RattlesnakeBob

See you on Sunday mate :-D get the beer ...ahem...:-\..the tea ready:-D

Interesting thoughts ... .. I've just finished reading a book Jack recommended on the 51st Highland Division fighting through Normandy and on to Germany in 44/45..........now I know that was during proper 'wartime' but .. ...By late 1944 there is a clear mention in the book of the Division being supplied with Jeeps that had been re-assembled from other smashed / battle damaged / worn out / etc Jeeps.....so..... ...knowing this.... ...any claim that someone owns an 'original' wartime Jeep is surely a bit of wishful thinking isn't it??? Maybe you do have an original one but.....'your' Jeep may well have been the end result of half a dozen others long before the war even ended .....let alone 30 or 40 or 60 years later when you finally get to own it... Yep ..I know if they were assembled out of other wartime Jeeps, then they were still 'original' second world war Jeeps..but it's obvious the procedure of cobbing vehicles together and as Tony said 'making do and mending' was going on way back 'in the day' :laugh:...... ..Personally speaking, I love to see a Jeep ( and any other military vehicle come to that) looking like it has been 'used' rather than looking like some delicate and absolutely immaculate museum piece

Had a great chinwag with Dave one of the main men/organisers for the Vintage Vehicle Show that's coming this Sunday and he said they've had a lot of Military Vehicles booking in for it over the last few weeks :-)!........and !!!!!!!! the weather forecast is great!! So!!!!!!!!! I was just wondering........how many of them are off HMVF ? Anyways!.......Look forward to meeting up

Cracking story there were a lot of Italian POWs in my area too and they were also well thought of. At the biggest pow camp just down the road they built a beautiful concrete memorial which survived for years until our idiot local council demolished it in spite of the Italian embassy in London offering to pay for its upkeep. Try googling 'Marconi. Memorial Forest of Dean' ........ Many of them stayed on around here too and were totally accepted as part of the community . Ps : look on http://www.sungreen.co.uk. For a some great photos & info on the memorial & other wartime activities in The Forest of Dean.

The German 'Great Escape' has been quite well documented over the years by various TV programmes and books . A few years back some ex German POWs went back there for a TV programme and actually found the exit from the tunnel still there under a hedge. The tunnel itself had collapsed but their memories of the event were incredible. A couple of the escapees were re-captured just down the road from me near to Castleford House just outside of Chepstow. They'd somehow stolen a car and had managed to get through the town and over the Wye Bridge at the bottom of the town before (as I recall but I might be wrong?) running out of petrol ....As of a few years ago there was a fair bit of the old camp left to see but (again I'm not 100% sure) I got a feeling it's been demolished now?? Maybe someone down that way can help with any local info????

Have a good run ...... I won't be about on Saturday but I've got one of my Landrovers in the vintage show for the Sunday so see a few of you there hopefully

Thinking about it ...I'm sure that thread I saw regarding the rescue of one of those halftracks was on a US website...possibly the Jeep one...the G503 one maybe?????..

Looks cracking mate.:cheesy:...and at the risk of starting another war along the lines of 'yes it is ! no it isn't !".........I have to agree with you....In my book that's a tank...a real proper living breathing (ok maybe 'little' but still a ) tank!.......armoured reconnaissance vehicle my foot! hahahahah!

I've stayed at this one a few times...10 minutes walk down onto Omaha Beach at the Vierville end....... and there's the remains of the gun emplacements around the old chateau .... right at the end of the camp site just beyond the fence there are a lot of 'Tobruk' emplacements and the remains of slit trenchs to poke about in.......(a fair ol' battle took place to subdue this defence point lasting into the morning of the 7/6/44)......... http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&cp=8&gs_id=u&xhr=t&q=omaha+beach&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&biw=1366&bih=653&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl ah bah..sorry.....my link isn't right on the camp site....it's easy enough to find though .....look at Vierville and to the left up a lane off the main D514 road is the campsite called La Herode....

Mouthwatering.............. not that far in real terms from Australia though boys?.........you might be surprised at what you could get a container on a ship for.........then all you gotta do is a little trip there first with a wad of cash to fill it up .....and probably another larger wad of cash to grease the right palms to let you have it :cool2: by the side of the one Halftrack is a quad .50 mount too.........thats gotta be worth a mint on it's own.... ...thinking of it....I reckon I've seen a post somewhere on a fella recovering one of these halftracks from this scrapyard?.........mmmm where?....

Agree with you .but....I wasn't saying it was ok just because it was an eastern front battlefield .....just pointing out that in that general area an awful lot of folks wouldn't care a hoot about the possibility of finding human remains ....especially if they were the remains of German soldiers... I'm not condoning that attitude in any way at all..just saying that's how it is.

hahah so I did!..found the photos on my computer with a few notes and never twigged where they came from ! sorry ! delete as nescessary

deleted !...duplicate ! :red:

A very valid question mate....after all.....when does it stop being 'grave robbing' and become 'vehicle preservation'...??? seriously now...if you can recover a tank or aircraft (whether for financial gain or not)... then why not a cap badge or a rusty old bayonet you happan across in a French or Belgium field whilst on holiday maybe????.... Let me make quite clear........ I am not in any way advocating marching into a known battlefield and willy nilly start digging holes left right and centre , casting aside anything that doesn't match your criteria of 'collectable'..... ........and neither do I support in any way, the ghoulish behaviour of deliberately digging up items with an intent to sell them for a profit...... ...but it'd be as well to bear this in mind..... ....here on the 'western front' (France / Belgium / Germany) we are conditioned to respect these battlefields and lets be honest , our 'society' would discourage anyone digging up a known battle site... especially one where bodies are almost certainly still lying...... ...however...it's also as well to remember that particularly on the former 'eastern front' you'd often be dealing with a different mindset entirely....... First off..... the fighting there was of such an intensity and bitterness that very little 'respect' was accorded on either side.....not to the living and certainly rarely towards the dead..... ..taking this into account it's easier to see why battlefields on the eastern front were pretty much ignored after the war and hence are still to be found more or less 'as they were' and stuffed with collectable items...........scrap steel (because it was worth money ) was collected and anything else that could assist you in the relatively 'primitive' lifestyle in those parts would be picked up and used........but anything else would have been simply discarded and chucked into the nearest shell hole and forgotten about .....including human remains. To wrap up my opinion I'd have to say ... If i was to see/find a rusty bayonet or whatever lying under a hedge on the side of a meadow or in amongst the leaves in a long abandoned foxhole in a wood I'd pick it up and cherish it as a real memento but I wouldn't contemplate taking a JCB into the woods and setting to

Thos W Ward also broke many other fine civilian ships during their years....one of which (I think?) was the SS Mauretania? There was a Bar for many years in Bristol that went under that name and many of the fine detailings and fittings such as plaster and timber cornices and beautiful panelling and also a huge 'skylight' from one of the Ballrooms on her had all been used to decorate the Pub ....guess these came from Wards indirectly? ....Also Wards main office in Sheffield was decorated in the same manner with exquisite panelling and alabaster busts and ceiling moldings etc from many of the ships....I was told when Wards finally disappeared into RTZ (Rio Tinto Zinc Ltd) that the offices were stripped and modernised and all of these beautiful architectural effects were supposedly 'lost'...:-)

Heartbreaking ........as simple as that..........once proud capital ships of our history... lamped up as if they meant absolutely nothing to this countries heritage......... yeah yeah ......... I know the economic necessities of the time..........still heartbreaking though.:embarrassed: I wish just one .ONE....of our beautiful proper battleships from that era has been preserved to go aboard and look around today....

mm.there's a thought....... maybe that's why the roads are glowing :cool2:

It must have been......I've fired a few rifles and pistols and what always astounds me is the noise... and I've never ever seem a combat infantryman in WW2 wearing any manner of ear defenders ...( I don't guess they would have been very practical anyway in combat ?)... ..the noise in a fire fight must have been absolutely deafening with all your mates around you firing off like billyo and your own weapon banging away and grenades and mortars landing around you...frightening..:-| ..when I lived in the US for a while I did some shooting and hanguns in particular I found to be appallingly loud and I'm a musician well used to things being 'loud' ! .....I used them out in the open so what one must be like when fired in an enclosed room or building must be shattering..... Just out of interest..do our modern troops both Brit and US in Afghanistan use any manner of ear defender nowadays ?

heheh modern Health and Safety :cool2:.....I wonder how many poor old fellas came home deaf as a post from combat in WW2? you very rarely ever see a soldier / ack ack gunner / waist gunner on a B17 etc wearing proper H&S ear defenders and ordinary flying helmets such as worn in Lancs etc can't have held much of the noise back ...

good point....not thought of the recoil effect :-\... I know a .50 or .30 cal is a popular addition to the Jeeps about the rallies today but being honest..:-\ ..were that many Jeeps actually fitted up like this during WW2?....I've not seen all that many real wartime photos of Jeeps thus fitted 'in action'...I wouldn't have thought you'd really wanna be stood up in the back of a Jeep hammering away with one when in contact with the enemy and besides the Jeep wasn't really designed nor intended for 'frontline combat' was it?.....a very useful recce and communications vehicle but surely not ever intended for actually getting 'stuck in' at the front ?that was more a job for halftracks and tanks and maybe armoured cars?.....I know the LRDG and the SAS used them like that but they were a bit unique weren't they??....not 'the norm' I would have thought?... .......I've often thought something the same when you see some Jeeps absolutely loaded out at rallies with half a ton of paraphernalia hanging off them such as spades and picks and satchels and Thompsons in racks and water bottles etc etc etc... ....quite nice to look at on a rally field but....again, being honest...if they rolled off the landing craft with all that kit hanging on them, just how long would it have lasted once the Jeep was tearing through the hedges and lanes of Normandy or Italy or bumping and banging about in the jungles of a Pacific Island?. I reckon at least half of the kit would have fell off in the first 10 minutes and the other half would have been nicked by every passing soldier short of water or ammo or with perhaps the stock smashed on his weapon or whatever .....:-D

would love to fire a real 'live' .50cal.......especially a twin .....or even better :cool2:....a quad mount!!!!!! ...the firepower, especially when used on a ground target must have been absolutely devastating.... :-)

yeah I can see why the other fella said... 'don't hold it like that'.... cos it looked like the fella had has fingers practically in the ejection port ..... but..I always though holding the mag in a John Wayne style could often cause stoppages due to undue pressure on the mag where it was inserted into the weapon...I know the German MP38 /MP40 was very prone to this despite the fact that 99% of films show them being held by the mag and I think the Sten was also prone to this problem as well???

Building one sounds like a cracking idea mate.......when I were a lad my Dad who owned a Horticultural Shop built me a 'sort of' para scooter out of a Briggs and Stratton concrete mixer engine , some 3/4" steel pipe and a pair of wheel barrow wheels..........wish I'd kept it now come to think of it ! :cool2:

Mmmhhh....:undecided:.now then..... ...call me Mr Cynical but............................. I'd guess probably because some company had one of those rather lucrative contracts that was set in stone and said something along the lines of... ".....the government guarantees to buy X number of these off you even when we clearly don't need anymore and we've got no hope of ever using the ones already in stock but we'll still let you keep manufacturing and delivering them to us by the thousand because it suites someone faceless that still gets a nice backhander every year off the contract and he's still around and prominent so we can't embarrass him by ending the contract so we'll just dump them quietly and regularly on the surplus market at a fraction of their cost to us to make room in the warehouse for your latest delivery "..........