World's Rarest Tank Reunited With Its Compass After More Than A Century. After more than 100 years, the world’s rarest tank, the AV7 Sturmpanzerwagen known as Mephisto, has been reunited with its compass.
The reunion came after the compass was donated to Queensland Museum Network by Tom Lamin. The tank, which is on display within Queensland Museum’s Anzac Legacy Gallery, is the only known surviving tank of its kind in the world and was one of only 20 made. Lamin’s grandfather, Lt. Horace Lynch brought the compass home with him following WWI and Lamin decided to donate it to Queensland Museum to reunite the compass with the tank.
Lamin only became aware of the Germans’ use of tanks around four years ago and has donated the compass to preserve his grandfather’s story for future generations. “To me, it's a story that adds to your (the museum’s) story,” he explains. “And if I don't hand it over now, the story will be lost. Because none of my children know the story”. Lt. Lynch had a remarkable service record himself, serving in and surviving the disastrous Dardanelles campaign before being posted to France.
He contracted influenza in 1918 and was transferred to a hospital in England three weeks before Mephisto was fully retrieved. He was thus in London when Mephisto was stored at the Tilbury Docks which was one of the main embarkation points for returning Australian troops. Mephisto was first moved to the battlefields of France via rail. Under its own power the tank moved across the battlefields around Villers-Bretonneux.
Following its abandonment, the tank was salvaged by soldiers from the 26th Battalion, comprised mainly of Queenslanders, who helped recover the tank and drag it behind Allied lines. From there it was sent to Australia via Vaux, Dunkirk, and London and in August 1919 it was towed from there to the Queensland Museum by two Brisbane City Council steamrollers.