The kitchen was made in Sweden in November 1914 for the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the outbreak of WWI. The Italian Alpini captured it in 1915 at the battle of Monte Croce. The Alpini kept it 'on the books' until 1943 when it mysteriously disappeared along with three Alpini Chefs just about the time that 7th Armoured Div (Desert Rats) was in the area. The kitchen turned up in Vienna in 1947 along with two of the chefs who were running a restaurant there. I found it parked in their back yard in 1957. I went back in 1963 and bought it bringing it back to the UK on the back of a Series I Landrover.

The Ercole is serial number 8 of the original batch of 150 built for the Italian Army in 1943/4. It was found in 1997, in bits, halfway up an Italian mountain. It took a week to find all the bits as they were scattered over 14 acres of farmland and farm buildings. It was rebuilt over the following year. Only the woodwork, the tyres, cables and saddle have been replaced. The rest is original.

The photo is of both Ercole and Kitchen on the SS26 Autoroute at the summit of the Little St Bernard Pass in Aosta in Italy.