Photographs of numbers and a computer enhanced image of a crown shown placed over the letter "M" appearing on the Memorial shells, were sent to Eric D. Probert, in England. Thanks to Eric, the origin of the shells used in our new memorial has been determined. Eric contacted the Imperial War Museum and Mike Hibberd sent him the following e-mail message:

Dear Mr. Probert,

Thank you for your e-mail of June 25 regarding the identification of two shells. These shells are from a German 17 cm Naval gun of the First World War period. The marking of a crown above the letter M is the Imperial German Naval acceptance mark. The mark VI 18 is the manufacture date, June 1918. The other marks are inspection marks and production batch numbers. The German navy used guns of this caliber from the late 19th Century and during the First War some of these weapons were taken into service by the Army and mounted on wheeled carriages for use as heavy field artillery. Some of the guns, complete on the carriage, were placed on railway mountings and used as rail guns. The normal ammunition was High Explosive [HE] and could be fired to distances up to 24 kilometers. I hope this will be of help to you.

Yours sincerely,

M. Hibberd

Statistics:

• Shell weight 141 pounds
• Range- 25,700 yards (14.6 miles)
• Rate of fire- 1 round per minute