Upon having a read of these books, it's a good opportunity to thank you, Mike Cecil, for trawling through them to find my International K5 some years ago. I understand, now, just how big of a haystack each book is; Mike, I'm grateful for your efforts.

Now if only I could find the chassis number through the surface corrosion on the chassis rail of my 1940 Chev sedan. It's obviously ex-military, having been impressed and painted green (with the engine bay left in GMH Sand Drift), then later painted light blue-grey. I'm hoping that this indicates RAAF or Naval use, as suggested by a number of you good people, but I wonder if it was common for vehicles sold back to dealers to be painted colours other than green before resale to the civillian market?

Anyway, these books are a great help, and are much appreciated. Thank you!

Cheers,
Matt

The red entries are disposals or transfer information.

And thanks, Matt, for you kind words.

Mike

Unavailable pdf files
 

I've been downloading the pdf files then exporting the jpegs to then import into Adobe Lightroom to form a database where I can then tag pages to find CMPs or other vehicles I have photographs or information for, but I've found the links to the pdf files for the four last books covering 114438 to 150896 lead to -404 errors (file does not exist), anyone else noticed this?

Thanks Mike,

It looks like, RAN f for Admiralty osi/4/1652.
Does this mean anything important in the history of my blitz.

I take it to mean the vehicle (along with a number of others of the same type) were transferred to the RAN for the use of (ie on loan to) the British Admiralty, which in effect means the British Pacific Fleet based in Sydney in the final stages of the Pacific War.

Once the Admiralty had finished with it, it would have been returned to the RAN, which more than likely meant it was then turned over to the CDC for disposal, as Navy had no further use for it either. Of course, that aspect is not recorded in the Army registration books: the Army's interest in the vehicle ceased once it was transferred to the RAN.

Mike

Thank you Mike, that makes the story a little more interesting.
Regards Rob.

Yes, but unfortunately the RAN records are the very worst - fragmentary, lacking in detail - and that's for vehicles operated by the RAN, rather than a bunch of trucks on loan to the RN.

The result is that it would be a miracle if there is any surviving documentary evidence (besides that single entry in AWM126) about your truck's time in the RAN or the RN.

Mike

RAAF records
 

A VMVC member Neil Wain, restored a ex RAAF staff car 1941 Dodge. He wrote to Canberra , Russell barracks I think , this was early 1980's???????? He got a reply, it was disposed in 1952 .

What happened to the RAAF vehicle records ? Destroyed was a rumour going around

In short, sent to the RAAF Museum at Point Cook in the late 1990s, then returned to RAAF Log Command in St Kilda Road circa 2000 despite the objections of the RAAF Museum staff. Then the books vanished. I'm guessing they were probably thrown into a dumpmaster during a 'cleanup', but who knows? All I know is they went missing, much to the annoyance of the RAAF Museum staff (and me!)

Mike

Now up to book 25 . :thup2:

Not long till complete record now :cheers:

Fantastic to be able to just look them up online :salute:

Final Vol completed
 

I'm told that the final volume 27 has now been completed, so expect it online by end of this week if not sooner.

Have fun hunting your ARNs!

Even better .... look for your chassis numbers.... that will keep you glued to the screen for many hours!

Mike

Complete with a lovely, enjoyable, patriotic poem at the end page.

Ken

All on there now :thup2:

Where do the 20xxxx range live ? Most are late model RAAF vehicles.
The lists don't seem to go that high

200000+
 

From my post above, the 200000 records for the RAAF:

"In short, [the registers were] sent to the RAAF Museum at Point Cook in the late 1990s, then returned to RAAF Log Command in St Kilda Road circa 2000 despite the objections of the RAAF Museum staff. Then the books vanished. I'm guessing they were probably thrown into a dumpmaster during a 'cleanup', but who knows? All I know is they went missing, much to the annoyance of the RAAF Museum staff (and me!)"


For Army above 200000 (yes, there was/is duplication between the services) these are in 'modern' range (like 6x6 L/Rovers), with many still in service.

Mike

Ship destinations
 

Looking through the AIF book 1-6122 , I see ships leaving Melb. and Sydney and Fremantle and the destination in the next column is listed as "E" . Was this "E" actually Malaya or Singapore ? I can also see "ME" which is self explaining - Middle East.

Nobody willing to venture into what 'E' might stand for?

Esperance? Ecuador? Eniwetok? 'E-nywhere but 'Ere?'
(or is that a destination for New Zealand Convoys?? ) :giveup

This might get interesting.... :thup2:

Mike

Could it be as simple as Egypt?
Maybe Middle East (ME) covered a wide number of available ports and those destinations which were definite were given as 'E'. I guess sometimes the ships had to offload at other ports than the one they were destined for due to change in the battle, etc.

Richard

Nice try Richard, and well reasoned, but not right.

'ME' meant any port of call that supplied Aust forces in the Middle East - Suez, Port Said, Kantara, Alexandria, with Suez at the southern end of the Canal being the most used for offloading ships outbound from Australia. :kangaroo

Mike

Well I am stumped now!

Could be
 

I looked up V5202 reg number number of a AIF chev GS Van , the vehicle I spotted in one of the LIFE magazine photos, the photos depict vehicles in Malaya , some of the pics are in colour.

The said V5202 number in the AWM books has the vehicle being shipped to 'E' on the ship Montferland . I think E = Far East.

Looked up a few of the Chev GS vans shipped to ME and some of them were returned home and then passed onto other military units, the units are named in the LH side columns.

Hi Mike,

You had the destination correct in your first post - Malaya (delivered into Singapore), but not the actual meaning of the 'E' code. This code was just for Malaya, not other destinations in the 'Far East', which was only 'Far East' to the Poms - to Aussies it was the near north - too near on 19 Feb 1942, but that's a digression.

A clue are the vehicles in the AIF registers that are also delivered overseas to other single letter-code destinations.

I'm surprised there have not been any other takers to this challenge.

Mike

Also as a nice double check of ship movements there is a site called "WW11 merchant ship movement records Australia" it is a scan of thousands of ships movements, it also lets you know if and when a ship was lost and how it was lost. It also shows where the ship left from, with my truck it was Melbourne, there is a little discrepancy in the AWM date and the ship log date but I have put that down to the AWM date is the loading date and the log date is the actual sailing date.
If you get real keen you can then google the ships name and in most cases there will be a photo of the ship some time in its life.
With the ship voyage that took my Chev AIF L16070 to S(ME), someone has written in pencil that the voyage was to Aden but I assume that was the ship's first port of call as it is a fair hike from Aden up to Syria. I also assume that the truck went to Syria as it left Australia in October 1941 and maybe the S part of the destination is Syria (to the 2/101 General Transport Company, wishful thinking).
The ship my truck went on was the Tricolor spelt incorrectly as Tricolour in the AWM ARN book.

Ken

More
 

A few more destinations:

GULL , would this be Gull force on Ambon ? Ship in that case was the Bontikoe.

SPAR ?

SP. could be same place as SPAR ? Sparrow force ? Maybe S=Sparrow force as well ?

2747 another one for Gull force ?

You are on the right track, Mike. :thup2:

G = Gull Force
SPAR/Sp/S = Sparrow Force

S(ME) is Suez (Middle East) (Not 'Syria'). Ken, I think Aden was penciled in as it was usually by-passed. Ports of call were usually Colombo and/or Bombay (sometimes to the African Coast at Mombasa, Kenya), then Suez direct, but occasionally ships were directed to Aden en-route for some reason, so being an unusual stop, it may be why it was penciled in.

As far as I can tell, the meaning of the dates vary: date of sailing/departure or date of loading (a day or two before the sailing date) and in some cases, the date of release/assignment from store. In several cases, this date pre-dates the sailing date by some days, as vehicles were driven from, say, storage in Melbourne to Sydney for loading onto the ship. Ricks Cove's staff car (AIF M-15 ?) was driven from storage in Melbourne to Sydney for loading aboard the Empress of Japan, for example (can't remember which date shows up in the register for that vehicle, but you get my meaning, I hope).

E = ?? :bang:

Mike

Might be a case of Coals to Newcastle, but did any of the AIF vehicles go to England with the 6th Div in 1940?

Don't know off hand about which vehicles went to UK with the 6th, Tony, but the 'E' in the registers does not stand for 'England'.

OK, a final hint:

S = Sparrow FORCE on Timor
G = Gull FORCEon Ambom
(and Plover, Heron, Lark, etc.... are all FORCE code names)
E = ............ in Malaya.

Mike

Mike,
a stab in the dark .........Endau ?? (or Pdg. Endau)

Thanks for the information Mike, and once again thanks for so freely sharing your knowledge.

Could E be for Emu considering the 8th Division had the emu as its formation sign.

Ken

E is for .....
 

OK, enough fun, time to solve the puzzle .......

The AIF code name for the force in Malaya (it's why my clue had the word 'Force' in bold) was ELBOW. Don't ask me why. It pre-dates the 'bird' forces deployed later to the island-arc north of Australia, so that is presumably why it does not conform to the 'bird force' series of names (good guess about the 'E = Emu', Ken: I'd not thought of that one.)

So vehicles tagged with 'E' in the AWM126 registers were on their way to be offloaded in Singapore and supplied to units of Elbow Force. As Mike has already confirmed with his linking a known registration from an image taken in Malaya, with the registration as listed in AWM 126, the 'E' tagged vehicles ended up in Malaya, no question.

Nice one - always fun to solve a puzzle like that. Took me ages to figure out what 'E' actually stood for, even after I had done a similar linking exercise to Mike K!!

Mike :salute:

Change
 

Interesting the destination has been changed on this one. I have found a few of these: changes from G to S and also S to G .

I wonder if Rabaul received any vehicles ?