In a world first, The Tank Museum is planning an exhibition that will bring every member of the Tiger Tank family together in one display.
The new exhibition, supported by Wargaming, will feature the Museum’s Tiger 1, two King Tigers, Jagdtiger and joined by at least one vehicle on international loan – which will be going on public display in Europe for the first time since it was captured in 1944.
The US Army Ordnance Training and Heritage Center have confirmed that they will be loaning The Tank Museum their Elefant (based on the rejected Porsche Tiger chassis) for the exhibition and the Museum remains hopeful that it will be joined by a Sturmtiger from overseas.
The new exhibition, which will be unveiled in April 2017, is aimed at enthusiasts of German armor and will feature new and previously unseen crew interviews and testimonies and account from those who faced them in action.
The development and technology employed in these huge machines along with historical detail about the battles in which they were fought will aim to assess the extent to which these tanks deserve their mighty reputations.
Veteran accounts will include reminiscences from those who were present at the capture of Tiger 131 and the story of Gunner Joe Ekins of the Northamptonshire Yeomanry, who in August 1944, knocked out three Tigers in his Sherman Firefly within a matter of hours. It is believed that one of these Tiger tanks was crewed by famed tank ace Michael Wittmann.
In an interview conducted before his death in 2012, Gunner Ekins recalled; “We were in the orchard, looking out over a couple of thousand yards of flat, plain land. Suddenly there were three Tigers coming across our front. We waited until they were about 800 yards. My commander said ‘target the rear one’ and I fired two shots at him and hit him. We pulled out again and fired at the second tank, hit him with the first shot and it went up in an explosion so, obviously, we hit the ammunition or something. By this time the first tank of the three had realized what was going on and he started looking for cover, so it turned a bit towards us, we fired two shots at him and I hit him as well”.
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Of course, the German perspective will also be presented. At TANKFEST 2015, former Tiger 1 driver Wilhelm Fischer was interviewed by Museum staff and research is being carried out to identify further personal accounts.
With veteran stories, supporting artifacts, unseen imagery and the stories unique to the vehicles on display, the exhibition will showcase the Museum’s collection of what were arguably the most feared and famous tanks of the Second World War.
– by The Tank Museum
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