Sherman Gallery

Sherman tank Memorial, Leopoldsburg Railway Station

Leopoldsburg is in Belgium and it was directly behind the start line of Operation Market Garden. Here was a huge engineer dump built up to support the XXX Corps ground forces whose job it was to cross over the bridges captured by the airborne forces. Belgian accounts say that Leopoldsburg was liberated by the Belgian Piron Brigade on 12 Septembe 1944 (British accounts say that the Belgians assisted the 8th Armoured Brigade to liberate the town on 11 September). On 16 September General Horrocks, the Corps Commander, gave his famous briefing to officers of XXX Corps (he described the assembly as a motley audience') in the Cinema Splendide. The scene is wonderfully portrayed in the film, A Bridge Too Far'. The Sherman is (left) E4151 B1782 40 (G) S (right) E1231 B1636 LO (G) 2. The barrel of the main gun points to where the Splendide used to be (now an apartment block). On the turret is a Browning machine gun and on the side of the tank is the Guards, All Seeing Eye'. Date: 2006

© Holts Battlefield Collection / Mary Evans

Sherman tank Memorial, Hechtel, Belgium

This Sherman, No (G) E4186 1B1635 LO, has been preserved as a Memorial to all those who lost their lives during the Battle of Hechtel of 12 September 1944 - 35 civilians, 62 British soldiers and 124 Germans. The British are commemorated by Unit on plaques at the bottom of the tank. The citizens of Hechtel are named on the other side.The leading elements of the Guards Armoured Division had reached this junction on 7 September but were held up by determined German opposition. Up ahead was Joe's Bridge (named later of course) which, following a recce by the 2nd Household Cavalry Regiment, the Irish Guards decided to rush. The Union flag is upside down - it often is - by mistake. Date: 2000

© Holts Battlefield Collection / Mary Evans

Victory, 1892-1903 (bronze gilt)

3614035 Victory, 1892-1903 (bronze gilt) by Saint-Gaudens, Augustus (1848-1907); 96.5 high cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA; (add.info.: This cast 1914-16, adapted from the full-size figure on the artist's equestrian monument to Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman in New York, this winged allegorical figure wears a classical gown emblazoned with an eagle, a laurel crown and holds a palm frond--both traditional emblems of victory. The principal model was Hettie Anderson, an African-American woman who was a favoured New York artists model at the time.); American, out of copyright

© Bridgeman Images