Mephisto (tank)

Captured German WWI A7V tank "Mephisto", on display in the Australian War Memorial, July 2015.

Mephisto is a German A7V tank captured by Australian and British troops during World War I. One of only 20 built, it is the last surviving example of the first German tank and at present is displayed at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, Australia.

Description

File:Mephisto A7V showing name and gun.jpg

The main gun of the German A7V tank "Mephisto"

Mephisto, chassis serial number 506, is not in running order.

Unlike modern tanks, the A7V has no turret. Instead, it has a cupola for the commander and driver, and its main gun, a 57mm Maxim-Nordenfelt, is carried in a mounting in the front, allowing limited traverse. Six Maxim 08 machine guns are carried in mountings, two on each side and two to the rear.

The name "Mephisto" is painted on the end facing of the box-shaped tank, as almost all German tanks in WW1 were given individual names.

Capture and transport to Australia

File:Tank Boys names engraved into A7V Mephisto.jpg

The names of the "Tank Boys" who captured Mephisto, engraved into the front armour of the tank.

The tank was lost at the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux on 24 April 1918. The battle for the area saw the Australian, British and German forces in a fluid situation, moving around the tank, which had been abandoned after falling into a ditch.

The 26th Battalion of the 7th Brigade, mostly from Queensland, hatched a plan to capture it. In July 1918, under cover of an artillery barrage, the Australian infantry and two British vehicles (either Gun Carriers or Mark IV tanks) moved forward and dragged it back to their lines; the Germans were still in sight of the tank and firing at them. They had to don gas masks after poison gas was deployed.

The soldiers who captured Mephisto later engraved their names into the front armour: "TANK BOYS \ H. WILLIAMS, J. BYFORD, A. MCFARLANE, J. PICKLES, H. DUTTON, T. HUGHES"

Mephisto being dragged into the Queensland Museum by two steamrollers in 1919

The tank was then graffitied by Australian troops, with a painting of the AIF rising sun emblem. Machinations began to take the tank back to Australia, but the British wanted to keep it for the Imperial War Museum. It was quickly put on a ship destined for Sydney with the Australian infantry that captured it. The ship was supposed to deliver it to Sydney, with plans for it to go to the war memorial in Canberra's display, but it was diverted to Brisbane and unloaded there. Two steam traction engines moved it from the ship to the Queensland Museum, dragging it on its tracks.

Exhibition

The Queensland Museum, where it was housed, changed location a number of times, and the tank at one point was housed outside, where it was exposed to the elements, and parts were removed from it by the public. After many years it was eventually moved inside the museum and put behind glass in a temperature controlled environment that protected it from the public.

File:Mephisto rail museum.JPG

A7V Mephisto on display at The Workshops Rail Museum in Ipswich QLD Australia

Following the 2011 Brisbane Floods, Mephisto was removed from the Queensland Museum to an undisclosed location for restoration work. It was claimed that the vehicle would be returned to the museum during 2012. However, in March 2013 it was revealed that the vehicle was temporarily housed at the Workshops Rail Museum at North Ipswich where it was placed on temporary display. In June 2015, Mephisto was transported to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. It is scheduled to return to the Queensland Museum in 2018.

Replica

A replica A7V modelled substantially upon Mephisto was built in Germany in 1988.

In popular culture

Mephisto is the subject of a fictionalised account of the battle and capture, titled Tank Boys by Stephen Dando-Collins.

External links

• A7V Mephisto by Greg Czechura and Jeff Hopkins-Weise, ISBN 978-0-9805692-0-9
• "Moving the Mephisto tank to the Queensland Museum, Bowen Hills, Brisbane, 1919"