The story persisted for years although the grounds had been thoroughly
searched many times with some very sophisticated mine detectors. Finally in
about 1985 I think, the then CO of RAEME Training Centre got sick of these
rumours and authorised some engineers to drill a series of test holes in
the grounds during some resurfacing work. Naturally they came up with
absolutely nothing and the oval looked a lot like a swiss cheese. But that
didn't kill the story. It was related to me again at a RAEME reunion I
attended only a few months ago.
Incidently though, there are some real treasures to be found at the centre
or at least there were about 6 or 7 years ago . There is an area there used
for training recovery mechanics that used to have at least 2 M3 Grant (one
diesel, 1 radial petrol) tanks, a pair of Centurion tanks, a couple of T17
Staghounds and a Canadian Lynx scout car. Once during a course there I was
the weekend Duty NCO there when a civilian security guard there discovered
a bloke trying to pinch the sponson gun out of one of the Grants. I had to
detain him until the civilian police came to collect him. It turned out
that he was a regular visitor to a mental hospital in nearby Albury and
wanted the gun to prevent the men in white coats from coming to take him
away so often. I sure did have an interesting half hour waiting with him
for the police to arrive.
Cheers
Rod Diery
rod@rocketship.com
Kulin, Western Australia
http://www.users.bigpond.com/ROD_DIERY/cmp.html
1942 Rover light armoured car
1942 Ford CMP F-GT No. 8 gun tractor
1942 Chev CMP C15 GS truck
1943 Chev CMP C15A wireless van
1953 Fv1801 Austin Champ
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