RN vehicles
 

Colour photos of RN vehicles are rarer still so I have attached a photo of an RN Fordson & bowser at RNAS Yeovilton in 1943. The Fordson looks to be earth brown while the bowser is the same shade of grey seen on the Seafire.

RN vehicle photos
 

Hi there

Marvelous stuff.

Thanks so much for sharing!

Lots of inspiration for models there.

Just a few questions: Who can explain the wheels on the Bedford OYs? Are they civilian pattern?

And what's the story behind the 'two-tone' jerry cans that show up in several shots?

Steve

Re: RN vehicle photos
 

Steve,

The Bedfords are actually OW, which were produced for essential civilian use during the war. The wheels are standard type with twins on rear carrying 7.50-20 tyres. The body is longer than a OY and would appear to be the standard factory dropside. Some of these were even used by the US Forces as I have seen one in France that was left behind after the war.

As for the two-tone jerricans, that has me puzzled, but it may be for diesel, to identify it from the more common petrol cans. The engine driving the compressor on the Bedford is a Lister 3 cyl. diesel.

Richard

RN prototype Scammell
 

By sheer coincidence, two colour photos of this same Scammell are in the latest issue of Classic Military Vehicle. Taken while still in Roses ownership at a fair in July, 1970, it then had square front wings and looks a lot more cared for.

Richard

I'm not sure if these have a right to be in the soft skin forum, but it is a Royal Navy vehicle. These come from British Pathe.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y11...1994_09_59.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y11...1994_09_05.jpg

A while ago there was quite a bit of discussion on these over at Missing Lynx, http://www.network54.com/Forum/47208/thread/1068736249/

Fyll

Heres an oldie in RN livery a pre war Leyland, its no is RN3366 i cannot read the rest of the writing on the door
Les

RN vehicles
 

I wonder if any of these really did serve in the RN? Such vehicles must be rarer than all the rest - unless the RN looked after theirs better, thus allowing them to selected first by civi buyers in the post war auctions?

RN Vehicles
 

Without Alan's photos, not many people will know that the RN had its own version of vehicle serial with RN after then number!

I noticed that March 07 was the last entry on this long lost thread so here is a photo of a 1932 AEC Mercury built for the Royal Navy

Reviving this thread to post a photo from http://omahabeach.mulberry.free.fr/
Unfortunately the site gives no credits or dates for the pictures but this must be some Navy officer visiting the Yanks at Omaha

RN numbers
 

It looks as if the old numbers (pre 10.000?) had a "RN" prefix, whereas the later numbers (post 10.000?) used the RN abbreviation as a suffix, with this trailer as an odd exception. Here is a picture of a Royal Navy BSA M20 with RN6919 number. (source: The Classic Motorcycle Feb 1987)

Jan

RN numbers
 

Here's an other early one, same source. RN7119 is a Norton 16H with box sidecar. I have some more pictures of WRENS with motorcycles, and many of these bikes still had a civilian registration: either SHX (Central London) or PMP (North East London).

Jan

RN numbers
 

Another PMP registered motorcycle, an (impressed?) AJS this time. Just in front of it is an unregistered Ariel W/NG, with number 10886RN.

Jan

RN numbers
 

Close up of the same picture. See tilly and bus in the background!

Jan

Jan,

My eye was drawn to the tappet cover on the BSA, not like an M20 part, too shallow. Also, motorcycles used by women in the Services, were generally smaller machines.

It is in fact, a BSA C10 250cc.An IWM photo in Chris Orchard's book, British Forces Motorcycles, shows another WREN, riding C10 with RN6914 on the tank, and civil reg. no. SHX129.

RN numbers
 

Another Ariel W/NG, again from "The Classic Motorcycle", with number 10872RN. Has anybody ever noticed that the vehicles on the pictures RN008.jpg and RN014.jpg (both posted by Alan Brock), have very close RN numbers? The mobile workshop is 41677RN, the mobile crane is 41675RN. Would this mean that these RN numbers were not allocated in blocks, as in the army? It seems to me that there are many completely different Royal Navy vehicles with very close RN numbers... (OK, the Navy used lessvehicles than the army, but still... Just a thought...)

Jan

RN numbers
 

To prove my point: this is a Norton 16H, number 26938RN. I also have a picture of an Ariel with number 26254RN, and previous postings contain pictures of a tilly with number 25256RN, and a lorry with number 25440RN. All quite close or not? :confused

Jan

RN numbers
 

And this is the Ariel. Most of the RN vehicles seem to have white paint on the edges of the mudguards...

Jan

Indeed Richard, you're right! Never trust the captions in a magazine!
Thanks for the correction,

Jan

Jan,

As the RN vehicles would be mostly based in the UK, this was to aid their appearance in blackout conditions. A lot of vehicles were painted as such during the war at home.

RN motorcycles
 

Last one before somebody thinks that I'm trying to hijack this forum :D
A Royal Enfield CO this time (this is not a WD/CO, but one of the 100 “Model CO” motorcycles which were ordered by the Royal Navy in 1941). If anybody would have any other war time pictures of these fine motorcycles :D I'm always interested! :thup:

Jan

David Brown tracked tractor
 

This David Brown Roadless pic was canned from a mag. Are there any more photos out there of this fully tracked version. I for one, had never seen it before.

Fyll :cheers:

Hi Fyll,

I am not sure whether Roadless had any input on this tractor, but early in the war, the Air Ministry instructed David Brown to produce a tracked tractor for airfield use. Apparantly there was problems with the tracks causing damage at the air bases and the tractors were converted to wheeled Taskmasters. I believe this was all detailed in a history of David Brown. The tractor's original designation was TAG1. The fact that the RAF used Roadless Fordsons as well, makes me wonder about this story, but it does at least authenticate the crawler, of which about 550 were supposed to have been built.

To bring a CMP into this thread I have seen the remains of 15 cwt bodies with RN in white letters on the sides in Australia.

Would these have been local supply from Australian manufactured vehicles or imported by the RN from the UK? There were after all plenty of CMP vehicles parked up across the country at the time.

This was a few years ago and cannot remember if they were local or Canadian type.

RN Blitz
 

During the later stages of the Pacific war, the RN sent out aircraft carriers and other vessels to Australia , places like Sydney were buzzing with RN units . They were building up for the expected invasion of the Japanese mainland. I do know of a restored C8AX that was marked with RN on the doors .The owner attempted to trace its histroy through RN archives , but came up with nothing .

Maybe these vehicles were on loan or purchased even .Or maybe the RN officially or unofficially pilfered a few vehicles from the islands as deck cargo.
We will never know the full story .Many vehicles changed ownership with a few bottles of booze as payment .

114892
Physical description: Black & white
Summary: SYDNEY HARBOUR, NSW. 1945-09-06. THE ROYAL NAVY MIDGET SUBMARINE, THE XE4 EXITER, CRUISING ROUND THE HARBOUR.


Mike

Quite by chance I found the book "Moving Bases, Royal Navy Maintenance Carriers and Monabs" by Cmdr David Hobbs. In it are quite a few pictures of interesting vehicles. I was fascinated by the workshops based on Bedford QLTs.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y11/torpy/Clip_3.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y11/torpy/Clip_5.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y11/torpy/Clip_6.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y11/torpy/Clip_7.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y11/torpy/Clip_8.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y11/torpy/Clip_9.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y11/torpy/monab5.jpg

There was also this airborne radar maintenance vehicle based on an Ausin K6 crew bus:
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y11...aintenance.jpg

:cheers:
Fyll

Fyll,

Great pics, thanks!

Hanno

Early Willys MA Jeep in RN service, courtesy of Life and Google:

Attachment 116616
http://tbn0.google.com/hosted/images...7c718a_landing

Great pictures Fyll :thup2:

Are there any more interesting ones? I once restored a Morris Commercial C4 compressor truck, it was had original wartime Royal Navy numbers and the unit designtion, "4MLRU" which I am now thinking is something to do with the mobile maintenace units that travelled around with the Coastal Forces, as shown earlier in this thread.

Excellent photos - never seen anything quite like that before.
That book has just been added to my christmas list
Noel