[Hanno Spoelstra]

Cross posting a few replies on FB to here:

Ian McCallum:

Hanno Spoelstra strange vehicle. RHD 39/40 car/commercial front end and on 900x13? Not sure what they've done to the wings however as no indication of headlight cutouts plus grill has centre section missing and front grill sections slightly repositioned. From the scuttle back totally true local made. 🤔 camouflage indicates in the ME?

Nick Balmer:

Rick Cove Caunter schemes were often applied to Indian assembled vehicles in India before they were issued and passed to the Middle East.

The way the scheme was applied varies quite a bit. Vehicles like the Indian Pattern Carriers being built by Tata left the factory with Caunter schemes applied strictly by the book.

Other assembly plants in India were less strict in how they masked the vehicles before the three colours were applied.

As Ian McCallum has explained this vehicle is a bit odd, as it has features in the bonnet and wings that are not "standard."

India was receiving American civilian pattern vehicles in increasingly large numbers were imported during 1938 to 1940,. Most were imported to serve the civilian market. Many like this one chassis bonnet only import became buses with locally made bodies.

When it became clear that war with Germany & Italy was about to start, the Indian Army was not initially expected to be at risk of attack, so they were at the end of a long list of higher priority countries and units for delivery of military vehicles.

This left the Indian army which was well aware of the force multiplying value of wheeled vehicles as a rest of the the Mohmand and other campaigns on the NWFP from 1936 inwards faced with being unable to purchase military trucks from its traditional suppliers in Britain.

The Indian Army set about purchasing and requisitioning many Ford & Chevrolet civilian pattern vehicles from main dealers in cities like Calcutta, Bombay & Madras, as well as requisitioning cars from civilians.

These vehicles were then militarised, generally by applying a coat of paint, with very limited changes except to fit wooden bodies. Carpenters were everywhere in India, and wood was readily available, unlike steel that was in very short supply in India, and very hard to purchase from abroad.

The modified civilian vehicles tended to stay in India after about 1941, as huge numbers of vehicles were required to support the recruitment and training of the huge volunteer forces that were raised in India, and which went on to serve around the World.

These modified civilian vehicles appear in the background to many wartime photos of major Indian cities and cantonments.

It is very likely that this vehicle is one of those taken up from a civilian Ford dealership, then been fitted with an Indian Pattern body before being painted in Caunter. The British & Indian Armies occupied the oil fields in Iran during 1941, and had a large force deployed in Iran & Iraq until well into 1944.

These units were there to protect the oilfields and to bolster Turkey's wish to remain neutral, in the face of a possible Blitzkreig from Southern Russia, which seemed like a very real possibility during the autumn of 1942 and into 1943. It was feared that the USSR might collapse as it had in 1917-18, when Axis powers had been able to reach Baku.

As this vehicle has a British registration painted on its bonnet, it looks as if it was re-issued from Indian Army stocks, to a British Army unit.

Many units who were initially sent to Iran & Iraq, where initially very poorly equipped due to the huge requirements of fighting units in North Africa and the UK. As the war proceeded and the supply situation improved these units were progressively re-equipped with more modern equipment.

After the Battle of El Alamein, were a lot of the armoured units units involved in the break though battles had taken very heavy losses in tanks and men, many of these units were taken to Syria, and Iraq to reform and re-train. Many of the battle damaged tanks from El Alamein were re-built in workshops in Egypt from where they were re-issued to these training units in Syria & Iraq.

The areas of northern Syria & Iraq were hilly, and even mountainous, and had sparse populations, so they were ideal for large scale armoured unit training. Many divisions like the NZ and Polish as well as Indian Divisions worked up in these areas before being moved to Italy.

It is very likely that this truck had been involved in these theaters of war.

The sloping rear body panel is something that I have not seen before. Perhaps the body had been damaged and somebody wanted to tidy it up. It would not have been difficult to do with a saw and a hacksaw.

I also wondered if this truck might have been used to run out signal wires? Lots of 15 CWT's were used by Royal Artillery units fitted to cable laying. Radio silent was much easier to maintain if telephones were used between gun positions and battery HQ's.

Could the cut down tail gate and sides have been to make the laying and recovery of telephone cables easier?