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TerryStibal

I haven't been here in a long, long time, but someone sent me a copy of the US Relic list, and I thought I would add a few entries to that compilation:

1) The M114 questionably listed at Alton IL was in fact located at Olin Park, East Alton IL. It was in the midst of a bunch of playground equipment when I last saw it in 1991, and was visible from the adjacent highway at that time. I zoomed in to the location on Google Earth, but could not make out the vehicle shape from all of the trees in the immediate area.

2) There are a number of M3 halftrack chassises above the number in the listing for the museum located on Cut Street in Alton IL There may be as many as ten of them in the yard, all of them in a variety of stages of disrepair. They were there as recently as last summer. I have never seen the museum open at any time over a large number of visits.

3) During my last visit to Marine IL in 1990 or so, there was a non-ballistic M5 light tank in the municipal park. As they now show a M60, the M5 may have been replaced. A visit to Google Earth shows one vehicle from the street view, but it is not possible to tell if it is an M60 or the older M5.

4) As recently as 2009, there was a M60 parked outside of the ROTC building at Norwich College, Northfield VT.

5) In addition to the LVT at League City TX, there is another such vehicle on the grounds of Seawolf Park, located on the eastern side of Galveston TX. It is visible from Google Earth, located in the approximate middle of the park in a fenced enclosure.

6) There was an ex-Soviet vehicle (tank of some sort) located at the Marine Corps facility in Galveston TX. It was outdoors when I first saw it, but it has since been moved to God alone knows where. The whole area is fenced and off limits to civilians.

7) There is an embryonic museum collection located a few miles to the south of College Station TX. On the west side of Texas Highway 6, it is to be called Museum of The American GI, or so it is claimed on a sign by the highway. Included in the collection there are a M47 Patton and a M4 Sherman hull, which is stripped and badly picked over. They also have a section of assembled Bailey bridge, plus some other odds and ends.

The M4 is visible from Google Earth, but the M47 is almost completely hidden by foliage.

8 ) There used to be an early M3 light tank outside of a American Legion post in Flora IL, parked next to a Japanese mountain howitzer. According to the barman at the post, someone came by one day and offered a considerable amount of cash to the post president, who accepted it in the name of the post. The buyer had a flatbed with a winch at the post before the end of the day, and the tank was G-O-N-E.

That's all I can think of at the moment. I have (over the past twenty odd years) accumulated a database of military relics as I blundered into them during my travels. Most of my stuff falls into the artillery category, but there are tanks and other stuff there as well, like Spanish American artillery and all sechlike.

TerryStibal

An update on the above:

During a visit to the area last week, I made the rounds of a number of the items on my list that were either photographed and then the photos lost, or had not been photographed at all. I turned up the following information on the vehicles in the above posting:

The Olin Park M114 in East Alton IL is no longer located at the park's play area. In fact, the park has been extensively revised since my last visit, and it is now a community operation instead of one primarily for the Olin employees. No indication as to where it was removed to.

The Marine IL M5 light non-ballistic tank is no longer there, having been replaced by the M60 noted in the registry.

The Alton IL museum yard is still filled with half tracks in various states of completeness and repair.

Otherwise in our travels, I found a couple more World War I artillery pieces, including a "complete" light Minenwerfer, with weapon, large baseplate, original wheels, and the rare trail piece provided for direct fire (including anti-tank purposes). I've seen one like this in the National Museum Of The First World War in Kansas City, but this one was out in the weather on the courthouse lawn in Croyden IN. Go figure.

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