Saturday, May 2, 2009

M-41 Walker Bulldog Tank and the Civil War

I found this in Greenwood, Ar. Nice tank, but no plaque, it was in front of the local VFW.


M-41 Walker Bulldog (if I'm not mistaken). I found the site below which shows that the above tank is an M-41 Walker Bulldog. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M41_Walker_Bulldog It was a replacement for the M-24 Chaffee Light Tank.

I knew from what little knowledge I have that the Chaffee Tank was a light tank and it and Camp Chaffee were named after Major General Adna R. Chaffee Jr., a World War One General who advocated the use of tanks. Below is a picture I found of an M-24 Chaffee Light Tank. The tanks do resemble each other.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/m-24-chaffee-light-tank.htm

I guess it would help if I mentioned that Greenwood borders Fort Chaffee. Fort Chaffee which was first named Camp Chaffee. The name change came in 1956. I was born in Camp Chaffee in 1952.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Chaffee

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/215612/

Across the street in the city square was this plaque. This was all there was, I suppose it is in memory of a Senator or something that was also in the Civil War. This is something I found about the area.

http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=3595
Heres another site mentioning W.B.W. Heartsill http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/h/Heartsill,W.B.W.html .