[Kyt]

Restored Panzer among military vehicles at show

For 40 years a rare German tank that went into action against the Russians during the Second World War lay buried on a farm in Hungary.

Now it is destined to star in war films.

Fully restored, the Panzer 38t model F will roar into life once again at The War and Peace Show in Kent later this month.

For the past five years the restoration work has dominated the life of Stephen Lamonby, of Hampshire, whose company Plus Film Ltd, has provided military vehicles for films such as Saving Private Ryan, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Charlotte Gray.

“It’s one of only four Panzers of this type still surviving and the only one in the UK,” said Mr Lamonby.

“These tanks spearheaded the major attack on the USSR in 1941, resulting in the capture of hundreds of thousands of Red Army troops. They finally advanced on Moscow as part of the German Third Tank Group.”

The Panzer was discovered 15 years ago. Its turret, still bearing the original number, 524, was located in a nearby scrapyard.

The style of the numbering indicates it belonged to the 25th Panzer Regiment of the 7th Panzer Division, headed by the legendary Rommel during the earlier stages of the war.

Designed to attack at speed, it carried a 37mm gun and two ZB37 machine guns.
“It will certainly be used for film work,” said Mr Lamonby.

“These days directors demand complete authenticity.

“In the early days of war films they would paint a cross on an American Sherman tank and pretend it was a German model. You can’t get away with that today. Audiences are too well informed.”

Other rare military vehicles expected at the War and Peace Show include a Churchill flail tank used to beat a path through minefields, the only wartime Sherman Beach Armoured Recovery Vehicle (BARV) still running, a Centurion BARV, which saw action in Iraq and on the Falklands and a captured German Panther tank used by the French Army after the Second World War.