The two cannons stand behind the oldest church in Summerside, Trinity United Church, which survived the Great Fire of 1906. It is a large, white painted, Gothic Revival building erected in 1893 and enlarged in 1957, 1982 and 2007. Just north of the war memorial, the cannons face south in Memorial Park, which occupies much of the block between Summer and Spring Streets, to the east and west, and Winter and Church Streets, to the north and south.
This cannon is the more westerly of the pair. The two are very similar, but not identical. This cannon has the longer barrel and the longer range. Stamped with serial number 13820 and the year "1918", it was captured by the Nova Scotia Rifles on September 29, 1918.
German First World War 7.7-cm Feldkanone 16 (7.7-cm FK 16), (Serial Nr. 13820). This gun was captured on 29 Sep 1918 by the 25th Battalion (Nova Scotia Rifles), 6th Infantry Brigade, 2nd Canadian Division, Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), at Moon Quarry near Cherisy, France. No. 1 of 2 German guns in the Memorial Park.
The 7.7 cm Feldkanone 16 (7.7 cm FK 16) was a German field gun with a longer range than the FK 96 n.A. The barrel is longer and the gun has a box carriage to allow for greater elevation, which increased the range. It also has separate-loading ammunition to reduce powder consumption and barrel wear at short ranges, although this had the drawback of reducing the rate of fire compared to the older gun. It was prematurely rushed into production in 1916 and early guns suffered from a number of defects, mainly stemming from the German use of substitute materials to reduce consumption of strategic metals. It also suffered from a large number of premature detonations of its shells during 1916.
From Silver Hawk