A New Zealand Bren carrier

[Lynn Eades]

My project has been 25 years in the making, with most of it happening in the last 6 or 7.
As a rivet counter rather than a historian, I would say that many articles on carriers have been less than satisfactory in their accuracy or details.
This is even worse when the topic is the early carriers from this side of the globe.I hope here to address a few grey areas.

[Lynn Eades]

Part Two. The New Zealand riveted carrier was a direct copy of a British Bren carrier, designed around the use of a Light Machine Gun (LMG), (the Bren), while the Australian LP1 Was A Machine gun carrier designed around the Vickers Medium Machine Gun (MMG)

[The Bedford Boys]

Lynn, have you sent a copy of these to the NZMVC Bulletin team? They are looking for good material such as this.

[Lynn Eades]

Part three.

[Lynn Eades]

Part four.

[Lynn Eades]

Part Five.

[Lynn Eades]

Part six. Riveting

[Lynn Eades]

Part Seven. The painted hull.

[Lynn Eades]

Part Eight....

[Big D]

Hi Lynn,

Great story and a great project!

When is the next episode being released?

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Lynn,

Amazing project and great piece of research and restoration work!

Thanks for sharing with us.

Best regards,
Hanno

[Michael R.]

"Chris and I bought a small piece of land in the country. We loaded our house stuff on a trailer and shifted to a rental. We bought seven shipping containers and shifted the shite from my shed out onto our bit of dirt. We built a building (small house, large shed) (house still not finished) and seven years later, we opened the seven containers to see what was in there. It was like Christmas (for me)"

Recommended reading!

Sources known to be reliable in the past indicate there is video to follow ...
After all, if you haven't got video . . .

[Ben]

Great work Lynn.......... well done.

[T Creighton]

Congratulations Lynn.
I was so impressed with what I saw and heard when I visited a week ago.
Regards, Terry.

[Keith Webb]

What a great story well told Lynn!
I enjoyed reading each unfolding episode. It's given me a really good idea of not just the research and acquisition as well as fabrication of parts, but also of the human side of fitting in this sort of project with family life.
Well done.

[Mike Cecil]

In episode I, Lynn stated that:

"Its W.D. number was T2831 and its British Registration number was HMH384 (this info comes from Nigel
Watsons Universal Carriers Vol.1 and was at odds with Mike Cecil’s early(but wonderful) Profiles book
which described T2831 as a Bren no2 Mk1. (Mike corrected this in a later publication)".


Actually Lynn, you'll have to refresh my memory, as I'm not sure I ever did 'correct' the nomenclature. In my defence, the information on the original census card from the RAC Tank Museum (yes, I do go back to primary sources where I possibly can!), has three lines for the group of carriers with registrations issued under contract no. T3888: line one states '1st 150 Arm MG Carrier No.2 Mk.1' Second line states 'next 250 Bren Carrier No.2 Mk.1' and the third line as '26 Bren Carrier No.2 Mk2'. My mistake was misreading the card as being all Bren No.2, (Mks 1 & 2) rather than the first 150 as 'Armoured MG Carrier No.2 Mk.1' I also missed the obvious cue from the Registration issue list, which clearly states T2831, reg HMH384, followed by the word 'Australia', and followed by 'Carrier MG No.2Mk.1'. Mae maxima culpa. But, again in my rather (flimsy) defence some 25 years after publication, the issue list page heading states 'Bren Carriers, Machine Gun, No.2 Mk1' - so again, I missed the fact that, starting at reg T2831, the vehicles were actually 'MG Carriers', not Bren carriers as per the page heading, thus compounding my error. Oh well.

However, despite the above blunder, 'LP Carriers 1939 to 1945' remains the most comprehensive book available on Australian carriers, and every carrier owner should have at least one copy in their library! Those that have not can purchase a copy direct from me..... (and those discerning readers who already have a copy should scribble over the word 'Bren' on page 8.... )

Mike

[Lynn Eades]

Mike, What can I say. Back in the day, no internet, research done by mail. You did a great job! You book is as you stated, The best book on these machines ever produced!
I treasure mine.
I never went back to the source, on this. A friend told me that you had corrected in a later publication? Jeff Plowman and Nigel Watson have errors as well, but over all you guys have recorded history as best you can with the info you were able to gather, providing us plebs with amazing resources, that we are very grateful for.

For me, the reason for showing this, was to delineate between the N.Z. produced Bren, and the very different Australian LP1. where in many early publications from the other side of the globe,where ours are described as a copy of yours (N.Z.-Aust) That is to say they were each copied from different machines.

No offence meant to anyone.

[Mike Cecil]

Lynn,

Thanks for that but as I said, mae maxima culpa on that one. When I read your missive, I went back to square one to see why/how I stuffed that one up, and that explanation is above. All became crystal clear when I reefed out the original doc copies from Bovington, in the light of knowing the correct nomenclature. And AWM 126 didn't help, as it just has 'Carrier No.2 Mk1' without further elaboration.

Nice job with your text. A printed copy is going into the reference library, of course.

Mike

[maple_leaf_eh]

Originally Posted by Lynn Eades

Part Seven. The painted hull.

"Also, a new cam plate off a cad drawing from Ben. Btw. it’s tricky cutting a half circle with a hole saw."

Hold the drill at an angle?