Today was the expedition to the American Wartime Museum Open House Day, in Manassas.
As I might have already mentioned I had been to this Museum, before it began its transformation to the AWM and even then it had been an astonishing collection of vehicles. It still is really an even larger collection now, but the website and the focus seems to be changing to meet the aim of establishing this as a national museum, by 2014.
We arrived at the gates having been guided in by the GPS and parked in the grassy area just north of the displays. The first display I noticed was the re-enactors of the 15th Scottish Division, who had a number of WW2 vehicles available for inspection. Actually what promted me to look more closely at the display were the two or three Bren guns resting on their bipods. I was more than mildly interested as I was at one time quite familiar with these weapons. At the start of my career, ie in the early 70s, the Australian Army had returned most of its GPMG M60s to store and issued rechambered (from .303" to 7.62mm) Bren guns to infantry units. So I still remember the stripping sequence of piston, barrel, butt, body, bipod.
Anyway these Brens looked a little different to those I was familiar with, so I got to talking with one of the re-enactors, a fellow named Bill Tehan (William J. Tehan III, to give him his full moniker). In the course of the conversation, I learnt that Bill was an ex-Marine who had served in Vietnam with E Coy, 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regt. He told me that during his time with E Coy, he had had an Australian company commander named Ivan Cahill. I had done my basic parachute course in 1983 and one of my fellow students was Ivan C. Anyway Bill highlighted the fact that it was the only time a foreign officer had directly commanded US troops in action. I looked up the story on the internet and it's a fact.
Bill also said that he (Bill) had somehow been nominated by Ivan for an MID (Mentioned in Despatches - a bravery award in the British award system, which Australia used till about 20 years ago) and when it came through Ivan told him he had won it and presented him with a can of beer. Bill somewhat naturally assumed the award was a can of beer and when he later turned up at the Royal Marine establishment at Poole in the UK, they, having read his personal file, asked him where his MID was - he responded by saying he had drunk it !
Funny story. He was an engaging character and a bright start to the day.
Lots of vehicles and sundry other military related displays there - quite a number of tanks, some of which paraded around a muddy nursery course for the benefit of the spectators. A master of ceremonies kept up an informative commentary on the proceedings while I (and many others) took a few photos of sights that appealed to us. One of those was a jeep display, which was a little different in that the previous day, the two owners of these jeeps had deliberately driven them into the mud and left them covered with this coating for the display. I thought it was a nice change from the usual "polished to the nines" jeep.
I could see that the rest of my party was getting somewhat restless, in the heat and humidity of a northern Virginia summer's day, so I managed to tear myself away from all the goodies and we headed off to have lunch at the Waffle House. Unfortunately, the queue outside the WH was HUGE and in the sun, so we opted for the Cracker Barrel just down the road, where the wait was probably just as long, but you get to be seated in rocking chairs, while you wait. It was a good meal, though I feared for some of the seats which seemed to bear far more weight, than they were designed for.
Another tank (sigh)
