Another Bren Carrier Found!

[jimvette59]

Great to see these vehicles resurrected. I worked at a State institution on Long Island when a tank that was used as a bulldozer was buried and subsequently dug up, restored and is now owned by a military collector and on display on the east and of Long Island.

[Ian NZ]

I have heard, I do not know if it was correct or not that in the islands north of N.Z. there were a lot of Willys & Ford type of jeeps etc driven into the caves and the entrances were sealed off after the war. That would be a good find if you knew where they were.

[Graeme / New Zealand]

Originally Posted by Lawrie

Graeme,I was an apprentice toolmaker at GM in Petone in the 60,s,my mate and I had a 28 tudor model A as our go to work car,it was well worn,another mate drove a truck and told us that they were dumping stuff from the Ford factory in seaview in the reclaim at port road,
We went down at night and there were piles of new mudgaurds ,body parts all pushed in,we got new stub axles and kingpin assys for our model a and a brand new model T rear end assy.
Lawrie

That would be right Lawrie ( you were there). The irony is that Port Road is now the site of Wellingtons Drags.... all those cars running over buried vintage tin.

GB

[blucar]

I don't understand why so many people are so aghast that armies, navies and/or governments would bury, sink, unneeded ordnance, and vehicles at the end of WWII.
I can state from first hand experience that brand new equipment was sitting all over the place, in rail yards military depots, etc.. The question was what to do with it?..
A large number of Jeeps, weapon carriers, etc., were given to farmers for pennies on the dollar.. Many of these vehicles can still be found on farms in Idaho/Montana..
My father would haunt the Army/Navy surplus yards looking for clothing, tools, etc.. that could be put to use.. I had some really neat shirts and pants (wool) that my mother altered, dyed and sewed pearl buttons onto.. The surplus winter boots were really neat in the cold Eastern Idaho winters.. My dad made gun cases out of sheep skin flight suits..
During the mid 1950's I was in the US Army stationed in Germany.. I was in an Ordnance Company.. This was a scant twelve years after WWII had ended. I was amazed how quickly the German cities had been rebuilt, very little of the bombed out buildings seen in the news-reels could be seen.. I have pictures in my photo album from that time period that show low boy trucks in our company motor pool all loaded down with perfectly good flat fendered Jeeps all going to a scrap yard in Frankfort.
We had rendered the Jeeps "unserviceable" by removing the two battery boxes. (military Jeeps had two, left/right) which were thrown into the Jeep with the five tires and wheels stacked into the vehicle. The pictures clearly show the vehicles stacked four high on the low beds. The Germans in Frankfort were not to happy with us.. We secured the load with cables and chains which were drew down so tight the Jeeps were badly crushed.. We did more than render the Jeeps unserviceable, we turned them into junk...

[Bruce Lancaster]

Another wartime yarn. circa 1943 or 4...found it in an autobiography here of a guy who was a minister at the time.
One of his last civilian endeavors was helping run a scrap aluminum drive in his city to get what was supposed to be desperately needed aluminum for our aircraft industry.
Thousands of people had trimmed their collection of cooking pots down to one or two, turned in their lids and ice cube trays, searched the junk in the garage, and put their kids to work stacking up gum wrappers and old bits of foil to support the war effort. Vast effort and real sacrifices by a lot of people produced about a truckload heap of aluminum.
Then the guy went into the Navy and was assigned to an aircraft carrier as its chaplain.
After its combat cruise, it returned to the west coast to refit and to replace its battle weary and obsolescent planes with an entire new air wing.
As it entered US waters and headed for port, it cleared out the space needed for its new planes by simply rolling its entire air wing over the sideinto the Pacific...

[Barry-ct]

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THat reminds me of the M-151 series ( AM general and Ford ) Jeeps that were declared surplus and given to alot of countries. The ones here were first cut in half so the people couldn't use them, but if you were a good welder, you could do it. THen they cut them in an "X" pattern and they still welded them together. After that, they were crushing them down to a 6 inch pancake. I got a body from a Air Guard unit that was replaced because of rust and bought 3 crushed ones from a junkyard in NYS near Ft. Drum and put it all back together. You could buy a surplus powerpack in the 80's for $75.00 with low miles. They had a downfall as the rear suspension was indepentdent and would roll easily. THey even put full roll cages on them to try to protect the occupants. I couldn't register it legally here in Conn and sold it to a guy in NH where you could register. It was a spooky ride around corners!
If the Jeeps in Germany were equipped with 2 batteries, they were M-38's and were not that old. THat series was started in 1951 thru 1953. Talk about a waste of taxpayers money.

[51 MERC-CT]

Originally Posted by Bruce Lancaster

Another wartime yarn. circa 1943 or 4...found it in an autobiography here of a guy who was a minister at the time.
One of his last civilian endeavors was helping run a scrap aluminum drive in his city to get what was supposed to be desperately needed aluminum for our aircraft industry.
Thousands of people had trimmed their collection of cooking pots down to one or two, turned in their lids and ice cube trays, searched the junk in the garage, and put their kids to work stacking up gum wrappers and old bits of foil to support the war effort. Vast effort and real sacrifices by a lot of people produced about a truckload heap of aluminum.
Then the guy went into the Navy and was assigned to an aircraft carrier as its chaplain.
After its combat cruise, it returned to the west coast to refit and to replace its battle weary and obsolescent planes with an entire new air wing.
As it entered US waters and headed for port, it cleared out the space needed for its new planes by simply rolling its entire air wing over the sideinto the Pacific...

Yep! as a kid I lived part of the yarn, collecting aluminum as well as old tires (for the rubber). We used to get paid 25 to 50 cents for old bald tires.
Can remember the aluminum piled high inside a chicken wire fence located in the center of town.