£5,000 reward offered after World War Two tanks stolen from South Yorkshire transport depot

The two ‘Brengun’ Ford T-16 universal carriers were taken from Askey Transport on Monksbridge Road in June after being transported there from Argentina.

The tanks were being held by the depot ready for collection by the Sheffield Sea Cadets, with one to be used as a ‘gate guard’ at their Rutland Road base and the other sold for as much as £25,000.

But when Sheffield Sea Cadet First Lieutenant Chris Camps came to collect the tanks, the depot told him they had already been picked up by someone else.

Police have been investigating the theft ever since, but Chris is now hoping that offering a £5,000 reward for information on their whereabouts might help him locate them.

He said: “It is like having £50,000 stolen for me. I have had customers I could have sold them to already.

“The one we were going to keep would have been the centrepiece of a memorial to the Royal Navy and the Marines - it would have been a big pull for the Sheffield Sea Cadets.

“We just wanted a little bit of a wow factor.”

Chris said that of the four original vehicles he bought from Argentina, two had already been sold for £25,000 each, with one of those currently being restored for a collector in America.

He added that as well as the criminal investigation, he had also instructed his solicitors to sue Askey’s for £50,000 for damages and costs.

A spokesperson for South Yorkshire Police said the investigation was ongoing and a spokesperson for Askey’s was not immediately available for comment.

Brengun carriers were used widely by British Commonwealth forces during the Second World War.

The vehicles were usually used for transporting personnel and equipment, mostly support weapons, or as machine gun platforms.

With some 113,000 built by 1960 in the United Kingdom and abroad, the carrier was the most produced armoured fighting vehicle in history.