The story of our latest StuG III restoration is in large part the story of Canadian army officer Farley Mowat and his extraordinary adventures at the end of the Second World War.
When we began the restoration we had little or no idea of the StuG's history. There was a recurrent story that the vehicle had been recovered at the end of the war by the Canadians. Beyond this we had little in the way of hard proof. After several months of research we established how it came to be in Canada and a limited insight into its immediate post-war history.
At the end of the war Farley Mowat took it upon himself to assemble a collection of German equipment. The final haul ranged from artillery pieces to tanks and even a live V2 rocket. Having picked up this last item in the British Zone of Control they disguised it as a midget submarine in order to get past British check points. Amongst the tanks were two German StuG IIIs. Analysis of Mowat's post-war shipping manifest reveals one StuG had the serial number 96105 and the gun was stamped with the number R540, an exact match for our vehicle. The only information we have concerning its wartime service is that it was surrendered to the Canadian Seaforth Highlanders on or after May 8th 1945 in Amsterdam.
When the StuG arrived in Canada it was in driving condition. It spent some time at Borden army base in Ontario before being transferred to Shilo in Manitoba and ultimately Sarcee Barracks in Calgary, Alberta. The vehicle was subsequently sold to a collector in the United States and in 2010 it arrived in the UK for restoration.
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