Mephisto (tank)

"Mephisto" on display in the Australian War Memorial, July 2015.
Mephisto after recovery from the battlefield.

Mephisto is a World War I German tank, the only surviving example of an A7V. In April 1918, during a German attack at Villers-Bretonneux on the Western Front, it became stuck in a shell-hole and was abandoned by its crew. It was later recovered by Allied troops and, after the war, taken to Australia as a trophy. Mephisto is housed at the Queensland Museum, in Brisbane, and will go on permanent display in a new Anzac Legacy Gallery scheduled to open in November 2018.[1].

Description

The front of "Mephisto"

Mephisto, chassis serial number 506, is not in running order.

Unlike modern tanks, the A7V has no turret. Instead, it has a cupola for the commander and driver, and its main gun, a 57mm Maxim-Nordenfelt, is carried in a mounting in the front, allowing limited traverse. Six Maxim 08 machine guns are carried in mountings, two on each side and two to the rear.

The name "Mephisto" is painted on the end facing of the box-shaped tank, as almost all German tanks in WWI were given individual names.

Capture and transport to Australia

Soldiers' names engraved in Mephisto's rear armour.[2]

The tank was lost at the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux on 24 April 1918. The battle for the area saw the Australian, British, and German forces in a fluid situation, moving around the tank, which had been abandoned after falling into a ditch.

The 26th Battalion of the 7th Brigade, mostly from Queensland,[3] hatched a plan to capture it. In July 1918, under the cover of an artillery barrage, Australian infantry and two British vehicles (either Gun Carriers or Mark IV tanks) moved forward and dragged it back to their lines under fire from the Germans who were still within sight of the tank. They had to don gas masks after German poison gas was deployed.

The 26th Battalion working party involved in the recovery of Mephisto on 22 July 1918 probably consisted of Sergeant F.R. Hanson, Privates J. Battley, G. Bradley, T. Clark, H.J. Dray, E.J. Frost, A.W. Heit, J.J. Kennedy, T.M. Kingston, R.J. Lewis, A.G. Masters, W. Sam, and G.H. White.[4]

Mephisto being dragged into the Queensland Museum by two steamrollers in 1919

Following its capture, Mephisto was transported to the 5th Tank Brigade demonstration ground at Vaux-en-Amiénois near Amiens. During its stay there it was decorated with "soldier-art" paintings of a British lion with its paw on an A7V, many soldiers' names, details of its capture and recovery, the colour patch of the 26th Battalion and the rising sun badge of the Australian Imperial Force (A.I.F.) The words "TANK BOYS" and the names of 13 soldiers (mainly from other Australian units) were engraved on the front, left side, and rear armour. From Vaux-en-Amiénois, Mephisto was shipped by rail to the Tank Corps Gunnery School at Merlimont and then shipped from Dunkirk to London. Proposals for it to be displayed as a war trophy in Australia were raised, and on 2 April 1919 it was loaded on the SS Armagh at Tilbury. The ship was to deliver it to Sydney, with plans for it to go to the war memorial in Canberra's display, but it was diverted to Brisbane, arriving on 6 June 1919 at the Norman Wharf (near the intersection of Creek Street and Eagle Street, approximately where the Eagle Street Pier ferry wharf is today) in the Brisbane River.[5] On 22 August 1919 two steamrollers from the Brisbane Municipal Council pulled Mephisto (travelling on its own caterpillar treads) from the wharf to the Queensland Museum (then at the Old Museum building in Bowen Hills), a journey of less than 2 miles taking 11 hours.[6][7]

Exhibition

The Queensland Museum, where it was housed, changed its location a number of times, and the tank at one point was housed outside, where it was exposed to the elements, and parts were removed from it by the public.[8] After many years it was eventually moved inside the museum and put behind glass in a temperature controlled environment that protected it from the public.

A7V Mephisto on display at The Workshops Rail Museum in Ipswich, Queensland, 2014

The vehicle was partly submerged during the 2011 Brisbane floods, and was removed from the Queensland Museum and taken to the Workshops Rail Museum at North Ipswich for restoration. In June 2015, it was transported to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, to take part in the World War I centenary commemorations. Since February 2018 it has been back in the Queensland Museum, where it will go on permanent display in a new Anzac Legacy Gallery due to open in November 2018.[9]

Replica

A replica A7V named "Wotan" but modelled substantially on "Mephisto" was built in Germany in 1988, and is on display at the German Tank Museum in Munster.[10]

Tank Boys is a 2014 novel by Stephen Dando-Collins,[11] set against the battle of Villers-Bretonneux and the fate of Mephisto. The protagonists are three under-age soldiers, two Australian and one German. The book is recommended by Booktopia as suitable for ages 10–12,[12] and the Children’s Book Council of Australia reviewed it favourably in 2014.[13] The work contains a small number of historical and technical errors.

Mephisto appears as a visual overhaul (skin) in the 2016 first-person shooter Battlefield 1.

References

  1. ↑ "Anzac Legacy Gallery". Archived from the original on 2018-05-14.
  2. ↑ Whitmore, Mark (1989). Mephisto - A7V Sturmpanzerwagen 506, p. 60. Queensland Museum. ISBN 9780724233885.
  3. ↑ Morgan, Joseph (2014). "Voices from Gallipoli and the Western Front: The Forgotten 26th". Sabretache. Garran, Australian Capital Territory: Military Historical Society of Australia. LV (1): 17–27. ISSN 0048-8933.
  4. ↑ Whitmore, Mark (1994). "Mephisto, Part II". Quarterly Journal of Australian Military History: 62.
  5. ↑ "GERMAN TANK". The Daily Mail (5185). Queensland, Australia. 7 June 1919. p. 7. Retrieved 10 June 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. ↑ "Mephisto". The Brisbane Courier (19, 218). Queensland, Australia. 23 August 1919. p. 4. Retrieved 10 June 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  7. ↑ "War Notes". The Richmond River Herald And Northern Districts Advertiser. 34, (2183). New South Wales, Australia. 29 August 1919. p. 8. Retrieved 10 June 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  8. ↑ Connolly, Steve "The great tank Robbery" p. 7, November 2004, The Sunday Mail.
  9. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2018-05-14. Retrieved 2018-04-26.
  10. ↑ Strasheim, R. & Hundleby, M. (2010) "Sturmpanzer A7V", Tankograd Pub., p. 98. ISBN 978-3-936519-11-2
  11. ↑ "Tank Boys". Random House Australia. Archived from the original on 22 April 2015. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  12. ↑ "Tank Boys". Booktopia. Archived from the original on 17 May 2017. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
  13. ↑ "Tank Boys - Reading Time". 15 April 2014. Archived from the original on 19 April 2017.
  • A7V Mephisto by Greg Czechura and Jeff Hopkins-Weise, ISBN 978-0-9805692-0-9 (Dead link)
  • "Moving the Mephisto tank to the Queensland Museum, Bowen Hills, Brisbane, 1919"

Coordinates: 27°28′22.77″S 153°01′04.45″E / 27.4729917°S 153.0179028°E / -27.4729917; 153.0179028

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