It spent years in a river, then decades as a garden guardian. Now a rare First World War trophy gun is heading to a Suffolk museum instead of the scrapyard.
One of only two short-barrelled 10.5 centimetre howitzer trophy guns believed to have survived in the UK has been saved by Great War Huts near Bury St Edmunds.
The German gun was given to St Boswells, a village in the Scottish Borders near Melrose, after the war.
“Local veteran George Oliver took exception to it and he and his ex-service pals tipped it into the River Tweed, ironically saving it from the scrap man in the 1930s,” said Taff Gillingham, from Great War Huts.
After World War One, many captured German guns or tanks were taken as trophies by Britain and other Allied powers and donated to communities as war spoil.
However, “there was quite a movement by ex-servicemen after the war to throw them in rivers”, Mr Gillingham said.
He said the 10.5 centimetre howitzers were less common than the 77 millimetre field guns, making this one a rarity. It is one of only two such trophy howitzers he knows about in the UK.
The gun was first displayed outside St Boswells village hall, under the clock, until George Oliver intervened.
According to the village website, the veteran had been wounded at Gallipoli and repatriated. After recovering, he was sent to the Somme, where he was taken prisoner and remained in captivity until the war ended.
He and his friends pushed the howitzer into the River Tweed.
It was later moved out of the way of fishermen and on to a beach, where it stayed covered in silt until “a group of local lads decided to recover the remains in the 1980s”, Mr Gillingham said.
“With permission of the village hall committee, and a tractor, it was hauled back up and saved for a second time,” he said.
“One of the recovery team, Ian Rogers, who lived nearby, took it home and it’s been a ‘gate guardian’ at his home ever since.
“With the site now being sold, it looked as if the howitzer would be finally heading off to the scrapyard.”
A historian, Mike Taylor, who searches for trophy guns, heard about its likely fate while in the area and told Mr Rogers: “I know some crazy people in Suffolk who might take it.”
Mr Gillingham said the gun would take many years to restore.
“It does need a lot of work, and a lot of the steel will need replacing, but the museum’s co-owner Kev Smith is not in the least perturbed,” he said.
“Another important piece of First World War history has been saved.”
Mr Gillingham said he would love to hear from anyone with a photograph of the gun outside St Boswells village hall, or who knows the date it was given.
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