We're here at the Sandhills facility.
We're going to be talking and taking it back a bit to World War I.
And joining me now is the Director of the Armor Cavalry Museum here at Fort Benning,
Mr. Lynn Dyer.
Lynn, I want to thank you so much for hosting us today, but moreover I'm so excited because
there's so much history here and know no better guide to talk about this than the Director
of the Armor Cavalry Museum.
Let's specifically get right in to it.
This is a very special piece of the collection.
Correct!
This is a British Mark V Star, it the only one of it's kind left in the world, which
makes it very rare and unique as far as goes.
But, more importantly it has combat history in the First World War.
This girl happens to have been a member of the 301st Heavy Tank Battalion Alpha Company
First Platoon.
Commander of the vehicle, Lt. Harry Hobbs.
So we know a little bit of the history about her and some of the combat actions.
We have been researching her.
We've actually been able to connect with the Grandson of one of the crew members.
And through the process, Grandson had his Grandfather's journal.
And it fills in a lot of the voids and questions that we've had about the combat experience
with the crew who survived and some of the other actions associated with this vehicle.
So not only is she rare, she's got a very human element associated with the vehicle
which makes it a very powerful story for the young soldier to pay attention to today.
How many of these were produced?
Approximately 598 of the Mark V Stars.
Now that's both the male and the female variant with the cannon and the female variant with
the machine gun that the British ended up producing.
And tactically you going to end up finding an 11 man crew operating the vehicle, so it's
almost like a small platoon in and of itself.
Normally a company might have 14 of these vehicles broken out into the different platoons
and they would end up working in a very basic formations supporting the infantry in the
First World War.
Well, you have other American World War I vehicles.
Correct.
Let's talk a little bit about those, 'cause those are unique as well.
We actually have a couple of French World War I FTs,
combat experience with the French Army.
We also have a couple other vehicles that are from that time period
but did not get into combat.
Right behind me, is a Mark VIII Liberty.
Now the Mark VIII was a joint project between the British and the Americans to replace the
Mark Vs and still have all the capabilities that the tanks needed to deal with trench
warfare in the First World War.
Some of the other vehicles are experimental like the M1918, Ford two man light tank.
There's one of two that were left out of the 15 that were built.
We also have British Mark IV that came out Aberdeen Proving Ground collection that was
going to come to either Fort Meade or to Camp Colt up in Gettysburg as a driver trainer
vehicle to help train soldiers before they went into the combat zone.
Well, you know, I tell ya, I like, all guys like you, you tell the passion, the amount
have in their voice and their inflection.
And it comes, and it resonates through, because again, you as a former, Marine officer, tanker,
historian, I mean, how much gratification do you get out of taking care of this stuff.
I mean, 450 of these that you're going to have to manage at some point.
I mean, how do you do it?
Every vehicle has got a personal story to tell.
And to me everyone of them needs to have a chance to do that.
They deserve the TLC to be restored back up to what they should be.
And so, from my perspective, every one of these vehicles is very important
for the core collection.
Some have a little bit more of a powerful story to tell,
which is really cool as far as it goes.
I wish all of them were combat veterans and had powerful stories to tell, but it's part
of the developmental process which is one of our missions, to talk about how the vehicles
evolved from these World War I vehicles through the War years of World War II, Korea, Vietnam,
to the modern day vehicles that we have today.
So, to me I developed an interest in them a long time ago, and always love working on
these things.