Royal Navy vehicles

[rewdco]

Last one before somebody thinks that I'm trying to hijack this forum
A Royal Enfield CO this time (this is not a WD/CO, but one of the 100 “Model CO” motorcycles which were ordered by the Royal Navy in 1941). If anybody would have any other war time pictures of these fine motorcycles I'm always interested!

Jan

[T. Metsovitis]

This David Brown Roadless pic was canned from a mag. Are there any more photos out there of this fully tracked version. I for one, had never seen it before.

Fyll

[Richard Farrant]

Originally Posted by T. Metsovitis

This David Brown Roadless pic was canned from a mag. Are there any more photos out there of this fully tracked version.

Hi Fyll,

I am not sure whether Roadless had any input on this tractor, but early in the war, the Air Ministry instructed David Brown to produce a tracked tractor for airfield use. Apparantly there was problems with the tracks causing damage at the air bases and the tractors were converted to wheeled Taskmasters. I believe this was all detailed in a history of David Brown. The tractor's original designation was TAG1. The fact that the RAF used Roadless Fordsons as well, makes me wonder about this story, but it does at least authenticate the crawler, of which about 550 were supposed to have been built.

[Andrew Morrison]

To bring a CMP into this thread I have seen the remains of 15 cwt bodies with RN in white letters on the sides in Australia.

Would these have been local supply from Australian manufactured vehicles or imported by the RN from the UK? There were after all plenty of CMP vehicles parked up across the country at the time.

This was a few years ago and cannot remember if they were local or Canadian type.

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by Andrew Morrison

To bring a CMP into this thread I have seen the remains of 15 cwt bodies with RN in white letters on the sides in Australia.

Would these have been local supply from Australian manufactured vehicles or imported by the RN from the UK? There were after all plenty of CMP vehicles parked up across the country at the time.

This was a few years ago and cannot remember if they were local or Canadian type.

During the later stages of the Pacific war, the RN sent out aircraft carriers and other vessels to Australia , places like Sydney were buzzing with RN units . They were building up for the expected invasion of the Japanese mainland. I do know of a restored C8AX that was marked with RN on the doors .The owner attempted to trace its histroy through RN archives , but came up with nothing .

Maybe these vehicles were on loan or purchased even .Or maybe the RN officially or unofficially pilfered a few vehicles from the islands as deck cargo.
We will never know the full story .Many vehicles changed ownership with a few bottles of booze as payment .

114892
Physical description: Black & white
Summary: SYDNEY HARBOUR, NSW. 1945-09-06. THE ROYAL NAVY MIDGET SUBMARINE, THE XE4 EXITER, CRUISING ROUND THE HARBOUR.


Mike

[T. Metsovitis]

Quite by chance I found the book "Moving Bases, Royal Navy Maintenance Carriers and Monabs" by Cmdr David Hobbs. In it are quite a few pictures of interesting vehicles. I was fascinated by the workshops based on Bedford QLTs.









There was also this airborne radar maintenance vehicle based on an Ausin K6 crew bus:



Fyll

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by T. Metsovitis

Quite by chance I found the book "Moving Bases, Royal Navy Maintenance Carriers and Monabs" by Cmdr David Hobbs. In it are quite a few pictures of interesting vehicles.

Fyll,

Great pics, thanks!

Hanno