1941 Chevrolet Portee

[cliff]

Originally Posted by Tony Smith

Some interesting points:
2pdr guns are quite rare in NZ and as all of the pics I have seen of NZ Portees show them unladen, it is open to conjecture wether any guns returned to NZ at all, only the Portees.

Tony the lack of 2pdr guns in New Zealand today could be because they were either all cut up and scrapped at the end of their life or sold in bulk overseas. My Brother-in-law remembers cutting up Vickers MG's and other small arms for scrap in his early service days. I also think that the guns were not taken from storage very often as New Zealands Armed Services were down sized very quickly at the end of the war and money for practice would have been tight for quite some time. Loading the guns would produce un-needed wear on both guns and trucks.

The lack of headlights could be because they were rarely off Army property as they are also not showing any NZ registration plates as Military Vehicles must be registered the same as any other vehicle to enable use on public roads. In 1989 we also had to paint (in black) "New Zealand Army" and the area of it's base (e.g. Auckland) on the doors of our Unimogs and other heavy transport to comply with Transport regulations. The police Traffic department at the time also tried to get all Military Drivers to have the appropriate grade of licence to drive vehicles on Public Roads as well. As we were a Medical Unit the Ambulance Drivers needed to have the equivilent Civilian Emergency Services Drivers Licence and to drive a bus load of troopers you needed a Civilian Bus licence. Common sence prevailed and the equivilent Heavy Transport and trailer licence was all that was required in the end.