Alexis Wallerstein email 6_RTR_-_A_Sqn_08ZR56_FABI

[son-of-tiny]

Hello pecker

I passed on the following to my father (from your website 'Fearnaught III' ) ...

LOST CONTACTS.

Remember sometime ago I asked for information on trying to trace a picture that I was sent by someone in France.

I received a very interesting phone call the same day as my newsletter dropped into his letterbox. It was from Brig (Retd) Peter Vaux.

He said that as soon as he saw the picture, he recognised it as one he had in his album, and had sent his wife to find it while he was talking to me.

The story goes:

“Francis (or Franz) Wallerstein was an officer with a distinguished and adventurous career in the RTR. He had a French parent and was bilingual. He also has a French wife and now lives in Normandy, where in fact he gained an MC in 1944. He is now 87. About 1950 he qualified as a parachutist at Abingdon but remained in the RTR and may well have been in the 6th in 1956. After Suez he was seconded to the French Army in Vietnam.


... and a few days later received the following:

"In 1956, after French Staff College and in anticipation of Suez, he was sent to Algiers as liaison officer with Gen Massu who commanded 10 DAP (Airborne Para Div). Finally Div HQ went by sea. (He still has his notes taken at the briefing on the planned advance down the canal and on to Cairo.) After the cease fire he met several members of 6 RTR and has a photo of A sqn's "Fabian" 08 ZR 56 complete with camel, Arab and 1/2 a palm tree."

He tells me that if the photo is of interest he can send you a copy. Please let me know.

Kind regards
Alexis Wallerstein

Dear Paul

I have just received the photo. from my father in France. It looks as though it could be the very same you talk about on the website:

"Before Xmas in 1958 I instigated a contest in the Sixth to find a photo suitable for a Christmas card for the lads to send home to their families and girl friends. I laid down that it should contain a Centurion and crew, a palm tree and a camel complete with Arab! Various attempts landed on my desk in due course and the one you showed was the one I chose and the individual duly received his reward in Carlsberg! I feel pretty sure that at the time I knew the names of the crew and I would love to be reminded who they were. It never occurred to me that the picture was not an up to date one but might have been taken at Suez but it didn’t matter if it was. It contained all the required ingredients and my wife has a copy in her album to this day.”

The image is approx. 6.5 x 9.5 cms and on the back my father has written "A Sqn 6 RTR - 08ZR56 FABIAN Suez Oct '56".
I hope the resolution is high enough !?
- I think it is a B, as in 08ZB56 & not an R !

My father would be very interested to know if any of the three chaps is still with us and whether they remember the occasion.

Kind regards
Alexis Wallerstein

[son-of-tiny]

Many thanks
I must say the photo of the Centurion on the website looks much better than the original !
I will contact you again as soon as my father finds his notes on Suez.

Kind regards
Alexis Wallerstein

[tankgirl]

This tank very definately is 08ZR56 and very definately was not photographed in Egypt as per the previous submissions and the quote "A Sqn 6 RTR - 08ZR56 FABIAN Suez Oct '56". The regiment withdrew from Suez Egypt very early in 1957 (January as per the War Diary) and returned to the UK. By the end of April 1957, the regiment were browning their kness again, this time on landing at Tobruk enroute by road to Barce. Nor was the Fabian photo taken in Barce as the formation flashes on tanks and vehicles whilst the regiment was in Barce was a mix of 10 Armd Div white rhinos (sometimes painted out as the Division was in its death throes whilst there being no clear decision as to what the replacement formation would be) and/or red rectangle swith the white 52 stencilled on.
The replacement formation briefly emerged, not for the first time as 25 Armd Bde, but only for a month or two with no difference to the formation flashes I've just described. By the time the regiment arrived in Homs at the end of November 1957, even 25 Armd Bde had 'gone', replaced by Tripolitania District and, to the east of Libya, Cyrenaica District all under the command of HQ MELF in their Cyprus location. The formation flash for Tripolitania District was the west-facing black three-masted Barbary dhow on the blue sea with a white background ...... as evidenced on Fabian's lower glacis plate. Hence, the photo was taken in Tripolitania, probably on the small, narrow strip of the Leptis Magna Training Area and, in 1958 in time perhaps, to be used as a Christmas Card for 1958.
The formation flash for Cyrenaica District became the 3 pillars of Cyrene on a rectangle, black and white.
Fabian's photo as seen on this thread was also used by 6RTR's 'Schoolie', one John Kelly for his book 'National Service 1950s Lancs, Bucks, Libya'. A very good read. Tucked away in my book was an original loose photo from John of the Gen. Foote VC taking the 6RTR drive past salute in the desert (1958).