Can someone identify this case?

[motto (RIP)]

You're right Mike. I thought of the lid difference later. Dimensions are a little harder to ascertain from a photo.

I removed all the lids and partitions from the hundred or so boxes I bought from Plums in Benalla many years ago for $2 each. I used them on their side for shelving leaving only a couple of the best ones intact. I guess that makes me some sort of a vandal.

David

[Mike Cecil]

Ah, yes, Dave, we are all responsible for those sort of acts! I remember the relative dimensions of the PIAT to 25-pdr boxes well because by the time I got to Plumies in Benalla and Albury, I couldn't get enough of all the same sized boxes, and had to settle for a mix of the two sizes, plus the smaller 25-pdr cartridge boxes. Apparently, someone in a Chev modified conventional had pretty much cleaned them out!!!

Having the mix of sizes as storage was a pain: I didn't have enough of any one type to make up shelves, so settled for open Handy Angle shelving. Those were the days. Now I just have to store paper ..... but the US has different sized paper and folders! Even the paper punch has a different spacing. Just can't win....

Mike C

[motto (RIP)]

That Chev is now in England. Having driven it there from Istanbul in '09 I sold it before coming home.

Back when I purchased those 100 ammo boxes I went through a pile of perhaps four times that number to get good ones as they had been stacked outside for some time and the rain had got to them. Some were full of water, some were rotted through already.

It was around that time that a mate and I bought twenty or so de-milled PIATs from Plum and Crettins in Wodonga for 50 cents each. The army had thoughtfully dropped off the parts removed in the same load of scrap so it was an easy matter to recommission a number of them.

I was amazed when I saw a mock up of a PIAT in the Pegasus Bridge museum in Normandy with a note saying that a real one was unobtainable. The next one I saw was being unloaded from the boot of a re-enactors vehicle at the Bovington Tank Fest. Chatting with the bloke he told me that they are worth a horrendous amount of money. I don't have a single one left. Easy come easy go.

You're no doubt aware Mike that the Australian Army officially referred to that weapon as PITA, Projector Infantry Tank Attack. A not so subtle psychological switch around that appears at least in the training manual of which my mate has a copy.

David

[Dianaa]

So it seems that I'll neither get the Larkspur battery boxes nor the PIAT/PITA boxes either.

Will have to keep looking, for something suitable, or use unboxed lead/acid batteries.

Diana

[Mike Cecil]

Well, yes, Dave, but I think I should explain that a little more.

We seem to be hijacking D's post, but what the heck, she's a big girl, she can take it!

PITA v PIAT: I remember some years ago a certain restorer from mid-Victoria taking me to task for calling a 2-pdr a Tank Attack (TA) gun. So I did some pretty detailed research, and found the actual changeover orders from AHQ, together with the changes to the unit nomenclature in their war establishment lists. I think I remember that I wrote it up in the VMVC newsletter. Anyway, the truth of the matter is that all equipment and units with the words 'anti-tank' (AT)were changed in Australia in about mid-1943 from AT to TA, which was the norm until just post-war, when it reverted to 'AT'. TA was adopted as it sounded more aggressive than defensive!! The 2-pdr carrier started out life as an Anti-tank carrier, but like all the other equipment, became a TA carrier in mid-1943. As it was declared obsolete BEFORE the reversion to AT, it ended its military life called a 'Carrier, 2-pdr, Tank Attack'. Now I don't know when the PIAT/PITA was declared obsolete (should go and search that out), but it certainly had the two names bestowed upon it in Oz at different times during its service with the Australian Army in WW2.

Mike C

[Dianaa]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

Well, yes, Dave, but I think I should explain that a little more.

We seem to be hijacking D's post, but what the heck, she's a big girl, she can take it!

PITA v PIAT: ...
... Now I don't know when the PIAT/PITA was declared obsolete (should go and search that out), but it certainly had the two names bestowed upon it in Oz at different times during its service with the Australian Army in WW2.

Mike C

Only 2 names? Reading of some accounts where the PIAT projectiles seemed to bounce off the later German armour, I would have thought it would have been christened with a number of other names, mostly disparaging. The acronym PITA, not referring to "tank Attack" may well have been one of them!

[motto (RIP)]

Disparaging names would certainly come naturally in the circumstances you mention Dianaa. Also in an incident related to me by a workmate who had been with the BAOR. They were undergoing training on the PIAT and when one of the fellows fired the weapon a chunk of the spring steel disc that locates and secures the bomb in the tray came back and opened up his face so as you could see his teeth through his cheek. As a couple of fellows helped him away the NCO in charge of the training simply called out 'NEXT'!

To get back on topic, if looking for a box to hide some batteries in it may help to simply give the dimensions of what you need and see what pops up. Does it matter if the box has been repainted? Do you want it with stencilling? You just don't know what's out there. 2pdr, 25pdr, .303, 3.7" We've all got some and a lot of us will be at Corowa. (Except Mike)

David