The top gun for Top Gear
QUESTION
What was the ‘tank’ that delivered the Clarkson petition to the BBC? Can a tracked vehicle be driven on the public highway? THE Top Gear petition, organised by political blogger Guido Fawkes, featured a figure dressed as The Stig — clutching a petition of one million names calling for Jeremy Clarkson to be reinstated — atop an Abbot self-propelled gun (SPG).
It was one of a fleet of armoured vehicles owned by Nick Mead, proprietor of Tanks A Lot, who hires out vehicles for tank driving days, film props, weddings, etc.
It’s legal to drive a roadworthy tracked vehicle on a public highway, but the Metropolitan police issued an advisory in case onlookers were alarmed by the sight of a tank rolling through the capital.
It read: ‘There is a self-propelled gun/ armoured vehicle being driven through the streets of Central London this morning making its way to the Broadcasting House in Portland Place.’
Strictly speaking, an SPG differs from a tank in that it isn’t intended to engage other armour, but fire over a greater distance, as artillery which doesn’t have to be towed.
The FV433 Abbot was a British SPG that followed the tradition of naming such fighting vehicles after ecclesiastical titles. Others include the Bishop, Deacon and Sexton. The Abbot was created to conform with Nato’s standardisation agreement. It conforms to a standard 105mm muzzle calibre, using the existing FV430 chassis to mount a rotating turret, rather than develop a new vehicle from scratch.
Production started at Vickers Armstrong in Newcastle upon Tyne and the first vehicles entered service with the Army in 1965. It proved popular, being both fast and manoeuvrable. It carried 40 shells, including six high-explosive squash head (HESH), with a nine-mile range. Secondary armament was a 7.62 mm L4A4 MG machine gun.
By 1990, the Army had 151 Abbots in service, based in Canada, Britain and West Germany. It was replaced in service by the British AS-90 155mm SPG.
Ade Gill, Monmouth. TANKS can be declared road-legal once owners deactivate any weapons and fit rubber tracks. If the tank is more than 25 years old, it doesn’t require an MoT certificate and, depending on size, weight and intended use, might also be exempt from road tax. A special H driving licence, usually obtained for tractors but covering other specialist vehicles such as tanks, is required to drive such a vehicle on British roads.
Paul Gerrard, Cromer, Norfolk.
QUESTION
During World War II, Germany had its allegedly escape-proof Colditz Castle. Was there a UK equivalent? Were any German or Italian prisoners habitual escapees? Did any make ‘home runs’? THERE were about 650,000 German and Italian PoWs in Britain during World War II. Prisoners progressed through a series of camps, where their political allegiances were determined.
Non-Nazis were graded ‘white’, dubious cases were ‘grey’ and hardened Nazis were ‘black’. Inmates wore patches with these colours so they were known as such.
These PoWs were housed in commandeered stately homes, old Army barracks or hastily thrown-together huddles of huts, often built by the prisoners themselves. There were about 1,500 of these. Officially no ‘home runs’ were made from Britain.
The most notorious was Camp 21, Cultybraggan, Comrie, Perthshire, which held 4,500 of the most extreme Nazis.
In December 1944, it was the scene of the brutal murder of interpreter Feldwebel Wolfgang Rosterg, who had been sent there by mistake and was accused of exposing a mass escape plan from another camp. He was tortured and beaten before being hanged in Cultybraggan’s bathhouse.
The Hayes was a stately home in Derbyshire built in the 1860s. In WW II it was known as Camp 13 and housed German PoWs.
Baron Franz von Werra, a German ace downed during the Battle of Britain, successfully tunnelled out of Camp 13 with four other prisoners, the noise of their efforts masked by a performance of the PoW choir.
Posing as a downed Dutch pilot, he managed to get into the cockpit of a Hurricane and was preparing to fly home when he was discovered.
The entrance to the 50-yard tunnel von Werra and his coconspirators dug was discovered behind a fireplace only in 1980. All the escapees were recaptured.
Von Werra was sent to Canada a month later, but escaped by jumping from a moving train in Nova Scotia. He crossed the frozen St Lawrence river to the U.S. — at that time still neutral — where he claimed asylum. He returned to Germany a hero, but was sent to the Russian Front where he was killed in action in 1941, aged 27.
In scenes reminiscent of The Great Escape, on the night of March 10-11, 1945, 70-odd German prisoners tunnelled to freedom from Hut Nine, Camp 198, in Bridgend, Wales.
They had carried soil in their pockets to the long-jump pit or garden plots; others kneaded clay into balls and dropped them through a hole in a false wall in one hut.
To support the tunnel roof, oak benches were stolen from the canteen and bed legs cut down. The escapers were divided into groups, each of which was equipped with a crude map, fake papers, compass and food.
According to the government, all 67 PoWs were recaptured, but some sources maintain 84 actually escaped, so up to 17 may have made ‘home runs’.
Len Faring, Mansfield, Notts.
QUESTION
In 1974, at Hunstanton Golf Club, Bob Taylor holed in one at the par 3 16th hole on three consecutive days. Has another golfer achieved anything similar? FURTHER to the earlier answer, most quoted analyses produce a figure which varies from about 12,500-1 (not 40,000-1) for a golfer of average ability, through to about 4,000-1 for a low-handicapped amateur, to about 2,500-1 for a touring professional.
Website howdidido.co.uk collects and analyses hole-by-hole scores in competitions played by more than a million amateur golfers at about 2,000 golf clubs, mainly in the UK. Its detail confirms the above odds.
I’ve been playing competitive golf for 60 years, around 120 rounds a year. Each round has an average of four par-3s, so I’ll have hit about 29,000 attempts, and holed in one nine times, off a low handicap of between two and six, which equates to odds of 3,222-1.
Keith Roberts, Woodford, Cheshire.
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