British Vehicle New Guinea

[Mike K]

The Bedford water truck is seen at 8.36

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C256033

[Lang]

Mike

I love the play on the quartermaster.

A string of people are told "No. We only have one left and if we gave it to you we would not have any in stock for someone who wanted one"

At least he got his new shoelace after proving it was actually broken and having to hand in the broken one before he got the new item. The signature is absolutely essential.

Lang

[Maurice Donckers]

Hi Lang , there is no shear pin on an AEC matador winch , at overload a rod will push the diesel injection pump to the engine stop position , the winch is capable to pull 7 tons , so with the double snatch blocks provided with the truck, it should be able to pull more than the 7 tons the truck itself weights ,

[Lang]

Thanks for that Maurice I knew there had to be some sort of safety feature.

It is amazing how difficult it is to get a vehicle seriously bogged like this out of a hole. The winch may be able to lift the truck if you had a sky-hook but dragging it horizontally is often another matter. Finding something to hook the cable on to is also a common problem - I doubt a coconut tree would hold 7 tons. The back looks as full as a Catholic School bus so probably 14 tons might be more like it?

Great info on another fail-safe system.

Lang

[Phil Waterman]

Originally Posted by Lang

Thanks for that Maurice I knew there had to be some sort of safety feature.

It is amazing how difficult it is to get a vehicle seriously bogged like this out of a hole. The winch may be able to lift the truck if you had a sky-hook but dragging it horizontally is often another matter. Finding something to hook the cable on to is also a common problem - I doubt a coconut tree would hold 7 tons. The back looks as full as a Catholic School bus so probably 14 tons might be more like it?

Great info on another fail-safe system.

Lang

Hi Lang

I'll look for a picture in a recovery manual, which shows using logs to lift a truck out a ditch with a winch. Basically it shows standing the log on end with winch cable over the top. If remember the photos/drawings correct it shows it being done the a single log straight line pull essential or two logs as trypod which makes more sense.

As to safety point on winches like found on CMPs I think the primary safety factor on over loading the winch is between the operators ears. Having used the winch on my C60L Pat 13 a lot I'm convinced the winch is quite capable of folding the truck into horseshoe, or at least bending it to the point where the winch drive shaft pops out.

Had the occasion to use the winch on my truck in with some current duty service men and they were quite impressed with the fact that the cable could be run out front or rear, but when the winch started pulling a heavy tree snag wit the engine ticking over at idle.

Cheers Phil

[Mike Cecil]

That film was a nice find, Mike, thanks for posting the link.

I liked the various views of the Sperry S/L and S/L generator set. The AWM has an excellent example of the four wheel generator set, but I was never able to locate a descent enough example of the searchlight, its external controller, and the interlinking cables.

As to winching, I managed to get a SWB Landcruiser bogged in a coastal creek in a remote part of Wilsons Prom many years ago, with the tide coming in. No big trees, so I ran the cable out and double-backed through the scrub and hooked onto the winch cable to make a loop. When it wound in, it gathered the scrub into the middle of the loop, like a wheat sheaf, till eventually there was enough strength in all those little bushes to haul the Landcruiser free. Made quite a mess! Never told my National Parks contact.

Mike

[Maurice Donckers]

In the tool boxes under the body are a load of ground anchors , which should be capable to hold more then 15tons in good ground , so a coconut tree is not always needed

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C256033

The AWM site has at times been criticised for it's collection descriptions. This item description, however, could properly be described as "Comprehensive".

[DaveBuckle]

Thanks Mikes and Lang for all the info in this post - I have been trying to piece together info on CMPs used with searchlights in PNG as remembered to me by a 2/19 btn veteran.
AWM narrowed it down to 6th or 8th Division.
Any more info gladly received.

[Lang]

Dave

2/19th Battalion AIF was a part of 8th Division which was captured in Singapore. Of approximately 1,500 men the battalion suffered the highest casualties of an Australian WW2 unit - about 75 KIA and 545 either starved, worked to death or murdered by the Japanese. If your veteran was in the 2/19 Battalion he certainly was not in New Guinea.

If his unit number was 19th Battalion (no "2" in front of the name) this was a militia battalion not AIF and was in New Guinea. They were initially attached to 3(militia) Division then to 5 (militia) Division. Their first operational role was toward the end of the war in New Britain. They were never a part of 6,7 or 9 AIF Divisions. You can read about the 19th Battalion in the carrier forum "carriers in Darwin" .

The militia (Citizen Military Forces/Army Reserve/Territorials etc similar to the American National Guard) was for much of the war dedicated to home defence and banned by law from being sent overseas. The regulations were changed and they were allowed to be used in Papua New Guinea (because they were Australian administered territories). The bulk of the major operations were still undertaken by the volunteer AIF 6,7 and 9 Divisions.

An infantry battalion of course would have no contact with searchlights but could well have been near to them at some stage.

Lang

[DaveBuckle]

Thanks Lang.
I did leave out a lot of info in my short reply.
He escaped the fall of Singapore in the nick of time in his pyjama pants while convalescing from injuries sustained earlier - in the area where the massacre of the left-behind injured happened.
He spent time back in Aus recovering and then '"training recruits to salute"'.
He hated this and wanted back in the action - due to his injured arm he could not be returned to infantry and thus accepted the role on searchlights.
He recalled the American searchlights being so much better and that the Blitzes were green and brown (not all green as in Malaya) and rough to ride in.
He was protecting airfields around/at Salamaua and Finschaffen.
So maybe I missed info from him about what/which unit he was with once redeployed in PNG.
He has a sharp memory, so will get some more info when I see him on ANZAC Day.
With your added info now in the fold am getting close.
Many thanks -

[Lang]

Dave

What you should do immediately before he dies, for both him and his family, is get his military records. These are available on line. Many have been digitalised but if they have not, they will quickly be copied on request. His records should make great reading.

Start here:

http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/exp...army-wwii.aspx

What they also will do is jog his memory to remind him of people and places he has forgotten and as he has reached the stage of not buying ripe bananas someone should sit with him with a voice recorder and ask questions and let him run.

As an 8th Division man it means he was early into the war so must be looking at reaching his century very soon.

So easy to do but it will be lost forever in the blink of an eye. Make the effort to suggest all this to his family - soon!

Lang

[Mike Cecil]

To add another aspect to Lang's post about AIF and Militia units, after the re-organisation of the Army in 1942, Militia units could elect to become an AIF unit, by a vote of unit personnel (how democratic!)

To convert to AIF, at least 75% of a unit's listed personnel had to vote in favour of becoming an AIF unit, which then lifted any restrictions on where the unit was deployed.

Units that did elect to 'go AIF' then appended the suffix (AIF) after the unit title, but were not permitted to use the prefix '2/' before the unit title, which was reserved for those units that had been specifically raised as second AIF units.

Many units elected to 'go AIF' between 1942 and 1945.

Festberg (1972) shows that the 19th Infantry Battalion (The South Sydney Regiment) elected to 'go AIF' but he does not provide a GRO reference for the change, which is odd. It is the only reference I know of that claims the unit elected to 'go AIF', all others referring to it simply as 19 Inf Bn, including several date-specific references I have and the recently-published work of McKenzie-Smith on Australian units.

19 Inf Bn were part of 1 Aust Infantry Division in NSW from mid-September 1942 to July 1943, when the unit moved to NG and under command 11 Aust Infantry Division. When moved to New Britain in 1944, it became part of 5 Aust Infantry Division.

Getting far away from a bogged Matador, but interesting nevertheless.

Mike