Boggy road in Holland

[Mike K]

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/i...782.1549063856

[chrisgrove]

That surprised me!
Chris

[Jon Bradshaw]

A few different trucks there. I was surprised to see what looked like a tow truck/ wrecker with a set of wheel tracks fitted. Never seen them before in a WW2 picture. You would think that they would have been really handy for any 6 wheel trucks to have. Which would have made them more common hence more pics of them.

[Lang]

Just reading a book "Countdown to Victory" by Barry Turner about the last year of the war particularly in the North Europe/Montgomery area.

The Dutch blokes will be able to tell us more but I always thought the northern front was one continuous sweeping curve along the North Sea coast through Belgium/Holland/Germany, but not so.

The entire aim was the Rhine and Germany so Holland was bypassed with no immediate intention of wasting troops to liberate it. Both Holland and Denmark were occupied in the main by low class units with reserve type soldiers including many old men and boys so posed little threat to the British left flank. Any "A" grade troops had been moved to the main battle front to defend the German border.

The allies stopped in the south because they had outrun their supply lines and could not easily continue north without access to the German occupied ports. The French and Belgian ports were fully occupied supplying the entire American and British main offensives directly towards the Rhine and Germany. If the Arnhem drops had come off it would have been a different matter.

As a result of the delay during a terrible winter, the Dutch quickly went into a famine situation. Several months went by and by the time the (mainly) Canadians were tasked with liberation (after negotiations for a peaceful take-over with the German authorities) over 20,000 people had starved to death. Neither Churchill nor Roosevelt wanted to supply food to Holland. The former saying they were having enough trouble feeding their own people and Roosevelt fearing this would be the start of USA having to feed the entire hungry European population. They caved in to pressure from the international community and Red Cross.

The political situation in Holland did not make it easy with many Dutch pro-German and tens of thousands voluntarily either fighting or working for the Germans. The Dutch resistance never got off the ground properly because it was infiltrated by the Gestapo from day one and many brave people died, betrayed by their countrymen. It took the British SOE a very long time to realise that the whole system was compromised. The very useful large scale internal disruption caused by the French Resistance behind the lines after D-Day was not available to help in Holland.

Interestingly enough the German administration of Holland was a civilian administration, not military, and as such was arguably legal after the Dutch royal family and government fled to UK leaving a vacuum. The Geneva Convention requires an occupying power to create a working administration in such circumstances. The Germans were just "administering" Holland, with many Dutch in senior positions. Unfortunately the SS commander Hanns Rauter battled for supremacy with the very capable Governor Seyss Inquart who had no control of (but sympathized with) their excesses, particularly with Jews, without any way of blocking their direct SS command line to Himmler. More than half the entire Dutch casualties of the war consisted of Jews (100,000+) deported by the SS. The Dutch workers went on strike in 1941 to protest the deportations but this was quickly suppressed. Seyss Inquart approved the execution of 800 strikers for which he himself was executed in 1946.

In 1944, because all the nearby ports except badly damaged and limited capacity, Antwerp, were held by the Germans, relief supplies could not be brought in during the worst winter for decades.

Several starving months passed before there were two face to face meetings between the German Reich's Commissar for Holland, Seyss Inquart (blindfolded to drive to the meeting), firstly with General de Guingard (British Army Chief of Staff) then a few days later with General Bedell Smith (Eisenhower's Chief of Staff)

As a result, in the 10 days from 28 April British and American aircraft dropped 14.5 million individual ration packages. On 30 April the Germans allowed convoys of British and American vehicles to pass through the lines to bring food supplies so long as they agreed to halt any military ground operations north of the "Grebbe Line" near Utrecht. This suited the allies fine because they immediately transferred troops to the main Rhine battles. Hanno's Operation Faust" thread will give you a lot more on this operation.

On 5 May General Blaskowitz surrendered all German forces in Holland without any major battles occurring.

It was a humanitarian disaster on a huge scale but it is debated whether more civilians would have been killed in full-scale fighting if the allies had continued their main push up the coast against a defence by the high quality German units they had to confront on their push more easterly to the Rhine. The delay certainly saved thousands of soldiers and, although there was damage, it saved the total destruction of the beautiful Dutch cities.

Lang

[maple_leaf_eh]

A Second War engineer veteran friend said the road it took men a week to fix, would be pounded in a day by tanks.

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

Mud has no limit to its depth. It will go as deep as it wants. And suck you, your vehicle and your boots in. Don't muck with mud. It will win. And when mud co-conspires with clay...well then, that's the end.

[Peter Duggan]

Guys,

I've always viewed that dealing with the weather, and logistics were almost as challenging as the enemy. I have always admired the dust jacket on this book by G.N. Georgano, perhaps someone can identify the make and model of CMP ?

Thanks, Peter

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Peter Duggan

Guys,

I've always viewed that dealing with the weather, and logistics were almost as challenging as the enemy. I have always admired the dust jacket on this book by G.N. Georgano, perhaps someone can identify the make and model of CMP ?

Thanks, Peter


Attachment 105589

What a neat pic. Underneath all the muddy water is a Chev 12 cab with what looks like a 101" wheelbase. It's a British tractor because of the H census number. And what a number. It starts on the cowl, then continues on the radiator overflow can and finishes on...what? Is that a door? If so it's backwards as it should hinge on the rear if a regular 12 cab. The star on the bonnet would suggest NW Europe.

[Mike K]

Is it A converted portee to tractor

[Tony Smith]

It is indeed a Chev Portee (with 42 Cab, not 12 Cab), but I think it is not yet converted, it looks like it is still a 2Pdr Portee (H class was used in the original Portee configuration and also for a 17Pdr Tractor, but they switched to L class when converted to GS). The conversion to either 17Pdr Tractor or GS involved moving the fuel tanks from behind the cab back wall to alongside the chassis.

This truck on the book cover (although well equipped with other accessories like a signal wire cable reel and a vice on the front bumper), still has one of the hand winch crank handles on the side of the cab. Neither the 17Pdr Tractor or the GS conversions retained the hand winch on the rear body, which was used to load the 2Pdr up onto the rear deck. It looks like a embarkation stencil on the windscreen and an ETO air recognition roundel on the bonnet, so evidence of a Portee in Europe in 1944, and it still only has one single blackout headlamp!

Great photo!

[Mike K]

Some examples of these cab 12 portees are found in NZ today. Back in the 1970's one example turned up in a sawmill in Gippsland , my informer told me he went back but it had been moved somewhere unknown. I actually saw the pics and it was in very good condition.

[Tony Smith]

Originally Posted by Mike Kelly

Some examples of these cab 42 portees are found in NZ today.

I can think of another 8, besides mine, but only one is still in Portee configuration, the others having being converted to 17Pdr tractor or GS.

Quite different to the Australian 12 Cab 30cwt Portees.

[Davistine Liddle]

Originally Posted by Peter Duggan

Guys,

I've always viewed that dealing with the weather, and logistics were almost as challenging as the enemy. I have always admired the dust jacket on this book by G.N. Georgano, perhaps someone can identify the make and model of CMP ?

Thanks, Peter


Attachment 105589

Here the exact page from the book ...Its an Early Chevy CGT(Chevy Gun Tractor)..

[Alex van de Wetering]

Here the exact page from the book ...Its an Early Chevy CGT(Chevy Gun Tractor).

Definately not a CGT, but indeed a portee or ex-portee as stated by others. Also, the truck waiting on the bank is a 3Ton truck with early GS body, not a 30cwt.

Boggy road in Holland

Lovely video, Mike! I am pretty sure that's Beltring a few years ago, though....

Alex

[Davistine Liddle]

Thank you Alex and thank you all ..still learning ...