Austrian 24 cm Mortars at Gallipoli

[bob lembke]

I am not sure where to post this, in the Club site, but I know that k.u.k. experts lurk here. (Glenn, are you listening?)

The first Central Powers heavy battery able to get thru/past Serbija and reach Gallipoli was k.u.k. 24 cm Motor=Moerser=Batterie Nr. 9, which reached Turkey about November 14, 1915, and under Hauptmann Kodar von Thurnwerth reached the Gallipoli front and opened fire first on November 27, 1915.

These A-H 24 cm mortars were a Motor=Moerser unit, like the better-known 30.5 cm Motor=Moerser used in Belgium in 1914, whose mobility equipment was designed by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche (yes, that Porsche). Does anyone know the model? I understand that there was a M 16 model, which reached the troops in late 1915. (I have this from a secondary source; I always prefer to be able to peek at a primary source. Language does not matter, unless it is Hungarian.) Were these guns the new M 16, or an earlier model? Anywhere to get reliable info on these guns?

I have seen sources cite the war diaries of this battery, and the Austrian 15 cm howitzer battery which followed it closely. I assume that these are probably only found in Vienna, in the original? (I was there about a month ago, not going to help me now.) I gather that Peter Jung has material on this topic; I have to get hold of his book Der k.u.k. Wuestenkrieg --------- .

My father served at Gallipoli with the Turks and told me many years ago that he saw these mortars in action at ANZAC. I am now writing this up. Any help gratefully received.

Bob Lembke

[bob lembke]

I just spoke with a very active member of the GMIC on the phone, and he told me that some members had been wondering what happened to me, and he asked me to post a note about my recent medical adventures. I am self-centered, but not enough to start a seperate thread on "me", so here is a note in this thread.

This Spring I passed out an Easter dinner and damaged the block of concrete on my shoulders, hitting a very hard floor, and enjoying a nice brain bleed, and several high-tech studies showed that my aortic valve in the center of my heart was 90% blocked with calcium, and 4-5 coronary arteries were blocked up to 80%. So I was split like a chicken headed for the soup-pot and a big calf valve (at least I am Halal!) mounted in a massive titanium ring and Gortex ® put in, in addition about 8 stainless steel "figure 8" wire loops to hold my sawn-up ribs together, and a number of titanium staples; my chest looks like a junkyard on an X-ray. They were able to hi-jack a spare mammilary gland in my chest for one, but they did three other by-passes with veins harvested from my left leg, cut up from groin to ankle. The procedure was described by a member of the surgical team as three times the length and complexity as a heart transplant.

So I was one sore puppy, and my brains were scrambled for months, as we were warned. I was mostly confined to my bedroom for a couple of months, and since my brain was mush I could not pursue my WW I studies, in which on average I read about 2-2 1/2 hours of German and 20-30 minutes of French a day. Could only read light stuff on dragons and the like fed to me by my wife. So a lot of time wasted.

Now I am largely back, and even was just able to take a Danube cruise, and buy some delicious WW I books in Austria and Germany. I have started actually writing the text of my planned book on my father and grand-father in WW I, and am starting another major project that I will have to keep under wraps until my collaborator gives me the green light.

So thanks for the kind thoughts which I understand were wafted in my direction in my ignorance.

(Now if someone knows something about those 24 cm mortars .............. ?)

Bob Lembke