The mystery of the Soviet T-34 tank from World War II that was found buried in Israel

@ElentirENG ES 1·25·2024 · 23:14 0

The T-34 is one of the most famous tanks in history and one of the most manufactured: more than 84,000 units were made.

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Put into service in 1940, the T-34 was the reason for the success of the Soviet armored forces over the German ones in World War II. Although German tanks such as the Tiger and Panther were technically superior, the numerical superiority of the T-34 ended up being decisive on the battlefield. After World War II, many countries continued to use the T-34 for decades.

Today there are T-34 tanks still active in some countries and it is also common to see monuments made with these armored vehicles. Some of them have been abandoned in the Golan Heights since 1967, after the defeat of the Syrian Army in that war against Israel. However, there is a T-34 whose location is a real mystery. It's also in Israel, but the strange thing is where it was.

That tank appeared on July 1, 2013 in Holon, a district of the city of Tel Aviv. When a construction team was excavating in an industrial area, they found that tank buried several meters deep.

Ironically, the tank was found on Merkava Street ("Chariot" in Hebrew), the name given to a famous series of tanks manufactured in Israel. The discovery of this T-34 forced the Israel Police to cordon off the area, for fear that ammunition from the tank would also appear that could cause an explosion.

The T-34 was without a turret and without chains. This model of tank was used by Egypt in the Sinai War (1956) and by Egypt and Syria in the Six-Day War (1967). Some Egyptian and Syrian tanks were captured by the Israel Defense Forces, displayed as trophies and later taken to museums like Yad La-Shiryon.

It is unknown how that tank reached Tel Aviv, since during the successive invasions that the Arab countries launched against Israel, they never reached that area. As published then by the newspaper The Times of Israel, in that place in Holon there was a military workshop. Perhaps that explains the finding.

The photos that you can see in this entry were published by the Israel Police on the same day the tank was found. I have searched for further information about this T-34 and I have found nothing. It is as if the earth had swallowed it (again). A few days ago, the British writer Mark Felton dedicated an interesting video to this tank:

A Felton follower posted the following in the comments of the video, after doing a search on the topic on Israeli websites:

"The tank was indeed a trophy captured from the Egyptian army. There used to be an army facility in Holon that operated until the early 2000s. The tank itself had numerous evidence of plates being welded on and off. The main assumption is that it was used in order to investigate the composition of Soviet armor. When the military facility was evacuated, the tank was not in movable condition. So it was decided by somebody to just bury it and flatten the ground on top of it."

A curious and sad end for a World War II tank...