"1942 Marmon-Herrington ID Plate Chinese Truck" - Chinese, anyone?!?

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally posted by ericnuyt
I think no MH's were shipped to China. They never left the US and were rejected by Chinese officials IN the US (well, that's how I understood it and it may be wrong of course)

The "Chinese" Marmon-Herringtons were NOT ordered by China but by the US in a later stage than the KNIL order. Of course the two orders must have messed up fragile production processes within the MH company!

So there were two orders of light tanks to MH: one KNIL of 234, one US (to be handed out in China) of 240!

Both orders were fullfilled/completed.

No KNIL tanks were shipped to China: Remember after deliveries to KNIL in Dutch East and West Indies, to Australia and after LL deliveries to Latin-America, hardly any MH tank remains unaccounted for.

Nuyt, those 240 Marmon-Herrington tanks were not actually ordered by the US Ordnance Department. They were the balance of the non-delivered KNIL order, out of a total of 628 light and medium tanks (which I can't believe were all actually manufactured even though they were reportedly paid for). Ordnance took possession of this stock (probably had unfished examples assembled) and redesignated the CTLS-4TAC and -4TAY as Light Tank T14 and T16. They were used for training and guarding remote bases on Alaska (Dutch Harbor, see pic below) and Newfoundland.
But as the US Army really had no need for them, the US government supplied them under the Military Assistance Program to the Netherlands goverment (Surinam and West Indies), various Latin-American countries (Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico) and, reportedly, China.
I would not be surprised those "82 Miscellaneous Tanks" as delivered to China under the MAP were actually Marmon-Herringtons. But as I have not found favourable reports about these tanks (even though some of them soldiered on until the 1950s!), it could well be the Chinese rejected the rest of the order after receiving this initial batch. This point will need further research. What are your sources?

Regards,
Hanno
Marmon-Herrington military vehicles in service: the Netherlands

mh-light-tank-alaska.jpg