The Rye and District show took place on Saturday 20 August 2022 at Icklesham between Hastings and Winchelsea. It was the first joint stand along with The Queen’s / PWRR Museum at Dover with their pop-up stand. It was a great success, and we hope this will be the beginning of a long and fruitful era of cooperation between us. As the show is in the main a vintage car show, naturally The Royal Sussex main contribution was the restored staff car which belonged to General Von Arnim (the last commander of the Afrika Korps). This attracted much enthusiasm from the public. The museum team and mechanic Chris trailered the car to the show where also on display was the memorabilia of Major Cavalier who was originally approached by Col. Nolte, Von Arnim’s Chief of Staff, in the staff car with a huge white flag asking for terms of surrender for Axis forces in Tunisia. In the collection is the German flag of surrender along with Von Arnim’s tot cup which he presented to Capt. Graham Hind RASC after the surrender. The tot cup was kindly donated to the museum collection to be kept with the car. Another item which stirred the hearts of many veterans at the show was the cutaway Bren gun along with displays of WW2 campaign medals and a selection of Royal Sussex badges. A very worthwhile exercise in raising the profile of the Association.
