Morotai
 

Upon leaving Hollandia all the American and Australian forces gathered on the island of Morotai which became the biggest base in the Pacific.

The Japanese occupied the top of the island and continued to fight until the end of the war. The allies just cordoned them off and basically let them starve. Here are a lot of mainly Australian photos.

The Australians left here to land on Borneo and the Americans to land in the Philippines. Morotai was still a huge base at the end of the war.

Further Morotai Photos1

Looks like the girls handing out the coffee are American Red Cross. Mix of Australian and American troops getting a drink.

Further Morotai2

More Morotai Photos3

More Morotai Photos4

The photo with the smoke shows how close the Japanese were and they were being bombed or shelled while all the boys are watching.

Hi

Nice pics. Interesting to Google Maps/Earth/Streetview some of those pics today to match up features.

Quite the rig on that Matilda. The other 'dozer blades that I have seen on Shermans, Grants, Stuarts, Centaurs etc don't look like that. Field mod or was that an AEV of some sort?

Just being curious. :)

regards
Darrell

Probably more than a field mod. Is the bloke sitting on the front operating the blade winch?

Lang

Thanks Lang for the recent lot of photos.

An interesting one is the line up of AIRBORNE GMC's. A quick look at the AWN's shows that approximately 150, GMC, 6x6, 2 1/2 ton, canvas topped special cabin trucks with split diffs are listed between ARN. 89330 and 89487. I found one of these just out of Ballarat a few yours ago and another not far from here. According to the ARN. they were disposed of in 1955.

Attachment 91672

Regards Rick.

Anyone notice the Australian jeeps landing on Post #3?

Hoods removed and lashed down on top the the roof. Some sort of snorkel fitted with a brace. First time I have ever seen that arrangement on a jeep for an amphibious landing. Was this a unique Australian development?

David

Gmc
 

I found one too. In a car wreckers at Laurel Hill, near Batlow in NSW . I asked the yard owner if I could take the nomenclature tag from the cab and he said yes . I think it was GMH who did the conversion of these. The yard owners name was Woods and he bought numbers of blitz's , the yard had many CMP's - it was a timber industry region. He told me there were two Guy artillery tractors in the area at one time. He could be a grumpy old so and so and on one occasion he threw me out, he had a mean Alsatian dog beside him , he had become senile . I never went back.

That would have to be what he is there for. From where the driver sits he wouldn't be able to see a damned thing. What an arrangement!
It's been said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. This device obviously got the same treatment. Probably the only one built.
As regards the airborne CCKWs, there is an almost intact example in the Lake Salvage yard in Mildura, Victoria. The cargo body has been replaced with a turn table (fifth wheel) but it wears its original paint job and some of its markings. It still has the word AIRBORNE stencilled on the doors.

David

David

I am sure it was like most tank dozers and only designed to push obstacles out of the way, push other stuck tanks and break creek banks down enough for them to get across.

No matter how optimistic the designers were I doubt they expected them to replace a D-7.

I think there might be a shortage of volunteers for the winch operator's position if the clearance job was under fire! Maybe the driver had a string running back through his peep hole to work the winch under fire?

Lang