Canadian Chevrolet Maple Leaf 4x4 artillery tractors?

[nuyt]

Hello,

In 1940 or 1941 the Dutch East Indies Army (KNIL) acquired a large batch of 4x4 artillery tractors. The information I have on these vehicles is sketchy and pictures are rare and often unclear. I have lately seen some film footage that featured them.

Word is they were Canadian built Chevrolet 1 1/2 ton. My own research tells me they were used for towing 105mm Bofors howitzers, 75mm Krupp field guns and Bofors 40mm AA guns by KNIL. Some 200 were probably available, presumably all or almost all used on Java. In KNIL they were called Maple Leaf's.

On the scarce pictures it looks like the truck was very similar to the 1 1/2 ton 4x4 GMC ACK-353 cargo truck (as shown in Bart Vanderveen's MV directory, latest edition), except for the body that looked like some other GMC pre-WW2 prime mover's bodys. It also resembled 4x4 Dodge 1 1/2 ton trucks (T203). A spare wheel was carried in a frame between cabin and body.

The KNIL vehicles were usually right hand drive and rarely had their cabin doors fitted.

I do not know much more about these vehicles, but I would appreciate very much if someone could tell me more. Were these vehicles really ACK-353's converted to artillery tractors? Or Dodge's? Was it an existing model, as used by other nations (US?) in early or pre-war years? Or was it a purpose built or locally converted model? GM had a very good assembly plant in the Dutch East Indies (at Tandjong Priok, the port of them capital Batavia-now Jakarta) that did a lot of converting work for the Dutch Indies military.

Kind regards,
Nuyt