WD / Census Number tags

[ted angus]

Committees, committees, committees! numerous committees are mentioned in the report I quoted. Away from the military it was a miracle the civilian services were ready for war when it came. ARP was a local authority responsibility, however for the mass of fire fighting kit the HO envisaged to be required, standardisation had to prevail, they and the OoW also knew to produce all this stuff in the time they perceived as being availible, action was needed not words. Strange there were dissenters even in those dark days there was a least one London borough that took no part in ARP and everything for them was run by HQ 5 region.
The Imperial Defence committee and various others were involved. plus the ERC as hose had to be imported initially from France then from the USA. Lots of legislation had to be passed to enable central gov to pay for all the emergency fire equipment, and then issue it into the care of local authorities. However it all happened and just in the nick of time.
Initially vehicles used by the ARP/CD rescue services, ambulance and casualty services, anti -gas org etc were found by the relevant local authority hence the butchers vans and builders trucks suddenly taking on new roles.
Time progressed several bulk orders for rescue vehicles were placed by the HO and from the info contained in the report I quoted, such orders would again have been through OoW. These included the Austin K3 (and lesser quantity of Bedford OW) column rescue tenders (GUU and GXA and GLY reg).
also smaller batches of Fordson WOA2 light rescue vehicles operated by the GPO and CD services, other light rescue trucks were based on Austin K2 and Fordson WOT3 GS trucks. The CD rescue and Salvage service also had batches of International tippers and Cranes imported from the US. see attached . All the aforementioned were registered in the familiar LCC blocks. In any order placed by the HO (unless an item was to a specific one off requirement), a portion of any order would be for Scotland. Scottish Office reps sat alongside the HO reps at all the relevant committees.
This would cover all the vehicles we have mentioned so those sent north bore the LCC reg- just as vehicles in the post 1948 AFS/CD org did. So this would be the case for motor cycles allocated to CD/AFS/NFS north of the border.
Ambulances came from a variety of funds. Many were converted cars , vans etc and continued to carry their existing reg number. THe war organisation of BRC and St Johns (funded through donations) were able to order (I presume via MoS) a large number of the familiar military pattern Austin K2 , these were used in convoy mainly to move military casualties from ports to railway stations then from the destination station to war hospitals etc. These had LCC blocks of reg numbers. post D Day they operated ambulance convoys from the CCSs to Mulberry running in France with LCC reg numbers.
Another organisation operating LCC registered K2s was the AMERCAN AMBULANCE GREAT BRITIAN org, funded by a USA charity called the US Field Service these vehicles again bore LCC blocks of reg numbers.

I have never found evidence of central buying of Ambulances;
If the vehicles in question were donated to a particular town or city or funded by a local authority I would expect a local registration, It seems throughtout the war, the provision of ambulances remained a local authority responsibility hence they would normally carry a local reg number. Again this practice was to be seen in post 1948 new buys of CD ambulances , thery frequently bore a registration reflecting county or borough of allocation. Time to close
TED

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

I have just started a new thread with info on wartime civvy Chevrolets which I shall update/improve in due course. The ERC minutes show that by late 1940/early 1941 some members were getting fractious about the surfeit of ambulances that were being donated, or hoisted on to the government departments. They understandably would have preferred chassis and chassis-cabs for essential user work but the US donations were of course hamstrung by the Neutrality Acts. Of course Fords also came over, donated by a host of people and organisations. Recipients of donated vehicles for ambulance, canteen, food drops, etc. included British Red Cross, British-American Ambulance Corps, St John Ambulance, Church Army, Salvation Army, Church of Scotland.

I would be interested to know who was responsible for NAAFI vehicles, as they received Dagenham-built civvy-registered Fordson vans for instance, as well as heavier chassis for mobile canteens. Then there were the Queens Messengers / Ministry of Food Guy Ants, Fordson 7V vehicles...it goes on! Something to be discussed again.

I would finish though by mentioning Red Cross vehicles. It seems that Polish RC Chevrolets, presumably funded in part by Americans, were registered as military vehicles in the Polish series. However, British RC ambulances that I know of had civvy regos but in some cases were driven by FANY drivers, and allocated to military bases.

[ted angus]

Re Naafi vehicles, there were 2 arms to Naafi, during WW2 in UK purely civillian manned, I do not recall seeing anything special about reg numbers possibly all registered from the NAAFI HQ in London. But nothing I have seen leads me to believe they were from HMG LCC blocks.
In operational areas overseas the title became NAAFI/EFI EFI = Expeditionary Forces Institute. under the control of RASC all personnel were in uniform and RASC badged but unarmed. Mobile canteens were supplied by Naafi , all other vehicles by WD so I presume these carried a WD census./ I will have a dig through my pictures.
Re B R C I think there major war role was in direct support of HMF often up to the front line in N W Europe.
TED

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Several photos of a Dagenham Motors conversion of a E83W NAAFI Refreshment Van has the rego FGW 920.