- 488
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- Location
- Sandusky, Ohio
Our organization (Firelands Military Vehicle Group, a 501 (c)(3) for the purposes of militarily significant historic preservation and public education )has found an ex-Navy WWII crawler tractor crane we're planning to restore. Apparently there were only a couple hundred of them built and they didn't continue after the war due to a lawsuit over who owned the design. They're classed historically as the first hydraulic crane and were built originally for the Sea Bee's. The boom swings and slides in and out on a cradle. This one had been used at a marina in Port Clinton, Ohio as a yard crane to lift out engines and such when dot doing other work and was nicknames "THING". They were also supposedly used by the Army Air Corps for working loading bombs and such. We're looking forward to the project and have ideas of taking it to shows and school history days etc. It "ran when parked here" as the owner put it there. The field mice have since built nests in the manifolds and such and standing in water occasionally isn't helping the tracks. But we've worked on worse, like a 1910 built Krupp designed Japanese field gun that was captured on Bataan in August of 1945, one of only 33 left in the world that we restored for the people of Ottawa County Ohio. It was captured by the 37th Infantry and presently displayed as a monument to their casualties in that action and the tank unit from Camp Perry, Ohio that was captured when Bataan fell.
So here's what BOTH of them look like, the gun has a before and after shot and the third gun photo is one of the 33 existing somewhere in New Zealand, the "THING" is still where it sits till this fall and a dryer ground we hope. Will post more as we progress.
So here's what BOTH of them look like, the gun has a before and after shot and the third gun photo is one of the 33 existing somewhere in New Zealand, the "THING" is still where it sits till this fall and a dryer ground we hope. Will post more as we progress.
