For the past two years, I have been on an expedition to locate an unrevealed military artillery tank that was supposedly used by troops for training at Robin Hood Bay as target practice during preparations for WWII. Eventually, it is said to have sunk in the bog and then abandoned in the forest of East White Hills, in close proximity to the Robinhood Bay Landfill. This took place in the 1940s and was part of the “friendly invasion” by the Americans at various strategic locations throughout Newfoundland and Labrador.
The training exercises that took place in East White Hills were being conducted by the troops stationed at Fort Pepperrell (now known as Pleasantville), currently decommissioned and located in the East End of St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. Fort Pepperell was operated by the US Military from 1941 to 1961.
My journey began after finding comments mentioning rumors of an abandoned army tank in the forest within close proximity to the Robin Hood Bay Landfill. After going back and forth on comments about a post on Instagram, I received a direct message on from a friendly gentlemen delivering directions and a drawing of a map of the area he once supposedly located the tank himself:
My husband and I took a few hikes up to the location and searched endlessly but always left disappointed when we could not find a trace of an army tank . We even quarried hikers, friends and family but nobody heard of such information. I could not give up on it, I searched through the libraries, blogs, social media and historical records but could not find information on this particular tank. I would give up and come back to the topic over and over again, determined to locate this mysterious military tank.
On another note, during my research, I did come across other interesting tidbits of information that I will post information on at a later time. Since I am on the topic of tanks, I will direct you to some information about a whippet army tank that was reformed into a snow plow. A rare WWI Whippet Tank was gifted to various countries, including the then-nation of Newfoundland — as post-war surplus. The Tank had been modified in the 1920s with a plow attachment to clear Water Street after a massive snow blizzard almost a century ago.
Check out this interesting article which goes in to detail about the the whippet tank and also gets into rumors that it was buried under the now abandon Grace Hospital site:
Is there a rare First World War tank buried beneath the former Grace Hospital in St. John's?
Getting back on topic, I decided to check the site Flickr and search through ALL photos of East White Hills with the hopes of locating the so called tank and… low and behold, I found it (I think):
I was excited about this find, I literally did not sleep that whole night so my next work day was a little harder than usually. I was confused, to say the least, because the message I received made it seem that his siting of the tank was recent? The photographer noted that the tank pictured was moved from the forest in the late 1990s to early 2000s. Is this the actual tank or is it another tank or is it half the tank?? As you will see, it looks to me that they didn’t have the top portion of the tank in the photo, so they attached some kind of metal top (which looks AWFUL in my opinion). Is the top portion still located in East White Hills or was it never located? If it is still in East White Hills, why didn’t they take it along with the bottom portion to be refurbished?
In the same post, the photographer noted that the Clarenville Legion took possession of the tank and may have paid to have it restored at Metal World (no longer in existence). I went ahead and contacted the Clarenville Legion and received the following reply:
I would love to know where the photographer got the information about the Clarenville Legion taking possession because the Legion have not heard about the tank and were surprised by my email! I messaged the photographer on Flickr but it looks like he hasn’t been on the website in many years so I may never get a reply from them.
I also put in an ATIPP request but have yet to hear back. I will certainly post an update when I do.
Where is the tank? Did they use it as scrap metal? Who paid to have it refurbished? This is a mystery I am determined to solve. Please let me know if you have any information whatsoever on this tank, please help me scratch this itch!