Marmon Herrington Carrier conversion

[ron]

Well its pouring rain here what better day to spend on M L U ?
here are a few pics of a carrier I bought some time ago up in the
mountains the owners had used the running gear from a Marmon
Herrington two man tank to enable the carrier to slew around in
a mountain saw mill, as we know this can not be done in a carrier
in a job that they intended to do,I hope that you enjoy them,its a
little bit of history I guess, but one hell of a shame they had to bugger
up a rare little tank to do this,I must go back and check if any of the
tank remains, they did take the parts off off a tank and did not buy
them as surplus . the son of the man and his uncle who took the parts
off the tank told me the story,he is away in Russia at this time but I
intend to follow it up, anyway enjoy the pics, Regards Ron

[ron]

Here are the pics

[ron]

Well this should show you what the country is like its full of snakes

[ron]

Justa few more pics

[Mike Cecil]

"they did take the parts off off a tank and did not buy
them as surplus":

If that was the case, why remove them to another hull that was not nearly as easily 'converted' as the original MH hull?

I suspect the parts were surplus - all they seem to have used is the transmission. The MH tanks - some 138 - were broken up in late 1942/ early 1943 to provide armour plate, and the engines were marinised and used to convert dumb lighters to powered lighters. The number of engines used tallies with the number of tanks very closely, so I don't doubt that that was their eventual use. (two engines per lighter).

So, unless the tank came from somewhere else, I doubt that it was one of the ones landed in Australia during 1942.

Of course, I could be wrong: maybe they have some images of them removing the gear/building their 'skidder' that might show the MH tank? Worth asking.

Mike C

[ron]

Thanks for your responce, Mike I have spoken to the son of the man who did the conversion, the father and his and his brother did the conversion they obtained a complete tank and pulled it apart, where it came from is anyones guess I not only have the transmission, I have all of the running gear,As an aside the late Jaques Littlefield wanted to re import it into the us, but was not allowed also so did someone from Fred Ropkes also tried to get it back to the states,if no success, things did happen behind the scenes, I once met a man 45 or 50 years ago who had a tracked truck that he used to plough his potato fields with, and as he lived at the rear of the Momageeta camp things had a habit of going missing when they had been parked for a long time,I knew the man and his son and they simply said that they had found it at the back of their farm, this was most deffently a comple tank when these Russian,migrants pulled it to pieces, regards Ron As an aside I am well aware of the fact that there are some Marmon Herrington surplus parts in Victoria, and that some have been used for movie converions on various vehicles,but this is certainly not the case with these parts, Oh by the way the son told me that is father and uncle said that the tank that they had was from a shipment that was suppsed to go New Guieny, but was off loaded in Australia as one ship had been sunk and the other turned around and dropped them off here, they always thought that it was a Japanese tank

[drcowie]

Check out this link !

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/weapons...n%22-tank.html

[Mike Cecil]

Thanks, Des, an interesting link.

The MH tanks that were delivered to Australia totaled something like 138 - can't remember the exact figure, would need to go and look it up. They were mostly CTLS4, both left and right turret versions, plus at least one turretless 'tug' version, unless this was converted in Australia in an effort to find a useful purpose for the type. The turretless tank is visible in images taken at the DAFVP workshop in Salmon Street, Port Melbourne.

The MH tanks were delivered either as diverted 'refugee' cargo (ie already on the water, ship diverted to Australia) or from cargoes awaiting shipping space in the US, sent direct to Australia after/during the Japanese advance south.

They were issued for only a short time to Australian units before being withdrawn and broken up - at least the bulk of them ended in this way. Apparently at least one 'escaped' this fate, as per Ron's posts on the subject.

Mike C

[ron]

Hi Des good to hear from you, the son told me that his father and uncle always said that the tank that they got was a Japanese one that came from New guinea , Maybe it was the dutch East Indies ?. Did I show you all of the parts that I got when you were last here? next time I am down that way I will have a good look around there were dozens of vehicles there in the bush,
its this sort of thing that makes our hobbie interesting