Post-war British CMPs

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Does anyone have any evidence of refurbishment and re-use of CMPs and CMP-based vehicles by the British forces from say 1947 onwards? I know that the C15AA Ambulance lasted in service to 1957 but was there considerable use of CMPs including in Germany? This contrasts with other European. Asian and Australasian countries of course!

Whilst referring to British use, did many come back from Canada for use by post-war Canadian forces in Europe?

[gordon]

Elsewhere in Europe vehicle production industries were trashed, so people were happy to use and re-use WW2 stuff.

I've had the impression for a while that the UK Govenment was keen to get vehicle manufacture restarted within the UK, and so limited numbers of vehicles were re-conditioned for the UK forces. I know a lot of vehicles were rebuilt for sale and for export, but don't know of big rebuild programmes for vehicles sourced outside the UK.

OK, fair cop, two exceptions;

1. My MH-Ford was reconditioned by the Ministry of Supply, but that's hardly a big-quantity item.

2. DUKWs were so obviously the correct tool for the job that they got production-line rebuilds somewhere in the NW of England up till not long before they got surplussed, in fact the marines still have a few.

... but apart from that.

Gordon

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

Gordon, I know that some DUKWs were indeed refurbished for the Ministry of Supply circa 1948. I would be interested to be reminded as to what new-build trucks the government acquired for the 1948-on period...Bedfords? I seem to remember that after 1950 there were Humber, Bedford, Austin, trucks plus Champs of course.

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

I had a quick search and found out that there were in fact possibly very few new military trucks until say the Conservatives came to power again under Churchill in 1951.
http://www.rememuseum.org.uk/vehicles/mwv/vehalbn.htm
http://www.rememuseum.org.uk/vehicles/mwv/vehcomq4.htm

explains. I am pretty certain that the Ministry of Supply bought back hundreds of refurb'd military Bedfords that were rebuilt by say Marshall's in Cambridge under Vauxhall contract. Lincoln Cars Limited in Brentford rebuilt Carriers for post-war use as well as thousands of ex-WD Ford V-8s for further use. There were still some dealers that rebuilt Ford/Fordsons as well. I can imagine that British vehicles plus Jeeps were the flavour of the time, as CMPs, GMC trucks other than DUKWs and other US trucks saving Diamond Ts were deemed to be too expensive to maintain for British post-war use.

Can anyone confirm any substantive use of CMPs/CMP-based vehicles in British service 1948-50? Off-loading them to overseas Commonwealth countries presumably solved a problem and there was then no requirement to maintain them at British government expense?

This brings into mind a query as to whether Ford and GM of Canada produced any parts for CMPs/CMP-based vehicles post-war? I would have thought that there was so much stockpiled stocks that there was no need. I have read that by early 1946 Willys-Overland had stopped producing any parts for wartime Jeeps and then the concentration was on the post-war models. Magazine adverts at the time show that there was a huge amount of new and rebuilt parts and engines that were being offered by companies.