoff Steer [;-{/)

I saw that documentary recently. I think its still on the bottom...

Neil

I don't think the same..

Pictures taken in the Piana delle Orme museum near Latina, Italy

There was a second successful attempt to recover this tank in 2002

















here is the website of the museum
Piana delle orme Museum


Pierre-Olivier

Hi Geoff! Hi Folks!

- geoffsteer

There was a documentary on the other night that showed a Sherman DD being lifted off the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Italy.
....one of my co-workers did and told me that just after breaking the surface the cable broke and the DD went back to the bottom, end of documentary. Do any of you know what happened next?

There is another documentary that covers the second part of a three part story.

That vehicle sank during a training excerise for Operation Anvil.

A team of Italian scuba sport divers found the tank. They were able to get a U.S. Navy salvage ship to try and recover the vehicle. The Patton Museum was also involved somehow. There was a plan being worked on for the vehicle to end up in there.

As your co-worker reported, a cable broke just as the vehicle was coming out of the water and it sank a second time. The U.S. Navy salvage ship was only available during a limited time gap between missions. The day after the cable broke, it had to move out for it's next mission and that ended any hope that Ft. Knox would end up with the vehicle.

I don't remember if it was the next year, or maybe two years later, the scuba team was able to get a commerical salvage vessel to try again. One of the diviers lost his life in an underwater accident during that sucessful recovery action. The second documentary ends here.

Later I ran acrossed some info on the internet that reported the vehicle went to the Piana delle Orme museum near Latina, Italy were it has sense been cleaned up and restored with a working floation screen. If you check out the link for the museum, you will see one photo of the vehicle looking clean with the screen down.

Spot Report!
Sgt, Scouts