He chose several pieces, based on their uniqueness or significance to the corps' history. Among the "definitely going" items is the restored Stuart M5 tank with a hedgerow cutter that U.S. soldiers fashioned in the field within days of the Normandy invasion.
"It tells an important story of improvisation in the time of battle," Rainer said. "Soldiers had 300 of these mounted on tanks within 48 hours. Without the cutters, they could not have gotten through a terrain of rock walls" along which thick hedges grew. The cutters, fashioned from metal obstacles the Germans had installed on the Normandy beach, cut a path through the hedges and rocks.
Also moving are several examples of a French-made field gun, one of the first rapid-fire shooters produced during the First World War and still used in the next. An M6 American tank, one of 100 produced but never put into service, is the last one that remains in the U.S. and must be included.
FOR THE RECORD - An article in Monday's editions misstated the year that a new museum will open to house artifacts from the U.S. Army Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Ground. The new facility at Fort Lee, Va., is scheduled to open in 2012.
The Baltimore Sun regrets the error.
Construction of the Fort Lee museum will begin next spring with an opening set for 2011. "Anzio Annie," a German gun that U.S. troops captured during World War II, will likely go in the next move from APG, but by rail. The 135-foot-long gun, which weighs close to 215 tons, must arrive before the walls go up at the Fort Lee site so it can be placed on a concrete slab there. Construction can then proceed around it.
Among the displays will be several lifelike mannequins made in Baltimore. Rainer will outfit them in various military uniforms. Several soldier mannequins will replicate their combat role in a tank with a cut-away side. "Norma Jean," a riveter model named for Marilyn Monroe, who was an ordnance factory worker before she turned actress, will take a place among the figures. She will wear a kerchief and dress printed with the Ordnance Corps' flaming bomb insignia.
The APG museum, which, typically, welcomes about 70,000 visitors annually, closed temporarily for safety reasons during the move, but has returned to its daily hours. As pieces leave, many items will be added to the exhibits from Army communications agencies transferring to APG from Fort Monmouth, N.J.
"The museum shows where we have come from and where we are going and gives pride in this branch of the service," Rainer said.
