[nuyt]

Just back from a week's holiday touring the low countries...

Made myself usefull for military vehicle history now and then, though...

Found some years of Dutch Military Spectator issues (1947-49) that had a couple of stories on transport in the Indonesian Indep. War that was still raging.
Here's an executive summary for you all (no pics):

-Some Dutch Army transport companies in 1946 took over vehicles from the Royal INDIAN Army Service Corps: no concrete info, but probably CMP's and Dodges;

-One company received "almost new" vehicles from Holland in mid 1946: including one platoon with Chevrolet 2 1/2 ton tippers (which the men duly exchanged for Dodges);

-There was an absolute lack of spare parts;

-By May 1947 some 57 3-tonners were "made available" by the Army techincal service (no details what this meant), while at the same time the transport branch received another 41 wrecks for spare parts cannibalism;

-By the end of 1947 the Transport Corps started receiving 120 "new" trucks, among which 83 AUSTRALIAN Ford Marmon Herringtons, to replace the ageing fleet of Dodges;

-The author (major Roetering, Chief Divisional transport officer) is proud of what has been achieved: with trucks that should have been classified as wrecks such and such number of goods and personnel has been moved.

In another publication I saw pictures of "Ford trucks" strikingly similar in model and appearance to the civvy 6x4 or 6x2 Fords shown above, EXCEPT they were 4x2 or 4x4.

So what we know for sure now is that the Dutch ordered and received Ford-MH trucks from Australia. Due to the political circumstances it is most likely these were sold as civilian vehicles and probably looked liked or were painted as civilian vehicles at the time of delivery.

The info above is only part of the story as it refers to just one Dutch division on (western) Java. I guess similar stories could be told about the other divisions and other islands. Possibly, the Ford/MH 4x4's on Hanno's pics are a similar Australain delivery to the division on Eastern Java?

HTH
Nuyt