I

t 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 interestng by virtue of having
played a key role in an acton, campaign or
war. Then there are the few vehicles that
interest because of a connecton with a
notable individual Montys sta car, for
instance, but while there are plenty of types
that tck the rst two boxes to some degree,
very few tck all three... However, the newly
restored 7.5cm Sturmgeschtz 40 Ausf G
(Sd.Kfz. 142/1) that has just rolled out of the
Weald Foundatons workshops in Kent is,
I would argue, one.
Although the concept behind the StuG
family didnt 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 eectve way of shoe horning a
powerful gun (albeit with limited traverse
a mere 24 degrees in the StuG IIIs case)
into a compact, low prole vehicle that was
more economical to manufacture than a
conventonal 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
Foundaton was manufactured by Mhlenbau
und Industrie AG (MIAG) of Braunschweig in
14 MILITARY MACHINES INTERNATIONAL OCTOBER 2014
John Blackman gets
an exclusive look at
the Weald Foundations
latest restoration
StuG Survivor
14-22_stug2.indd 14 07/08/2014 21:27
Lower Saxony. The chassis number indicates
that it lef 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 vehicles history between it
leaving MIAG and its surrender to the Allies
in May1945. Speculaton that it survived
Normandy and/or Arnhem is just that,
speculaton. Given the life expectancy of
German armour at that tme 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 entre vehicle to bring
the weapon to bear, and his
vision was extremely limited.
RIGHT...
The StuG arrives at the Weald
Foundatons workshops.
(Courtesy Weald Foundaton)
14-22_stug2.indd 15 07/08/2014 21:27
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 o cer
of the First Canadian War Museum Collecton
Team, a unit of his own inventon.
We relate some of his story separately, but
essentally he set himself the task of collectng
as much of the German war machine as possible
and shipping it back to Canada. Mowats own
paperwork regarding his more-or-less uno cial
project conrms 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 afer 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 identfying markings on the
vehicle beyond the Balkenkreuz.
WEALD FOUNDATION
Mike Gibb, principle of the Weald Foundaton,
is entrely commited to researching every
aspect and detail relatng to the vehicles in
his charge, and in the case of this partcular
StuG, he has been assisted by David Ridd and
valuable input from noted Canadian military
historian and author, Harold Skaarup, however,
ascertaining the StuGs parent unit has proved
partcularly problematc.
Weve traced the existng strength reports
of the German units in the Netherlands that
had StuGs at the tme, he explains, and weve
basically taken the biggest and most well-
known out of the equaton because there is
an existng 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 Fallschirmjger Division, which had a StuG
unit atached. Where it surrendered is in the
area that we believe the StuG was recovered.
Unfortunately, while there are many photos
of German Fallschirmjger 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
tme of capitulaton, we can refer to photos
taken of it on a Canadian base.
On November 15 1945 Mowats collecton
including the StuG steamed into Montreal
harbour aboard the SS Blommersdyke. It
arrived to a less than rapturous recepton
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 Foundaton)
LEFT...
The cylinder is seen here partally welded
during the restoraton process that resulted
in a successful rejuvenaton of what could
very easily have been a scrap engine.
(Courtesy Weald Foundaton)
14-22_stug2.indd 16 07/08/2014 21:28
but at least the StuG
avoided being sold
for scrap, and spent
many a year sit 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 informaton gleaned from the internet, the
StuG was subsequently purchased by Perry
Kehr around 1990 and then, in 1999 afer
having been restored to some degree, sold on
to Joe Fazio in California where it was used for
batle 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 ted 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 stll in place when
the StuG arrived in the UK. A year later the
StuG was spoted at a Brent Mullins open
day and then, in February 2010, sit ng on
the dockside at Galveston, Texas, awaitng
shipment to Southampton. A certain amount
of speculaton followed as to the vehicles
destnaton but, as some suspected, it
was headed for the Weald Foundaton for
restoraton. And where beter? The Weald
Foundaton (or Sdkfz Foundaton as it was
beter known at the tme) had already executed
a quite remarkable StuG III restoraton.
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE
That previous StuG, also an Ausf G
manufactured by MIAG in late October/early
November 1943 and ted with a Topflende
gun mantlet (widely known as the Saukopf, or
sows 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 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 penetratng 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 di cult restoraton that provided the
Weald Foundaton 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 wasnt 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 re afer serving as a range target.
I believe it was an April 1943. Thats 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 initally 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 testes. It was the
most intact vehicle Id ever come across.
Unless exceptonally lucky and its almost
unheard of now to nd something in a barn
one usually has to contend with a vehicle
OCTOBER 2014 MILITARY MACHINES INTERNATIONAL 17
ABOVE...
The lack of a turret meant that the StuG had a low prole that made it
hard for enemy tanks to see, and perhaps more importantly, hit it when
on the batleeld.
LEFT...
The StuGs fully restored Maybach engine seen here in situ before the rear
engine cover was replaced.
(Courtesy Weald Foundaton)
LEFT...
The two StuG IIIs restored by the Weald
Foundaton. The most recent, on the right of the
photo, was acquired in 1945 by a Canadian Army
intelligence o cer, Captain Mowat, during a
largely self-motvated 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 nd are bits thereof.
You never get something that has all of its
drivetrain components, all of the original
castngs, 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 hadnt been
sand blasted quite so thoroughly.
That said, the Weald Foundaton team then
had to ascertain to what extent the vehicle
had been tampered with afer its arrival in
North America, the replacement of the engine
was obvious, but what else?
We were looking at this vehicle when it
rst arrived, Mike Gibb recalls, and couldnt
understand why there were all these, lets say,
modicatons, and we automatcally concluded
that they must be wrong; that is not how it lef
the factory. But remember, this thing lef 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 tme 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 additonal protecton 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 eld modicatons and
the vehicle had not been meddled with afer
reaching Canada.
MACHBACH REVIVED
Weve already mentoned that the StuGs
original engine had been replaced by a
late-sixtes GMC V12, but it stll came along
with the vehicle. There was no queston
that the GMC had to come out, but, as the
ABOVE...
Both of these StuG III were manufactured by
MIAG only a couple of months apart during
late 1943. The most obvious dierence is that
the right-hand vehicle has a Topflende gun
mantlet, perhaps beter known as the Saukopf,
or sows head, mantlet.
ABOVE LEFT...
This photo shows the spare sectons of track
stowed on the vertcal wall at the rear of the
ghtng compartment.
LEFT...
The gun sight aperture seen here in the raised
positon. Note that the sight itself retains
its original wartme nish and has not been
restored or repainted.
14-22_stug2.indd 18 07/08/2014 21:30
OCTOBER 2014 MILITARY MACHINES INTERNATIONAL 19
original Maybach was severely damaged,
what replacement optons were there?
Thats a queston you could answer yourself
very few, and not just because the world
isnt awash with Maybachs. As Mike Gibb
explained to me, nowadays its not just the
problem of nding an incredibly rare engine of
component, which is di cult enough in itself,
there must also be no queston as to origin
or ownership, partcularly 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 o, 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 o, or it had got trapped
between the crank and the sidewall of the
crankcase. Although it hadnt broken a piece
out, it had eectvely swollen and cracked a
porton 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
botoms of the bolt pockets.
The repair was my rst task afer joining
the Weald Foundaton in March 2012 and took
about three weeks. It involved pre-heatng to
MOWATS PRIVATE ARMY
Farley 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 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
fathers advice, young Farley enlisted with the
Hastngs and Prince Edward Regiment, known
as the Hasty P and by 10 July 1943, he was a
subaltern in command of a rie platoon and
found himself partcipatng in the inital landings
of Operaton Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily.
In his book, My Fathers Son, Mowat remarks
that in its inital stages the campaign in Sicily
was an exhilaratng if exhaustng experience for
those that escaped death or mutlaton. But as
the acton moved into Italy and there began a
long and biter struggle, the experience became
more exhaustng that anything else. Following
a partcularly stressful period during the Moro
River campaign at the tail end of 1943, Mowat
departed the front line and was appointed to the
sta at Brigade HQ.
Although the aforementoned My Fathers Son
provides a very good account of Mowats 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 O cer. His task was, as he puts it: to
scour the batleelds 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 tme
to become involved in what was sold to senior
sta 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 armistce with the Allies. That
this involved a somewhat nerve-wracking trip
behind enemy lines to visit the German HQ has
no partcular bearing on our story except to show
the calibre of the man.
With the liberaton of the Netherlands came
a period of inactvity for Mowat and a sense of
unease concerning the developing situaton.
There was a growing sense that the Americans
and Britsh were hoovering up as much as
possible of the German war machine so they
alone could benet from its technical advances
such as the V-2 rocket. Prior to the liberaton,
Mowat had formed an excellent working
relatonship with the commander of the NBS,
Colonel Michel, who was no more impressed
with the Netherlands being excluded from the
race to benet from German military science
than Mowat was about Canada being likewise
sidelined. So they came to arrangement whereby
Mowat contnued searching for interestng
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 o cers, he convinced senior sta
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 o cer of
the First Canadian War Museum Collecton Team,
which was ostensibly put under the command
of Lieutenant-Colonel Harrison of the Historical
Secton, 1 Canadian Army. He wisely made it clear
that the less he heard from or about Mowats
actvites the beter.
The collectng spree commenced in the
Netherlands but Mowats 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 artllery pieces and an enormous
amount of ancillary items and small arms. By 22
July he had also got hold of, among other things,
a Jagdtger and a V2 rocket.
The later was stolen from under the noses of
its Britsh Army guard whom the Canadians had
liberally dosed with Dutch gin. While they were
three sheets to the wind, Mowats team rolled
the V2 o its railway at car onto a one-man
submarine trailer hooked up to a Mack tractor
unit and made o with it. When the proverbial hit
the fan shortly afer 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, Mowats private army around 700
tons apparently was loaded aboard the SS
Blommersdyke at Antwerp. Canada had itself a
fantastc collecton of German war material. But
there was a problem. The Canadian command
didnt know it had it, and when it found out,
didnt want it or the C$76,000 shipping bill
incurred get ng it to Montreal. In the event, the
artllery and lesser vehicles were sold for scrap
o of the dockside while the armour went to
Camp Borden. Much of that was subsequently
destroyed by a re a few years later. A few items,
such as the StuG, survived.
As for Farley Mowat, an incredible individual
and perhaps the worlds rst, and most
aggressive, collector of military vehicles, he
lef the Army shortly afer returning to Canada
and became a best-selling author and a treless
environmentalist. He died on 6 May 2014, six
days short of his 93rd birthday. The book referred
to here, My Fathers Son (ISBN 978-0-395-
65029-5) was published in the early ninetes is
an account of his wartme service drawing upon
leters between himself and his father. It is a
fascinatng read and, although the book does not
appear to be widely available new in the UK, can
be found on the used market.
14-22_stug2.indd 19 07/08/2014 21:31
20 MILITARY MACHINES INTERNATIONAL OCTOBER 2014
ABOVE LEFT...
Looking across the breech guard at the loaders positon.
ABOVE RIGHT...
Looking up from the commanders positon at his periscope. It is incredibly cramped inside the StuGs ghtng compartment, partcularly to the lef 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 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 Foundaton 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. Preheatng
the area to be welded and preventng it
cooling too fast afer welding by the use of an
asbestos blanket or similar, likewise helps to
prevent stress cracks occurring.
That the process was worth the eort as
evidenced by an engine that runs very well
indeed, in fact somewhat beter than that in
OCTOBER 2014 MILITARY MACHINES INTERNATIONAL 21
ABOVE RIGHT...
From the loaders positon showing some of the
ammuniton racks plus a machine pistol and gas
mask holder directly within reach.
RIGHT...
To the lef of the breech showing the gun sight
and controls, some of the radio equipment and,
top lef, the commanders periscope.
ABOVE...
The breech and rear wall of the
ghtng compartment.
ABOVE RIGHT...
The drivers compartment, which
he could only have accessed via
the ghtng compartment afer
rst dropping the back of his seat.
14-22_stug2.indd 21 07/08/2014 21:31
the Black Sea StuG did at rst! Mind you, a
lot has been learnt about the ner points of
set ng up these rare engines since then. The
process is a lot more thorough now, Mike
Gibb conrms. When we put an engine or
gearbox together using parts from multple
sources we make sure that those parts are
actually in tune with each other.
Experience wasnt the only thing
gained during the restoraton of the Weald
Foundatons own StuG. A useful stock of
parts was also accumulated. We didnt 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
multples. So we already had what we wanted,
for instance internal drivetrain components,
radio and intercom-related parts and
instrumentaton.
What was partcularly interestng for the
team was to note the dierences between
StuGs built only months apart by the
same manufacturer let alone by dierent
companies. The Germans appear to have been
constantly changing things for no obvious
reason, dashboard layout and illuminaton
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 Alket-made vehicle from the
period that would have had pressed brackets.
You can see from photos of the StuG during
its tme in Canada as a gate guardian that it
sat slightly nose down. As a consequence a
signicant amount of water had pooled in
the forward part of the hull resultng in the
wrecking of some torsion bars and corrosion
of the original gearbox casing. The oor plate
was also damaged by corrosion but what
was saveable revealed some of the original
colour and also oered a reminder that the
two major StuG manufacturers, MIAG and
Alket, used plates with a dierent patern
the former used a diamond patern while the
later employed a square-patern plate.
CAMOUFLAGE SCHEME
In terms of nishing the vehicle with an
accurate paint scheme, the fact that its
service history is, at the moment, unknown
isnt 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 acton rather
than being unit-specic. Despite the fact
that the StuG had been sand blasted at some
stage, there were stll traces of Zimmerit
around various components. Once stripped
down it became clear that what the team
had rst suspected might be dried mud was
the remains of a coatng of the non-magnetc
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 batle-scarred layer.
By the way, lest you think for one moment
that the new layer of Zimmerit is ller, tle
grout or something similar, it isnt. The team
went to the trouble of mixing the paste to
the correct chemical formula. Proof if any
were needed that the amount of tme and
eort that the Weald Foundaton puts into
researching every detail of the vehicles it
restores is quite astounding, but then the
results are astounding. It maters 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 wont setle for anything less.
At the tme of writng it isnt 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 nished StuG
showing the spare wheels located on the engine
deck, rear exhaust shrouds and the startng
handle on the rear hull plate.
14-22_stug2.indd 22 07/08/2014 21:32