There’s a large storage shed behind Chuck Roberts’ home in Rochelle that looks like any other shed on the prairies of north-central Illinois. But slide open the door, and you’ll find a bit of history.
There, surrounded by countless spare engine parts, are two olive-drab, armor-plated reminders of the U.S. Army from World War II: a 10-ton half-track with a 75-mm gun and a 17-ton M5A1 “Stuart” light tank.
This is the heart of Roberts’ collection, known as the 70th Tank Battalion. It also includes an 8-ton armored car, a rare M22 “Locust” light airborne tank, a three-quarter-ton cargo truck and assorted other staff cars and military paraphernalia, all stored in nearby sheds and garages.
About 40 miles east of Roberts’ armory is a similar time-warp scene. Across from Tom Comer’s welding shop in south Aurora sit three camouflage-painted armored vehicles like those used by the German army in the war: two 7-ton half-tracks and a 17-ton Jagdpanzer Hetzer, a tank-like creature with a mounted 75-mm anti-tank gun.
This is the soul of Comer’s 2nd Panzer Division.
Now, these guys aren’t waiting for the Battle of the Bulge to start again. They’re military history buffs, and these are their toys. And talk about cool toys! Except for the guns, of course, these are fully operational vehicles–roaring, smoking, tree-flattening hunks of metal.
This armor sits quietly for most of the year but comes to life a handful of times for World War II re-enactments held around the Midwest. These re-enactments usually are sponsored by museums and staged by hobbyists, who put on painstakingly realistic shows for their enjoyment and to give the public an idea of what warfare of that era was like.
Most of these re-enactments have Americans fighting Germans, with a couple hundred “soldiers” playing out the battle with authentic uniforms and weapons that fire blanks. And that’s where the 70th Tank Battalion and 2nd Panzer Division come into play. They’re the only re-enactment units in the Chicago area with working armor, and they take the realism to a higher level.
“I think the tanks and the armor are what set us apart from some of the other re-enactment groups … you know, like from the Civil War,” said Comer, 40, a unit commander in the 2nd Panzer who has been involved in re-enactments since 1983. “Civil War groups may have events with 10,000 to 12,000 re-enactors, but our battles are just so much better from a public’s point of view. They’re so fluid and all the things happen so quickly. It’s a much more awesome display of military might.”
“People are totally awed when they come out and see these vehicles,” adds Roberts. “It’s like having a museum actually transported to the site.”
Putting on such a show involves a great deal of time, effort and money to get the armor working and keep it that way. This is an especially big order considering the way in which these vehicles are used during the re-enactments.
“We use them in the context that they were originally used.” said Comer. “When we use them, we’re in the field. Sometimes we run these things wide open. We’re knocking stuff down. We’re driving over rough terrain. We’re driving them in dusty conditions.
“There’s more wear and tear, and from that respect, they probably need more care and maintenance. But deep down, it’s still fun. If it’s not fun, it would be hard to get out there.”
“You can go to almost any museum and see a tank that just sits there with the tracks welded,” said Dave Halseth of St. Paul, vice president of the World War II Historical Re-enactment Society. “And there are a lot of collectors who just take their tanks off the truck and park ’em so people can see how pretty they are. But those guys are weird about letting people see how a tank really works and how loud the engine is. With re-enactors, it’s different.”
Roberts has been involved in re-enactments since 1988, a year after he purchased his first piece of armored history, the half-track, as a surplus item from the U.S. Civil Defense. Since then, he has bought a number of his vehicles from other collectors, who often bring them in from overseas. The Stuart spent some time in the Canadian and Portuguese armies after being retired from the U.S. Army. A 75-mm howitzer came to Roberts from India. And the armored car, Roberts believes, came by way of Chile.
The collection has grown steadily into what Roberts calls a “hobby that’s gotten out of control.”
Roberts does just about all of the maintenance work on the 70th Tank Battalion, which has about 30 members who serve as drivers and crewmembers. Roberts knows the ins and outs of these vehicles, having worked on tanks while an automotive engineer in the Army in the Vietnam War era.
“I do send out parts to be repaired, like water pumps, heads and things of this nature, but basically I do it all,” said Roberts, 57, who owns a small company in Big Rock. “Otherwise it would be, you know, $70 to 80 an hour for the mechanic. It would be unbelievably expensive.”
It’s a time-consuming pastime that Roberts’ wife has learned to put up with it.
“He could have worse hobbies,” said Lydia Roberts, who is a tank commander in some re-enactments. “As long as he keeps the vehicles running, it’s OK with me. My only rule is that he doesn’t have more than one at a time that doesn’t run.”
Most of the work on these old vehicles comes in the initial restoration. After all, these World War II warhorses have been around for a half-century, and many parts are worn or missing.
According to Roberts, if the vehicle is acquired in poor condition, the restoration can double the initial cost. And some of these vehicles don’t come cheap. A beat-up Stuart tank, for example, runs around $20,000. A half-track in similar condition can be had for around $4,000.
The biggest restoration challenge, the hobbyists agree, is finding replacement parts. These generally come from other collectors, if they’re available.
“Many times, if I can’t find it, rather than wait for it, I’ll just fabricate it,” Roberts said. “I’ll make something that will work.”
Roberts says he has had to sacrifice authenticity to practicality in some of his restorations. But, then again, these are not just museum pieces; they’re part of a show.
For example, in the name of safety, Roberts usually replaces the original wiring with modern, better-insulated wiring. In one case, he altered the hatches on a tank to make them wider so his re-enactment crews could get out easier in an emergency. Updated alternators, distributors and gauges also are added to help the machines run smoother and be more reliable.
For the Stuart tank, Roberts began the restoration by pulling out the two old engines— vintage Cadillac V-8s–and replacing them with rebuilt ones he bought from an arms dealer in Georgia. It took about a year to get the tank running on the new engines. Roberts also installed computer-aided simulator guns that use a mixture of propane and oxygen to give off a realistic sound (“It’s safer than using, blanks” he says). And he can inject diesel fuel into the 37-mm main gun before firing to provide a burst of smoke.
“My main objective is to have the vehicles look good externally and to run,” said Roberts. “Some of these things are not totally perfect inside, like the gauges. The purists would look at me and say, `Ugh! That’s just horrible.’ I’d say that’s fine. The purists aren’t out doing this. If you want a pure vehicle, I’m probably not the man to see. I’ve done a lot of engineering work on ’em to get things to work. It depends on your priorities.”
Probably Roberts’ biggest restoration challenge was the tiny Locust tank, an 8-ton matchbox that looks like a regular tank that forgot to take its vitamins. It had a crew of three and was designed to be dropped behind enemy lines in airborne operations. Only about 800 of these tanks were built (compared to about 50,000 of the more popular Sherman tanks), and after the war, many had their turrets removed and were sold to farmers as tractors.
This Locust was discovered by another collector in a farmer’s field in the Midwest. It was pretty beat up and, typically, was missing its turret.
“Obviously, I couldn’t find a turret,” Roberts said. “I tried, but it was unobtainable. So we had to fabricate it. I designed it and had a guy weld it. It was very difficult to do.”
For the 2nd Panzer Division, which has about two dozen members helping maintain the vehicles, finding or fabricating replacement parts has been going on since the first piece of armor was acquired in 1994. It wasn’t too impressive–a 75-mm German anti-tank gun towed by a 1939 American Chevy truck.
The Panzer unit soon added the Hetzer, which was bought by Comer and re-enacting colleague Scott Koelling of Belvidere. Three half-tracks were then acquired by division members; one was later sold, but the two owned by Joe Melnychuk remain in the unit.
None of the heavy armor pieces are authentic German WW II vehicles. Most of those didn’t survive the war, so actual ones are extremely hard to find and costly (an original German half-track is worth more than $100,000). The armor of the 2nd Panzer Division was typically built in post-war Czechoslovakia and altered by Comer’s group to become WW II look-alikes.
To restore their first half-track, for example, they had to remove the armor top (the Germans fought from an open vehicle), build a machine-gun shield and rework the doors and fenders.
The unit’s favorite piece is the Hetzer, sort of a mobile pillbox used as a tank destroyer. It also required the most extensive restoration.
According to Comer, this Hetzer was built in Czechoslovakia right after WW II from leftover parts. It was bought by the Swiss government and used in its army until the ’70s. Then it was hauled out to a gunnery range and used for target practice. Later, it found its way to a collector in Germany.
Comer and his group found out about this Hetzer shortly after the 2nd Panzer Division organized Chicago’s 50th anniversary D-Day re-enactment at Montrose Beach in 1994.
“This collector had a lot of equipment, and I was trying to make a deal for a half-track,” Comer recalled. “Then he asked if I knew anyone who wanted to buy a German tank … the Hetzer. That thing had a big hole blown in the side of it, but the price was right. Less than $18,000. So we jumped at it.”
Considering Comer’s business is welding, fixing that hole was no problem. But other needs were not so easily met.
“We needed a clutch master cylinder, and I didn’t know where to get one,” Comer said. “And I couldn’t find a rebuild kit for the original. But I did find a Volvo truck master cylinder that was essentially the same thing–same size, same fittings. I had to do a little modification on the mounting bolts, but other than that, it works great.
“We also had to have the road wheels rerubbered. We were searching all over the world for a place and found one right here in our back yard–in Alsip, where they had a lathe big enough and casting equipment that was big enough to cast the rubber onto the roadwheels.
“You know, these are very robust vehicles. They’re very well-made and well-designed. But things do break.”
It took about eight months to take the Hetzer apart, sandblast it, weld the holes, make repairs, paint it and put it back together. According to Comer, it’s one of only about a half-dozen working Hetzers in the U.S.
Once the vehicles have been restored to working condition, it’s a matter of keeping things in order. “We generally meet a couple times before a major event, just to get them started up, check the fluids, make sure they’re ready to go,” Comer said.
“One week, I will work on one vehicle; the next week I’ll work on another,” says Roberts. “There’s always something to do.”
The final obstacle before joining the mock battle is getting the armor to the re-enactment site. These are mostly off-road vehicles, so you can’t just hop on the interstate (and considering the Hetzer gets about 3 miles per gallon and maxes out at about 28 m.p.h., you wouldn’t want to).
Both units generally rent semi-trailer trucks to transport the vehicles. Roberts has had his armor transported by the U.S. military when he has participated in a military-sponsored event.
“We usually go to good venues that pay the freight,” said Roberts. “To go to the Midway Museum [a re-enactment held in September in Rockford], we have a budget of something like $4,000 for hauling my stuff and the German tanks. And the money goes right into paying the expenses.
“I get calls from all over the country–Florida, California, Massachusetts–to bring my armor. We turn down about 95 percent of the calls because this is not a business. It’s a hobby.”
“We’re not making money on it,” Comer added. “But it’s a nice arrangement. They get something from us, and we get something from them. We have to load the vehicles, chain them down and unload them; it’s a lot of physical labor. But on the other hand, they pay for the transportation. And we get to come out and play with the equipment.”
Driving these machines is certainly the best part of the hobby. It’s fun, to be sure. It’s also dangerous, with metal hatches sometimes slamming shut unexpectedly. It also can be hard work, struggling to maneuver these machines in cramped, suffocating quarters. But most of all, it provides a link to the past. And for these history buffs, that’s the most important thing.
“I get a lot of people saying, `Gee, I really didn’t understand what my father did in World War II, but he was in one of these vehicles,”‘ Roberts said. “There was one guy who was sort of heartbreaking. He came and said, `My brother died in one of these [the half-track] in North Africa.’ And he just wanted to come out and take a look at it.”
Comer’s unit has been restoring an Opel Blitz, a 3-ton cargo truck used extensively by the German army, for about two years. It was brought over to the U.S. by an Austrian in rather poor condition, but hopefully it will be ready by September to join the re-enactments.
A couple of other unit members in Michigan are working on another German half-track, while another is restoring a German staff car known as a Kubelwagen.
Roberts has no particular vehicle in his sights at the moment. But the next piece could be just around the corner.
“I never anticipate buying these things,” he said. “I see ’em, I get ’em. Although my criterion for another vehicle is that it be an armored vehicle with a large canon on it.”
That’s not asking for too much.
Phalanx of collectors preserve tanks
So, you want to be the first on your block with a World War II tank in the garage? It’s not such a far-fetched idea.
The Military Vehicle Preservation Association has 9,500 members worldwide, and about 90 percent own vehicles. The U.S. Army jeep is the most popular, but a good number of collectors deal with the bigger stuff .
Several individuals in the Midwest have collections that dwarf Chuck Roberts’ 70th Tank Battalion. The big difference is that Roberts puts his equipment on the front line.
Just across the Wisconsin border, for example, is the Kenosha Military Museum operated by Mark Sonday. He has been collecting military items for 30 years and has about 80 vehicles. It’s all U.S. equipment, and some armor dates to World War I. Sonday does not use his vehicles in re-enactments, but he says 25 to 30 of them are operational.
Another serious collector is Fred Ropkey of Indianapolis. He keeps 149 pieces of military equipment (including tanks, boats and airplanes) on an 80-acre compound that’s open as a public museum. Ropkey, a former Marine officer from the Korean War, bought his first vehicle–an armored car–in 1946. Ropkey’s goal is to restore his vehicles to original condition. He keeps all of his equipment in working order, and he prides himself as having the only operational Locust tank with an original turret.
Like Sonday, Ropkey takes his equipment out for parades (and to be used in films, such as “Tank”), but he stays away from the battlefield.
“These re-enactors are serious about what they do, and so are we,” said Ropkey. “Where we differ from them is that we don’t play war.”
Upcoming battles for history buffs
They’re grown men who haven’t grown up.
That’s one way to look at these World War II re-enactors, who get together a few times each year to do the same thing they did as kids: play army.
The mock public battles they stage are extensive, with some even featuring vintage airplanes to go along with the infantry and armor. The uniforms and equipment are more authentic than the stuff they used in the back yard, but one thing remains the same: Nobody gets killed in this kind of war.
To keep everything safe, the action is carefully choreographed and rehearsed. This is especially the case whenever the 70th Tank Battalion and 2nd Panzer Division slug it out. Nobody wants to get run over by a 10-ton half-track.
Oh, one more thing. In keeping with the period, the Americans don’t always win.
The first major battle of the year was held May 5 and 6 in Lowell, Ind. Here are some other public events scheduled this year that involve the 70th Tank Battalion, 2nd Panzer Division or other re-enactment units:
July 4: Encampment and battle at Patton Museum, Ft. Knox, Ky. (502-624-3812).
Aug. 4: Public display at Downers Grove Park District Museum (630-963-1309).
Aug. 18 and 19: Encampment and hangar dance at Gary Airport (630-499-8743).
Aug. 26: Public display at Rochelle Airport, Rochelle, Ill. (815-562-4617).
Sept 15: D-Day landing and battle on Lake Erie at Conneaut, Ohio (216-351-0591).
Sept. 22 and 23: Public display and battle at Midway Village Museum, Rockford (815-397-9112).
Dec. 8 and 9: Public display depicting Christmas Eve cease-fire during Battle of the Bulge at Buckley Homestead County Park, Lowell, Ind. (630-499-8743).
———-
For information on the 70th Tank Battalion and links to the 2nd Panzer Division, visit www.robertsarmory.com.
