Beute Gut

[Bill Murray]

Had a chance to muck around in my photo files in the PC and thought to pass on some. Most are old ebay shots.

A bevy of Bedfords.

Bill

[Bill Murray]

'Nother.

[Bill Murray]

Third

[Bill Murray]

Fourth

[Keith Webb]

The Germans were certainly well supplied by His Majesty in the early part of the war, weren't they!

[Bill Murray]

Some one will surely correct me if I am wrong, Keith but I think I read that the Germans had access to about 30,000 pieces of equipment post Dunkirk.

On that subject, I have been meaning to ask if anyone has access to and could pass on, the Orders of the Day or whatever it would have been called as to the policy of the BEF regarding disabling all possible equipment before either surrendering or leaving for the UK by that marvelous assemblage of yachts, freighters etc.

I usually don't save them because they are of less interest than functional vehicles, but I have seen at least a thousand photos on ebay from various countries over the last five years with open bonnet vehicles, punctured or removed wheels and tyres etc. etc. in an obvious effort to render the vehicle unusable.

Obviously, the Germans were pretty good at getting an awful lot of this vehicle park back in operating condition and I will try to continue to post such photos, many, many of which were taken in Russia, a heck of a long way from Dunkirk and a testament to British hardware.

And.....of course, all of us are aware of Rommel's edict to use captured English vehicles whenever and wherever possible in NA as they were far superior to the German equipment.

Happy New Year.

Bill

[Mike K]

They also snagged many MCC vehicles it seems .

This pic I found on another forum ... can't recall where though.

Mike

[Mike K]

CS8 ?

[Les Freathy]

First off

Happy new year to all MLU members i sincerely hope it is a good one

Here are a couple of photos with trucks that would end up a major repair job for the Germans at Dunkirk
cheers
Les

[Les Freathy]

2nd

[Bill Murray]

Nice shots Les and more or less what I meant. Someone had to order this from pretty high up.

But.... a lot of it got salvaged.
Here, two more "fleets" of beute British vehicles, Bedfords and Morrises as ambulances from old ebay stuff.
Bill

[Bill Murray]

Second

[Bill Murray]

I went to bed at 2100 hrs last night so I am full of energy this morning.

A couple from my country and to show that the Luftwaffe and Marine chaps had very good taste.

First an LW Cadillac with for me an unusual sunroof not found in the US versions.
Bill

[Bill Murray]

Another Cadillac, WM this time and used in Norway.
bill

[Bill Murray]

And a couple for David.
The Wh types had to do with lesser vehicles, here a 1934 Chev.

[Bill Murray]

And from France, either Chevs or GMCs, I will let David do the proper ID.
Bill

[Rich Payne]

Originally posted by Bill Murray
Some one will surely correct me if I am wrong, Keith but I think I read that the Germans had access to about 30,000 pieces of equipment post Dunkirk.

On that subject, I have been meaning to ask if anyone has access to and could pass on, the Orders of the Day or whatever it would have been called as to the policy of the BEF regarding disabling all possible equipment before either surrendering or leaving for the UK by that marvelous assemblage of yachts, freighters etc.

I usually don't save them because they are of less interest than functional vehicles, but I have seen at least a thousand photos on ebay from various countries over the last five years with open bonnet vehicles, punctured or removed wheels and tyres etc. etc. in an obvious effort to render the vehicle unusable.

Obviously, the Germans were pretty good at getting an awful lot of this vehicle park back in operating condition and I will try to continue to post such photos, many, many of which were taken in Russia, a heck of a long way from Dunkirk and a testament to British hardware.

And.....of course, all of us are aware of Rommel's edict to use captured English vehicles whenever and wherever possible in NA as they were far superior to the German equipment.

Happy New Year.

Bill

Ellis's Official history "The War in France & Flanders 1939 - 1940" gives the following statistics :-

Vehicles shipped to France :- 68618
Lost........................................63879
Brought back............................4739

Motorcycles.............................21081
Lost.........................................20548
Brought back...............................533

Contemporary accounts often refer to disabling the vehicles by means such as removing the oil and coolant drains and jamming the throttle. Many were simply pushed into the canals. Nevertheless, the base depots to the south were also overrun so there probably wasn't any shortage of replacement units.