(I posted this on G503 but thought you MLU folks might be interested too)
G'day all,
Whilst the M29 Weasel might be a common sight in the US and Europe, here in Oz it has always been a very rare vehicle. To my knowledge the current half-dozen or so in the country are all post-war imports.
Even rarer were the Weasels owned by the Australian Army. The records show they only ever had two, both stationed at Bandiana, Victoria from July 1945 to disposal in early 1946. They were both early narrow-tracked T24s. Copies of army memos I have show that they were to be sent to Monegeeta for evaluation when the war ended and the pending tests were cancelled.
Here is a photo of one of them at Bandiana 1st Army Ordnance Vehicle Park, taken in that time frame. The Australian Registration Number (ARN) 139999 is clearly visible. (I gather the 9999 suffix was applied to test vehicles as the prototype australian tracked truck had a similar nomenclature?) For interest's sake in the far background can be seen the Thornycroft/Morris Terrapin amphibious truck that is still in existence:
Well this Weasel has been found and recently recovered by John Wilson and myself, although we did not confirm its army provenance until afterwards. The following photos show the above, sixty-three years later. You can see how bad a shape it's in. The hull has been cut away at the back, the bogies were replaced with a home-made arrangement using Snow-cat tracks and sprockets and the orginal motor and gearbox had been swapped out for a Holden donk. The hull floor had large holes cut which actually saved it from further rusting, so the main hull hat channels are in good shape. The serial and hull numbers are unknown.
At present only the right-side ARN stencilling has been uncovered. It appears to have been stencilled twice, the upper numbers have a round-top '3' and the older marking shows the flat-top '3' as seen in the 1945 photo:
Although it is a possibility. there are no immediate plans to restore it as I have another early T24 Weasel similar to this one but in far, far better condition which I'm currently working on, plus an M29C Water Weasel I co-own with John Wilson to be done following that. Our aim is to bring them to Corowa and Canungra some day.
Still it is an ultra-rare piece of australian army vehicle history and I think I can say without exaggeration that it is a truly unique find!
I would like to thank Ray from the Bandiana Army Museum as well as GPA fanatic Ian Grieve for the information they supplied leading to its eventual discovery, and also Ian Fawbert for locating its ARN record at the AWM.
Steve Malikoff.