Military Veterans Museum receives T-34-85

On the night of November 3-4, 2012, Military Veterans Museum and Education Center took possession of a T-34-85 tank. Attached are a few photos of the event.

Image 1 - T-34-85 being pulled from its storage spot of over 15 years by a M984 HEMTT.

Image 2 - Members of the 1158th Transportation Company, WI Nat Guard, stand in front of the tank after they loaded it onto the HETS.

Image 3 - The T-34-85 in its new home at the Military Veterans Museum and Education Center.

Image 4 - Members of the 1158th Transportation Company, WI Nat Guard, stand in front of the tank after the successful mission.

More pictures and info to be released soon. I just wanted to give you fine folks at SS the inside scoop.

~Robert

Very nice. I can't help you with the battery question, but I am curious to know where this military museum is located. Is it is Oshkosh? If so then it must be new as I don't remember hearing of such a place when I lived in Appleton in the 1970s.

Yes, we are in Oshkosh, WI, about 1.5 miles south of the EAA Museum.

The Museum was started in 1990 by five WWII Vets that didn't want to see their military service forgotten. For years the Museum was in an Oshkosh mall by the Fox River. When it changed hands the new management proposed terms the Museum could not agree on. Therefore we vacated the spot and have had most all items in storage for the last 5+ years while gathering funds for the new building. We have tried to show the vehicles as much as possible to stay in the public eye during this trying time.

Currently, we are finishing construction of the John E. Kuenzel Motorpool building. We are open by appointment and hope to open with regular hours in the early part of next year.

We are in the midst of selling raffle tickets to help with the construction costs. PM if interested.

By the way, whereabouts in Appleton did you live? That's where I've lived my whole life.

~Robert

I will have to make a note of your place then and if it is open next year try to visit as I make regular visits to the Fox Cities.

I lived with my parents (since deceased) on Woodlark Rd. It is in a little plat along Highway 96 on the way to Little Chute. I left for military service in 1980 and haven't been back since except for short visits. My parents lived in Appleton until 1998 but old age made them relocate back to Ohio to be near relatives. They have passed away now however. My father was Robert Sandberg and he worked as a research chemist at Appleton Papers. He had very definite views and he liked to write letters to the editor of the Post-Crescent. You may have seen one of two of them back in the day as they say.

Good luck on your relocation project.

Robert,

That's a very nice looking T34 we definely will need to see more pictures of it.

PM sent for the raffle tickets also.

Bert

MIlitary Museum Receives T-34 -85

Robert,

Great job on getting the T-34 to a new home. If the tank is the one I think it is, I hope you will share the story of how it got to Wisconsin in the first place. Every vehicle has a story and this is worth re-telling.

Keep up the great work.

Cat Man
Just up the road near Green Bay

CatMan said:

Robert,

Great job on getting the T-34 to a new home. If the tank is the one I think it is, I hope you will share the story of how it got to Wisconsin in the first place. Every vehicle has a story and this is worth re-telling.

Keep up the great work.

Cat Man
Just up the road near Green Bay

Click to expand...

It is the same tank you saw at Iola quite a few years ago...

The below article is from the December 23, 1991, Vol. 36, No. 24 issue of People Magazine. You can access it at: http://www.people.com/people/archive/ar ... 80,00.html

"THE SOVIET T-34 TANK LUMBERED MENACINGLY down the ramp of the freighter Aleksandr Starostenko. Its turret rotated until the 85-mm cannon pointed toward town. For Maj. Alexander Vorobijov, it was a triumphal moment. They would be proud of him in Moscow. He had fulfilled his mission. He had brought his tank to Milwaukee (Wisconsin).

No, this is not the opening of some Tom Clancy-ish tale of superpower collision. It actually took place Oct. 24 (1991) on a Milwaukee dock, right here in the U.S.A. And it happened because Bob Costa, 53, asked Mikhail Gorbachev if he wouldn't mind, er, sending him a tank.

Costa, a father of two, works as a warehouseman for Roundy's, a Pewaukee, Wis., food distributor. But military history is his obsession. In helping start the Wisconsin Military History Museum—due to open in the spring of 1993—Costa estimates he has spent $80,000 of his own money over the past 10 years.

In 1989 Costa read about the T-34, considered by many the premier tank of World War II. He decided the museum should have one. But where to get it? Where, indeed? Costa contacted Gorbachev in May 1990. "We would display this tank with honor," he wrote. Gorby—in a message relayed through the Soviet Embassy in Washington three months later—said, "Da!"

"It's unbelievable," says Costa, "that an average person can make a request of the President of the Soviet Union and he'd take time to approve it."

Back in the U.S.S.R., Major Vorobijov was given the job of finding a tank, finally locating one—which had seen action against the Japanese in the closing days of the war—in an obsolete weapons yard. He had it refurbished, then accompanied it on its journey, by freighter, from St. Petersburg to Milwaukee. His pride and joy was briefly put on display at a local Pick 'N' Save grocery, owned by Roundy's, and will spend the next year at Fort Knox, Ky. In 1993 it will return to Wisconsin, as a symbol of a hot war fought 50 years ago—and of a cold war that has finally ended."

Unfortunately, his museum never panned out so he is giving it to our museum.

~Robert