History
From the archives, 1949: 'Big Bertha' melting under torch
Stars and Stripes
August 9, 2023
The 90-foot long tube of the German railway gun is waiting to be turned into scrap metal. The massive Nazi Germany-produced railway gun was being disassembled in the woods near Grafenwöhr. Although nicknamed “Big Bertha” by the American forces, the gun — one of the two 800mm K(E) railway guns developed and produced by the German steel and armament producer Krupp in the early 1940s — was either called “Gustav” or “Dora” by the Germans. (Alfred Morrissey/Stars and Stripes)
This article first appeared in the Stars and Stripes Europe edition, July 22, 1949. It is republished unedited in its original form.
HEIDELBERG, July 21 (Special) — A 140-ton German siege gun, with tubes 90 feet long, is being "demilitarized" near Grafenwöhr by workers who are slicing up the giant weapon with cutting torches.
The "Big Bertha" of World War II is expected to yield 6,000,000 pounds of scrap steel, according to estimates of the engineer and logistics divisions, EUCOM.
The firing chamber of the 800mm Nazi Germany railway gun waiting to be turned into scrap metal. The loading time for one of the 7-ton shells was about 45 minutes. (Alfred Morrissey/Stars and Stripes)
A massive Nazi Germany-produced railway gun is being disassembled in the woods near Grafenwöhr, Germany, by American forces in July 1949. The loading time for one of the 7-ton shells was about 45 minutes. (Alfred Morrissey/Stars and Stripes)
Each of the barrels of the gun has a three-foot bore — large enough for a man to crawl inside. The wall of each tube is six inches thick.
The complete gun made up a 23-car train, and required a company of 200 soldiers to service and operate it. Even under favorable conditions it took 48 hours to get the gun into position for firing from two parallel tracks.
Two unidentified American soldiers flank the massive Nazi Germany-produced railway gun in the woods near Grafenwöhr, Germany, July 1949. The story goes that during a 1943 demonstration of the gun to Hitler himself, German steel and armament producer Krupp’s head of arms fabrication Erich Mueller noted that the gun could also shoot at a Panzer tank, to which Gen. Heinz Guderian, who led the 2nd Panzer Group at the time responded, “Shoot yes, but hit, never!” The devastation caused by the 7-ton shells at Sevastapol however, whether it was a hit or a miss, was reported to be enormous. (Alfred Morrissey/Stars and Stripes)
A massive Nazi Germany-produced railway gun is being disassembled in the woods near Grafenwöhr, Germany, by American forces in July 1949. The deployment of the gun by the Germans was an enormous endeavor. It took five trains with a total length of 5,423 feet to transfer the gun parts to the front. Two construction cranes and some 250 men were needed to set it up and get it fire-ready — a process that took several weeks. (Alfred Morrissey/Stars and Stripes)
A massive Nazi Germany produced railway gun is being disassembled in the woods near Grafenwöhr, Germany, by American forces in July 1949. (Alfred Morrissey/Stars and Stripes)
The Germans are known to have had four of these long-range weapons. One was captured by the British and two by the Russians. The fourth, at Grafenwöhr, was used in the siege of Sevastopol.
Each of the shells used in the gun weighed more than four tons, was 16 feet long, and contained 3,000 pounds of powder. The gun had a range of about 30 miles.
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