Community & Business
24 February, 2026
The Oakey Howitzer
Noal Kuhl has solved the mystery behind the origin of Oakey’s Howizter gun at Bicentennial Park.
After cessation of the Great War, military trophies were collected by the Allies throughout the defeated countries.
In Australia, a formula was chosen based on population count to distribute these trophies, and Oakey being a ‘small town’ in the 1920s, (defined as being between 300 to 3000 residents) a machine gun was designated.
If a soldier of the town was involved in capturing a war prize, consideration was then given for a second or upgraded war trophy.
Leslie W. Butler was born in 1891 at Clare in South Australia and made his way to work around the Oakey area as a labourer in 1914 until enlisting in June of 1915 in Toowoomba as a private in the 9th Australian Imperial Forces Battalion.
He worked his way up through the ranks to become a Lieutenant before war’s end.
For his courage on the battlefields of Fromelles in France in 1916, Leslie won the Distinguished Conduct Medal and the Military Cross in 1917 after the battle of Polygon Wood, Belgium.
Leslie was credited with capturing a field gun, although the artillery piece could not be located, so Oakey received a 75 mm trench mortar instead.
Unfortunately, the trench mortar at Oakey disappeared some time after 1948.
The Oakey War Trophy Committee did not give up its quest to receive a field gun, and permission was granted, with a Howitzer gun arriving from Melbourne in 1922.
I have a good friend who lives in the Czech Republic, Jiri Nemec, who I have known for a few years.
He has been in the military hobby business for over 40 years.
With his internal connections to people in the Skoda Museum Archives, and with their curiosity to find out how their military hardware is on display in a war memorial on the other side of the globe, Jiri has been able to help me in researching the Oakey war trophies.
I took photos of the Oakey Howitzer, the serial number and other manufacturer markings and forwarded them via email to Jiri.
The photos and information were in turn forwarded to the National Technical Museum and the Military Historical Institute in Prague and Archives Škoda Plzeň.
The archive is not open to the public, nor are the records digitised, and it contains several hundred thousand records filed on cards, so research has been a painstaking task.
The Howitzer on display in Oakey is a ‘100 mm vz. 14 F.Hb’ field gun. The 10 cm light Howitzer model 14 was the most widespread Austro-Hungarian military field gun.
It was produced by the Škoda Plzeň company and was then located in the north-western part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire known as Bohemia (the present-day Czech Republic at that time consisted of three territorial units - Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia).
On October 28th, 1918, these three units merged with the country of Slovakia (former part of Austria-Hungary) under the name of the Czech Republic.
The Czech Government took over the equipment of the original Austrian army in its newly established territory including the manufacturer, Škoda Plzeň.
In total there were 1704 of them, of which 669 had sliding breech steel barrels, and the rest up until 1916 had bronze barrels supplied by Arzenal Vienna.
The gun could be dismantled into three separate components for travelling over difficult terrain, a hydro-spring recoil recuperation system and a shield.
It came with a polygonal carriage with two different spades for traversing soft or hard country.
According to the production plate and the manufacturer’s military records, the Oakey Howitzer has been identified with 100% accuracy; the Howitzer is clearly a modification – Light Field Howitzer ‘vz.14 F.Hb’.
The fact that this is a field version is symbolised by the ‘F.Hb’ mark.
The Howitzer at Oakey, No. 142, was built in at the beginning of 1917. An exact production record date could not be found, but with a high probability of 95%, it was at the beginning of 1917.
The paper trail confirmed that it was handed over and delivered on March 29, 1917 to K.u.K. (German translation ‘kaiserlich und königlich’ for Austro-Hungarian Army).
Information from the Prague Military Historical Institute (VHU) shows the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) received 12 of the M14 field Howitzers of 10 cm calibre, and that these were delivered to Palestine late in 1917.
Moving heavy military artillery was a logistical challenge, and cannons were transported by trains through European countries and to the Middle East outposts.
Loading, offloading, and reloading again was often done due to railway gauges differing between nations and transport would have taking many months.
It was after September 1917 when these 12 Howitzers were moved to the front line and placed in storage.
At the end of summer 1917, (June/July) in Palestine, Alfons Knight von Arenstorff was appointed Commanding Officer of the Austro-Hungarian Division and in February 1918, two regiments under his control received the M14 Howitzers.
These two regiments received new guns, eight pieces of Skoda 100 mm field Howitzer M14 and was named K.u.L. Feldhaubitzabteilung in der Turkei. (Field Detachment Turkey).
Another source indicates that all 12 Howitzers ended up being transferred to these two regiments.
This Austro-Hungarian Army detachment operated the Howitzers and were placed with the Turkish Army, as the Turks weren’t trained at this point to operate them.
In the month of September 1918, the war saw dramatic losses by the retreating 1/4 and 2/6 Austro-Hungarian Army at Gaza and Jordan, including 10 Gagistens (garrisons), 529 enlisted men, and the 12 Skoda 100mm field Howitzers M14 which the Australian Army captured during the fighting in Palestine.
It was these 12 Howitzers that were shipped to Australia as war trophies.
The weapon that is displayed in Oakey is almost certainly one of them.
- Noal Kuhl
