- #1
- 8,143
- 1,762
An interesting if not comical bit of war history.
http://johnfowles.org.uk/nevilshute/thesecretwar/...Then one day an Air Force officer, a Group Captain Finch-Noyes, came from Combined Operations with a rough sketch of what was to become the Great Panjandrum. It was a bold concept: two 10-ft wheels with 1 ft-wide steel treads joined by a wide drum.The centre section would be packed with 4000 lbs of high explosive and round the circumference of each wheel there would be a number of cordite rockets which would propel the whole thing at 60 mph off a landing craft, through the surf and, indifferent to obstacles and mines, up the beach to the wall. There the wheels would collapse and the explosive would be detonated. Within a month the prototype had been constructed in great secrecy at Leytonstone in north-east London. With equal secrecy it was transported under cover of darkness to Appledore.
...It hit a line of small craters in the sand and began to turn to starboard, careering towards Klemantaski, who, viewing events through a telescopic lens, misjudged the distance and continued filming. Hearing the approaching roar he looked up from his viewfinder to see Panjandrum, shedding live rockets in all directions, heading straight for him. As he ran for his life, he glimpsed the assembled admirals and generals diving for cover behind the pebble ridge into barbed-wire entanglements...[continued]