Chevrolet CGT FAT at Royal Artillery Museum

[Larry Hayward]

Recently the Royal Artillery 'Firepower' Museum in Woolwich SE London put on show a Chevrolet CGT that has been restored to running order, with the support of Legal & General Insurance. It is used on occasions to tow the museum's 25pdr & limber.

However I can't help thinking that the desert scheme they have adopted for this vehicle is inaccurate in that I have never seen a Chev CGT (or Ford version) with Number 13 style cab in the desert. I thought the No 13 Cab CGT was produced from early 1943, by which time it would have been too late to see action in the desert or even Tunisia. The first use in action I can find of this type of vehicle is with 1st Canadian Division which landed in Sicily but their vehicles were painted in 'olive drab' not sand. (The 1st Canadian Div vehicles looked quite neat compared to the very battered 8th Army vehicles that had come all the way from El Alamain!)

As there were plenty of No 12 Cab style CGT's & FGT's in use by the British well after Sicily, it surely would have looked better if the RA Museum had used a NW Europe colour scheme.