RattlesnakeBob

Down here in the Forest of Dean there were many 'temporary camps' established during WW2........I say temporary but, they had concrete bases put in for various huts and drains laid in etc so they were I guess 'semi' temporary.. I've found a bit of info on a few of these camps but a few of them appear to be totally 'lost'........although in many cases there's plenty of evidence left on the ground as to them having once 'been there'........ my question is........ does anyone know of a definative (perhaps !?) database or website where I could possibly track info down on any former military establishment in the UK........??? I should say the particular one I'm trying to find info on was built by the British Pioneer Corps then swiftly taken over the by the US as not only a 'normal' camp but also later as a POW camp too.......... but!...I have searched over the listings I've found of UK POW camps and it doesn't appear.....Many cheers if anyone can shed any light !

gotta be a plant trailer of some sorts????? looks typical of the type stilll used these days for moving forklifts / road rollers /bobcats etc....

whenever I've had a similar thing happen on a tracked machine/excavator/dozer etc its usually a case of slackening off the track tension adjuster....a few short lengths of scaffold pole and some brute force and sweat....mind you its easier with a 360 machines as you can lift them up using their own boom ...and then rotate the duff track with it up off the floor whilst grunting and snorting with your short bits of scaffold .. ..also handy to have another excavator to hand too.....use the bucket to push the offending track back towards where it should be... it's gotta be said I do like the sound of a speedy opposite turn but if that goes wrong?... ..oh boy will you have some work!..... as to the cause .?..anyones guess... but... ..I have had tracks come off machines cos of the type of ground they were operating in.....particularly very gritty or sandy soil which will fill the 'groove' up in the track and which will 'pack in' surprisingly hard......... thereby dislodging the guides on the track......... .....put it down to good experience and all part of the fun of operating tracked vehicles! heheheheh!.....

good point Tony...but .....are there that many 'genuine' parts really still available ? I mean ....are there honestly still that many 'new' but never issued WW2 era spares kicking around the world for not only Jeeps but every other vehicle someone might find and want to restore , whether British or US ? mind you as a footnote... when I were a lad in the early 70s working in a local garage on sat mornings, I was given the job one day of sorting out a cupboard full of miscellaneous gaskets and stuff....and I did find a complete set of gaskets for a Jeep dated 1944 on the cardboard sleeve they were in ...can't recall if it was a Willys/Ford/MB or what though....but....that was almost 40 years ago and I would have thought any such finds as that are now long gone?????

had a few problems summat like that lately....have clicked 'post comment' button having written something out and have got a block saying 'you are not signed in and cannot access this page' etc... also.......very regular this one.....when you try and add a smiley face or whatever to your comment the page freezes and a box comes up to say "HMVF is not responding"......... if you then click 'recover the webpage'..........it does but.......also deletes all that you've written so you have to start again.........

So.......... if using 'replacement parts' destroys a vehicles 'authenticity'..????... Well...I'd have to suggest there are quite probably no 'genuine' wartime vehicles left out there at all.. ..elsewhere on this forum are various threads detailing the complete rebuilding of many vehicles including M10s & Shermans that have had to be totally and I mean TOTALLY rebuilt using many new parts and completely reconstructed bits and pieces that are not genuine WW2....... .......are they now, not genuine WW2 vehicles anymore?.......... As had been said on here before ....we all know there are prats out there that make wild claims for their vehicles such as "one of the first ashore on D-Day".........."one of the last 3 on the planet " etc etc..and only a fool would try to suggest this Jeep is a veteran WW2 vehicle but......... it is still a very nice Jeep and just as genuine as anything else that looks pretty darn good but was manufactured after 1945.....

well when you consider they're in debt to the tune of.....I dunno, lets say 10,000 billion or so.....and we're in the hole to the tune of maybe only 500 billion...in actual fact that makes the UK far wealthier than the US...! I should have been an accountant heheheheh!

when was the Champ officially dropped as a British Army vehicle???

I guessed a lot of folk on here would be interested in this.......thanks for all your input.... .....I know what the ramifications were for us all after the First World War when we basically not only defeated Germany militarily but then also continued to 'kick them hard' with the very harsh war reparations....we all know what that led directly to but.. .it's very hard to swallow for someone of my generation , so to someone that was around and fought in the Second war it must be absolutely infuriating............. and .. just to add a little fuel to a fire thats already burning nicely!....... I wonder how many folk are also aware that soldiers who served in the Wehrmacht during the last war.... even if it was only for the last few months or so.....including SS veterans ........ are now entitled to draw a full army veterans pension from the modern German government for their 'service'........ .which incidentally ...... ..is a helluva lot more per week than any services veteran of the british forces from the second world war will ever be entitled to........ tis a strange ol' world indeed..........

I have a large section of concrete that could have been part of the Berlin Wall???:cool2: ....well.....put it this way....... ......its made of the same sort of concrete....ish..it's a grey sort of colour and very hard......could well be a bit of it?....... it's currently laid as a path about 200 yards long down through my garden and about 6" thick... I don't want it so if anyone wants it you're welcome to come and dig it all up and take it away... harharhar! :cool2:

she does look to be an absolute cracker..I'd love a halftrack...summat about them... :-D

Looks a grand find mate! ....look forward to watching her come back together on here! ........ I've often wondered though.. ..just how did Austin came up with the Champ????:cool2:..... "Here's what we'll do lads!...the Army has asked us to build them a 'proper' British Jeep right!.........and...we all know how good the Jeep was and still is....... agreed ? right then....so what we build, needs to be BETTER at absolutely EVERYTHING that the Jeep can do! ...right! right! thats agreed then.............so here's what we'll do...... ..we'll take a Jeep to pieces ...and if there is ANYTHING simple WHATSOEVER in one..we'lll make it 4 times as complicated in our version !..... right!.. ...oh yeah nearly forgot.......no matter what we build it out of......we'll also make it way WAY heavier than the Jeep as well..... .....OK!...lets get started!..... .....oh yeah by the way ........ignore that Land summat thing that Rover is building ...that thing'll never catch on!..........." :-D:-D:-D:-D

I saw an interesting bit in the paper t'other day which I thought I'd share with you all regarding our Lend/Lease deal with the US during the war........ Apparently, we made the final payment on our 'loan' to the US on December the 29th 2006..... thereby finally clearing what we owed them.... ....it struck a chord with something that had always interested and somewhat annoyed me.... ......Over the years many folk have made much of Germany's 'economic miracle recovery' following the war..........These same folk conveniently ignore or perhaps are not aware of? a thing known as 'The Marshall Plan'.................... As I'm guessing most of you already know...The Marshall Plan funded more or less the complete rebuilding of Germany....not only her infrastructure but her industry too....... I wonder if many folk know however..... that the Marshall Plan was basically a non refundable 'loan' that Germany never had to repay ?.. Please read on if this interests you at all.......... ....The Marshall Plan also re-equiped & rebuilt (again the money did not have to be repaid ) factories & collieries etc etc belonging to the masssive German industrialists .......the same industrialists that had so fervently supported the Nazi regime not only by working for it but also by directly funding the Nazi party and Hitler............. think thats bad enough?...........read on....... .........with a little more digging thru the information available I found this.......... ......... under the terms of the Marshall Plan, these same industrialists....a couple that come to mind is Krupps of Essen who made everything from tanks to guns and back again and supplied the steel to build just about everything else and..... IG Farben .....who I'm sure I do not need to tell you what they supplied...... . well..... ............upon Nazi Germanys collapse......these companies and many many more, had 'unpaid invoices' for material supplied to the Nazi regime during the last 12 months or so of the war... ..and under the terms of the agreement with the US for what the Marshall Plan money could be used for.......these same companies were allowed to submit these unpaid invoices to the new fledgling German Democratic government...... and ......yep!... you got it!..... these invoices were paid! .....not a bad 'economic miracle' was it??? .. Strange old world isn't it?....I thought we won???? as a footnote......... I have to wonder.... .... just how well British Industry and this nation in general could have done through the 50s/60s/and 70s if all our costs for the war including all bomb damage etc had been paid for by someone else.... ........... or at the very least, if the US had let us off paying for all the lend lease equiptment?..... Most of which a lot of you own now anyways! hahahah!

I was there about 1980-ish and that ol' wall was the weirdest and most chilling thing I'd ever seen in the middle of a city........especially the tram lines that just disappeared under it.... .....we spent a lot of time on the 'tourist towers' (on our side obviously! heh!) gawping at the Soviet/East German guards & flicking the 'V's at them and daft stuff like that.. ..I remember one day going to see the Soviet Memorial and my mate asked me "wass them tanks then Smiffy?" ...........there was a T34 either side the memorial in those days ..dunno if they're still there????.... ..I replied "They're T34s...Russian tanks mate".. ...........not realising I was in earshot of soldier guard who very pointedly and loudly said ...and in a proper stern voice ".......not RUSSIAN!!!! ..... SOVIET!"........a bit later we travelled from East Berlin railway station (Tiegel Station????) up thru east germany to Sasnitz (?) up on the Baltic to catch a ferry to Sweden........that was a strange journey I can tell you ...a band of leather jacketted punk-ish rockers travelling thru East Germany to play a gig in Sweden........try explaining that to a grizzle faced east german border guard with a decidely sour attitude!...........

I don't know the answer to that one mate, 'Political Correctness' has a lot to answer for I guess..?..... .but I do know my Dad and quite probably any other lads that served out there ( especially the National Service boys that were there ? ) would tell you it was a proper 'war'.....mind you The Falklands lately is now often pointedly referred to as the 'Falklands Conflict' rather than 'war' and Malaya is described in the history books as 'the Malayan Emergency'....... I have absolute respect for any boy that has been shot at anywhere in the world and sometimes think 'the powers that be' are very derogatory to our Armed Forces when they say something along the lines of.... "oh that wasn't a 'war'! no, no, of course not! Oh no! , we were merely using the Military to 'police' a small dispute that nescessatated resorting to armed conflict"..... My Dad as you'll have seen from these photos wasn't in a 'front line' unit, but as he has told me, they still got shot at in both Korea and in Malaya & they still lost boys particularly to the 'CTs' (Communist Terrorists) in Malaya... I guess in years to come Afghanistan won't be considered a 'war' either..... ...........except by those that were there.........

hey I don't suppose you know if the Nang Heng Music store is still there????.. ...Dad did think of visiting Malaya again a good few years back when his health was better but decided not to in the end.. ..He guessed that seeing as it's been such a busy and developing nation over the last 50 years or so he probably wouldn't recognise anything and could only possibly be disappointed with what he found....

Dad is proper chuffed that you're interested in his old Army photos so we've had a dig through the album and sorted a few more out for you all to have a look at .. So..... here we go with PART 2!!! Top : Passing out photograph Aldershot 1953. 4th Training Regiment 421 Group, Drivers and Mechanics. Dad is in the front row of seated men 2nd in from the left. To Dads right is ‘Taffy’ one of the other ‘Award Winners’ of the 2nd Training Group Bottom : The Award Winners of 2nd Training Group. Left to right: My Dad, Bob Smith, ‘Best Rifle and Light Machine Gunner ’ / Taffy ‘Best All Rounder’/ Derick Redmund ‘Best Driver’ and Dad can’t recall the last fella’s name nor what his award was for sorry! Top left: Dad playing his Accordion in the NAAFI , Malaya early 1956. Dad was/is a very gifted musician, absolutely superb on either the Piano or Accordion and he could really make either instrument sing... he received a letter of thanks for ‘helping to keep the mens spirits up etc’ off his CO at the end of their Malayan tour. Top right: Dad in Korea Centre left: The receipt for the deposit that Dad put on his Accordion when he bought it. He still has a few other receipts for the instalments that he made but can’t recall what the final amount was. He did remember that his CO had to vouch to the shopkeeper that L/Cpl Smith WOULD make all the payments! Dad got it in time for Xmas 1955. PS: I still have in my cherished posession this Accordian...very battered and not really now playable owing to her having done a good few thousand miles and having knocked a lot of fantastic music out over the last 55 years. Centre right: the note on the back of the photo says simply ‘Bob on a Cat D7 Korea October 1954’ Bottom Right: Dad never knew this guy until meeting him at Aldershot when they joined up but his name was Mike Deacon and he came from Brockweir a little village only about 5 miles away from where my Dad lived. Mike drove the NCK face shovel that loaded ‘Pandoras Box’ seen in Part One. Left Photo: Dad sunbathing in the shade on a day off! Malaya approx 1956 Right Photo L to R : Taffy, Dad & Bish. Korea 1954 Top left: Dad and Ray Nunn walking back from the motor depot to their tents Korea 1955. On his eventual return to the UK Roy built a successful Blacksmith business having got ‘the taste for it’ designing and making up some impressive gates for a main Royal Engineers depot whilst in Korea! Top Centre: Dad Winter of 1954 Korea Top right: Dad Korea 1954 with a Scammell called ‘Happy’ Bottom Left: Dad and Taffy Korea 1954 in front of their hut. Note the ‘signwritten’ door... ”This is it, The Finest in Korea, Home of the Mighty ” Centre and Right: a couple of close ups of ‘Pandoras Box’ in Korea 1955.Pandora featured in Part One..Note also the typical British Army humour...the sign writing on the back of Pandora reads ‘World Patent Applied for’ . Dads mate Pat is the fella stood by Pandora in the second photo. Bottom Centre: Dad the day after his 21st Birthday with his present. Look closely at his feet and you can see a toy sized Tasker plant trailer that the other fellas made for him ...it was dragged into the mess the night before by a couple of the Sgts loaded with a crate of beer for him for his birthday party! Bottom Right: The Boys of the Plant Troop on operations in Malaya. Dad is the one in front with a bush hat. The truck behind them is one of their ever present Scammells and the smaller one off to their LHS was a Ford 3 Tonner. Those present: Bill, Sam,Jim,Moose,Bob,Brownie,Frank,Pete,Ray,Alex,Ted

When you read of the colossal tonnages of shipping lost to enemy action during the convoys across the Atlantic, The Med, The North Sea and The Pacific during the war .... and then realise that figure actually translates into literally 10 or 20 or 30 or 50 or more ships per week sunk.. .... it certainly does boggle my mind a little to think how many thousands of brand spanking new Shermans / Halftracks / Trucks / Jeeps etc are lying on the ocean floor.......... just think.......brand spanking new Shermans with probably less than half a mile or so 'on the clock'.....straight out of the factory ...onto a ship...then sunk...! ...not to mention thousands of crates of brand new weapons and literally millions of rounds of ammunition ...........all lost & never to be used........... I often wonder when you read the figures for how many Shermans and Jeeps alone were manufactured..............just how many never saw a single days use whatsoever???????

hahahah! yer right!!!! .....for SDY UC2 read..... 2 cubic yard ... crikey! I must have looked at those photos a thousand times over the years and I've never noticed that before ! Anyways.... ....So glad you like them!!! I'll go see the old fella tomorrow and pass on your regards, he'll be very, very chuffed you like them ! Thanks!

I messaged the fella on ebay and he said "what you see on the photo is what you get".. .....so your probably right cos he didn't have a bonnet, a windscreen / frame, no seats, lights etc etc etc ....far too much I reckons....... at 800 quid it would have been worth a go at but not halfway to 2 grand ...oh no....not fer me !

My ol' Dad served in The Royal Engineers in Korea and Malaya in the middle 1950s and I've been intending for a while to dig out his album and put a few photos up on here that may interest you ...... ...hope you like them ! Top left: June 1956 Malaya ..a slight accident with a little dumper. Right: Xmas Day Dinner 1955 Malaya as served by tradition, by the Officers to the Ranks.. ..note arrow pointing to 'BEER!' Bottom Left: One of their main depot camps...not sure if Korea or Malaya Middle Bottom: A Scammell in Korea with 'Pandoras Box' which is being loaded if you look closely by a face shovel behind the trailer. 'Pandoras Box' was a typically ingenious Royal Engineers solution to getting material (gravel etc) onto a road. It consisted of a massive crate with an inverted 'V' shaped bottom inside.Hatches were places along the sides and the Scammell would go steadily along with the hatches open allowing the material to dribble out onto the road where it would be levelled in by a dozer. More pics to follow.... The top four photos show a sequence entitled in the album as 'the end of Dopey'. Dopey being the Matador not the driver!.apparantly she ran away when the brakes failed descending a long hill with a Dozer on the trailer. Dad said the brakes were always a problem on the AECs cos they weren't up to towing a very heavy plant trailer with a very heavy dozer on. You can see the dozer alongside the wrecked Matador in the one photo. the bottom three photos show a Scammell with Pandoras Box June 1955 Korea ...(sorry ..just realised I've repeated one photo)...thats my Dad leaning out the cab in the middle photo of a Scammell named 'Black Panther'. Top left: My Dad with his 'personal mount' an AEC Matador called Prince Charming .The note on the back of the photo says "Bob Korea 1954 To Mum hope ok, Love Bob..I'd just finished a 406 inspection at this time". Anyone know what that is? My Dad was just short of his 19th birthday in this photo. Middle top: My poor Dad! The note on the photo says "this is me on a sunday morning, just out of bed in pyjamas! haha" his mates had 'locked' him out of their tent for a jape in a bitter cold blizzard in Korea. Top right: Maintenance time on the dozers. Bottom left: My dad centre of the back row and some of his mates.. Bottom Right: the sign outside of one of their camps in Malaya. Top left: My Dads favourite truck 'his' AEC Matador 'Prince Charming'....the note on the back of this tatty old photo says it all really...."Just a photo of my dear old Charming herself" Top right: My then very young Dad on a dozer dragging a scraper unit. Malaya June 1956 Bottom Left: My dad with his very close friend Bill Murray who has since sadly passed away...the note says "Me and Bill...Just tidying up the engine Korea 1955" Bottom right: The boys of 410 Independent Plant Troop Royal Engineers. My Dad, back row ,5th from the right. Hope you've enjoyed them Bob.(Jnr!)

thats a great website !.........must admit though that the 'high bonnet' models are not my favourite....they just don't look 'right'........but if anyones giving one away?. well now... don't be shy of asking me if I've got room for it ! heheh!

probably been done upteen times before but...she'd make a cracking camper...:cheesy: .leaving the outside looking like it should obviously ...:-D

Am struggling tonite to upload some photos and will upload some pics ASAP...but... I've found a small portable WW2 era compressor... Its in a steel tubelar 'basket' frame with a pressed steel wheel at the front .....a sort of wheel barrow-ish arrangement....it's got a little Briggs and Stratton engine with a simple kick starter arrangement on it coupled to the compressor by a leather link belt and the air reservoir is in the frame of the thing.. ..the info I've been given is that it's thought to have been part of the kit carried by tank/vehicle maintainence crews/engineers during the war... ..the little engine has been completely overhauled and is absolutely gorgeous and runs a treat but the rest of it is still in use in a workshop and hence a bit oily and tatty...the motor is off it at the moment and its job is being done by a simple electric motor that has been jury rigged in its place...no damage or 'permanent alterations' have been done though and the B&S engine could go straight back on no probelm at all.... .......I'll get the photos up as and when I can... Any ideas ?..... .. Anyone got one? Anyone seen one? and..... ..whats it worth maybe?

I know this is probably in the wrong section but I am so dire with anything computer related that anything I say regarding them should be prefixed with.........."I may be stupid........ but...":cool2: Anyways....... I'm trying to upload some cracking photos of my Dads army time in Korea and Malaya in the 1950s and am having proper trouble with Photobucket.......... .....when I click the 'browse files' button on photobucket on my account the window only brings up about a quarter of my known files/pictures as options for uploading.... ...I know my photos are 'on' my computer cos if I access it in the usual way they are there plain to see.......I've even tried moving them to some of the files that do come up as an option, but although my computer says "yep you've moved them"........when I click on them again using the 'browse files' button on Photobucket it says the folder is empty......... I'm guessing this is a problem with my computer rather than photobucket but.. ..any ideas anyone?????????? Many thanks Bob