WW2 Canadian, Australian and New Zealand Transport

[Keith Webb]

Ford were based (and still are there) in Geelong which is a port city not far from Melbourne. The main General Motors Holden factory was at Fishermens Bend which is adjacent to Melbourne. GM-H assembled CMPs in most Australian capital cities. They also had greater body building facilities and were responsible for most of the locally built GS bodies as well as a lot of the specialised bodies on CMPs here.
Ford did build some of the specialised bodies for their own chassis such as No8 and 9 gun tractors, while GM-H also built their own version, which may seem strange for small production runs but they had integral cabs which had different floors.

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

With regards to Dutch shipping during WW2, my Mum travelled in a convoy from Liverpool to Algeria aboard the SS Volendam in late 1941 early 1942. She was with the NAAFI at the time.

With regards to the wartime CMP activity across the Pacific, firstly, 'Holden' is associated with General Motors in Australia. Where were Ford's operations based? Also, did most sea traffic arrive at one particular port, or was it spread around as much as possible? I seem to remember reading about a large military base somewhere on the West Coast of Australia where a number of CMP vehicles were abandoned after the war. Not sure I ever heard why.

David