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This 1969 Chieftain battle tank after its wild ride through two guardrails last week.

(Oregon State Police)

If you’re going to drive a 50-ton battle tank, remember that you may need more than the owner’s manual to make it work.

A 58-year-old Curry County man learned that lesson the hard way last week, said Lt. Gregg Hastings of the Oregon State Police.

On Nov. 27, a truck driver transporting a

found that he was unable to climb a steep grade near Gold Beach. So he unloaded the tank, which was the United Kingdom’s main tank back in the 1960s, at the Myers Creek Wayside along U.S. 101. The tank was purchased by a local resident.

Although he had no experience driving a tank, Jeffrey Glossop of Pistol River, who works as a caretaker for the man who bought the tank, figured he could get it up the hill.

“He had the manual, so he thought he could do it,’’ Hastings said.

Glossop got the tank out of the wayside and proceeded up nearby Myers Creek Road toward the property. But as he ascended, the tank slipped out of gear and rolled back down, traveling out-of-control across a busy U.S. 101; several cars had to stop to avoid the clanking behemoth, which then crashed through a guardrail.

If you look closely you can see the tank, to the right of the white van, after it crashed through a guardrail near the Myers Creek Wayside on U.S. 101 last week.

Undeterred, Glossop drove the tank back through the damaged guardrail, across Highway 101 and back up Myers Creek Road.

It did not go well.

As the tank again ascended, it again slipped out of gear while rounding a curve and rolled backwards through another guardrail and down an embankment, coming to rest in a stand of trees.

The damage to the guardrails, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation, came in at $1,500.

Glossop was cited for reckless driving and first-degree criminal mischief.

It took a few days to recover the tank, which escaped unscathed, Hastings said.

It's a tank after all.

--Stuart Tomlinson