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WW1 British Truck photos


LarryH57

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I found this old photo of these British Trucks in Italy and no doubt Tony Gosling and others can say what make they are and possibly the unit that used them.

 

The second photo shows a horse ambulance possibly photographed in France or Belgium in WW1. What is strange about it is that the rear body swivels and the men can be seen pushing it round towards the ramp. But why bother with such an arrangement when access just from the rear would have been good enough?

 

I look forward to your comments.

British Army Trucks in Italy in WW1.jpg

British Army WW1 Horse Ambulance.jpg

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Regarding the second photo, probably got the horsebox body on a turntable so the horses could be loaded forwards unloaded forwards. Not seen that before, but this would have been the advent of horse transport. The wheels on the lorry look like Thornycroft, but that is only my guess.

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The first is a pair of FWDs.

 

The second, is indeed a Thornycroft. It has a body by Dennis Brothers of Silchester Street, Notting Hill, London, who were known for making horse ambulances. The patent can be found here: https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?DB=EPODOC&II=0&ND=3&adjacent=true&locale=en_EP&FT=D&date=19171029&CC=GB&NR=110782A&KC=A#

 

I've some more photos of this contraption, which I'll post later (unless someone beats me to it).

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It's an interesting idea Richard that the horses might have preferred looking out and facing the direction of travel, but then the tilt would be open at the front so would submit the horses to a cold breeze, as the truck raced along at 25 mph which might not be good for the horse's health! And if the horse didn't care which way it faced with the tilt pulled down on all sides, why bother with the swivel?

 

Another possibility is that loading or unloading from the side might be useful if these trucks were unloading horses from a train, and rather than back up the truck to each carriage they could simply drive in as a column and park beside the door with enough space to turn the rear to face the train, and be at the approximate height of the carriage floor.

Edited by LarryH57
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Yes, the patent makes clear that, "the ambulance may in some cases be drawn up alongside a platform and the body be turned into a transverse position for unloading."

 

Anyway, some more pictures from a contemporary magazine:

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=126542&stc=1

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=126543&stc=1

 

attachment.php?attachmentid=126544&stc=1

 

As can be seen, when travelling the horses would be sheltered from the headwind by the forage compartment.

Thornycroft J Horse Box 1.jpg

Thornycroft J Horse Box 2.jpg

Thornycroft J Horse Box 3.jpg

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Now that's a different style of body to construct on a truck. As I don't have any horses it's use would be very limited.

Another aspect of this is the turntable arrangement. I have a Thornycroft chassis ( 1913-14) with raised chassis cross members over the back axle. These are some 3-4 inches higher than the chassis rail made of heavy pipe with a flat centre section. Not to be confused with the arched cross members as used on latter Thornycroft chassis. These are factory made as the castings numbers are all in sequence to other chassis parts. For what purpose the raised sections were used for has been a puzzle. It is too early for an anti aircraft gun so this horse box is a possibility.

Doug

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Assuming the rotating horsebox was just mounted as you suggest on a raised section of the chassis, then this mounting would have had to be made of something strong to withstand the load forces, front to back and side to side, as the vehicle moved unless there were some form of stay arms?

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As Richard states in the second post, the rotating body was designed so that the horses could be loaded and unloaded walking forwards, remember this is a horse Ambulance, there could have been some difficulty in getting an injured horse to walk backwards.

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