LarryH57

Dear All, while searching the web I came across a colour home movie taken by a USAAF serviceman in 1944-45, showing Mustangs being prepared for take-off etc. However towards the end of the film there is coverage of RAF Air Sea Rescue launches, so it seems that the cameraman blagged a day out at sea with ASR. http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/933

Dear All, while searching the web I came across a colour home movie taken by a USAAF serviceman in 1944-45, showing Mustangs being prepared for take-off etc. Towards the end of the film there is coverage of RAF Air Sea Rescue launches, so it seems that the cameraman blagged a day out at sea with ASR. http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/933

Keep us posted - pardon the pun

Have you considered this for the forum.

Thanks Andy, Thinking about vehicles steered by their tracks, it usually brings to mind a FV432 or Scorpion or other bit of heavy armour for which having an H licence is both a requirement and a sensible precaution - but presumable a car sized Universal Carrier used on the road, also needs the same licence type?

Tell me - is this a pile of Aussie Land Rovers - with 'square' wheel arches?

I thought a car licence is sufficient to drive most wheeled vehicles (not sure about articulated ones) on the road as long as they are not for hire and reward and are not loaded. So in that case you can drive your Leyland Hippo to an MV show but you cannot use it to move home and load it up with furniture etc. Fully tracked vehicles need an H licence but what about a M3 Halftrack; does that need a special licence - I think it won't?

I think Jack Beckett would be up for a challenge!

Dear All, I’m not sure where this thread should go but if there was a section called ‘I have a dream’ (with apologies to MLK) it would be the best place for us to discuss ideas for our hobby. In this respect I am thinking that it would be good at a major show for MV owners and Living History groups to show changes in British Army uniforms and kit and supporting vehicles for the last 100 years. With commemorations being put in place for the 100th anniversary of WW1 a display covering say 1914 to 2014 would have great appeal to the public and be very educational. I have enough to cover 1970s and 1980s and I’m sure there is enough to cover the rest, with the Regulars helping out on the most recent stuff! How good would it be to see a WW1 soldier and GS horse drawn wagon and WW1 truck followed by uniforms, vehicles and kit for WW2, Korea, Suez, Aden, Falklands Gulf and Afghanistan (to name a few). On a similar theme but a smaller scale, the Tank Museum for its Tank Fest could also do a display of British Army 1939 and compare it with British Army 1945. 1939 could be represented by a Matilda Mk1, aero screen Bedford or Morris 15 cwt, motorbike and side car and men in early BD with gas mask etc. For 1945 the vehicles would be Jeep, Halftrack and Firefly or Comet, late war CMP etc. You get the idea and the size of the display could be as big or small as required.Your thoughts

Its a great looking late war MW you have there. Its good to see it in proper RAF camo colours (rather than RAF Blue) and also good to see that it has M which I understand is for Maintenance Command, rather than opting (like everyone else) for B for Bomber or F for Fighter Command.

My father in law served with him on 103 Sqn in 1941 (as a lowly LAC erk mind and not quite on first name terms!) For my part I greatly admired Ken Wallis for his refusal to give up flying. At 97 I think he must have been the UK's if not the World's oldest pilot and one who didn't just take the controls for a while when flying with someone else either! Ken Wallis was from a generation of do'ers and not moaners!

Guys, I've not seen this film dating from 1945, so I suspect many of you have not either. Anyway enjoy and try spotting all the British and Canadian vehicles used by the Yanks as reverse Lease Lend! http://www.510fs.org/wwii/videos/item/336-fight-for-the-sky-1945-wwii-fighter-pilot-documentary

A rather strange question - but when the Imperial War Graves Commission (now CWGC) buried the unidentified dead from WW1 how much of a persons remains did they need to constitute a body? I've just returned from a tour of the Western Front with my son, who wondered if there could have been an element of double counting if say a head was found, then an upper torso and then a separate lower torso. Could these end up as three 'Soldiers of the Great War known unto God'? What were the rules for this situation and also for smaller body parts. Was a hand or a foot found on the battlefield during or after WW1 also buried in a grave with a headstone, or dealt with in another manner.

I'll have ten of them too!

Once again thanks

Dear Wdbikemad, thanks for your reply; it would seem then that I have a modified mid WW2 OR shirt if it has 'plastic' type buttons, rather than metal, and buttonholes to take a detachable collar. The green colour of mine is just like the first photo I posted and not brown like yours or the shirts I have seen on Living History guys. Presumably they were made in slight colour variations or was there a shift away from brown at some stage? BTW mine has a small loop sown in to the shirt behind the collar, presumably so that it may be hung up but I'm not sure if this was a post-war mod when in use as a nightshirt!

Is this the Humber today as seen at WPR?

I should have said the colour in the first photo is more like the original shirt

I saw this shirt at a jumble sale which I bought for £1. I think I am auto tuned to look at anything green! The lady on the stall thought it might have been a mans nightshirt and perhaps that's what many were used for. The shirt has button holes round the neck for a collar to be attached; for an Officer?. In the area above the label there are marks that look like a name or perhaps a dhobiwallah mark.

I agree with Clive concerning the fairground that it was in the way - after all it could be placed in the far corner of the traders area where no one much bothered to go. If you wanted the fairground rides they wouldn't be far from the main buildings but as suggested the current site for the fair could then be used for something better.

Barry thanks for showing me your work at WPR, news travels fast around H&WL MVT. Thanks also to Paul for the beers!

Interesting comments and all valid. With regard to the state of the toilets one of the causes is lack of personal hygiene when camping out, which inevitably leads to diarrhoea. When at home we wash our hands far more in the kitchen and after going to the toilet than we do when living out of the back of our MVs or camping in a hot and dusty tent. So standards start to go down hill and with scores of people in front of the afflicted in the toilet queue, its no wonder they miss the target when they finally get in. So I'm told there were 14,000 campers(?) at WPR and if true it comes as no surprise that many people fell foul to this type of illness. If there are any inventors among us then to improve the toilets they need to design one made entirely of galvanised steel with a non-slip mesh floor, allowing spills to drain away in to an enormous under floor sump. to keep them sweet these toilets would then be closed regularly for a few minutes and hosed out completely and sprayed with disinfectant. The sump and other waste would then be pumped out. This could be done mechanically or by a willing volunteer wearing suitable protective kit! Enough said on that. Regarding the ditches these were annoying in the LH field and Rex needs to make some exit and entry points to avoid the dead ends and get more visitors seeing all the displays. As for the Arena I agree it was hard to watch the action without a bank. I was rather hoping the site owners would rather have the place used for events and so the white fences could go and the Arena be moved nearer the stands. If not the WPR will need to build a scaffold stand for the event which is not cheap. One other point concerning the Arena; I know that posts need to be in place to mark out a safety zone but did they all need to have a safety notice taped to them and red and white tape used to mark the side of the Arena exit? Could these not be marked out in other ways like false walls or something natural in appearance so as not to spoil photographs? Also could the vans and other vehicles on the far side of the Arena be moved out too please? Do the organisers know that people love to take photos with as little clutter in the background as possible?. Lastly for vehicle owners who cannot stay for a week and arrive say on Thursday or Friday, is there any way that they could move their vehicle so that it is not left among the white vans and caravans in the far off fields, so that it may be seen and appreciated by the public? As it was this year my MV may as well not have been there at all. And for that matter why is WPR always on BEFORE the UK summer holidays. If it started a week later I would be there for the week but as it stands I can't be guaranteed by the school that they will be given special leave, so at present I can only commit to the last few days of the show.

Snowie, If you go to the Ex Military Land Rover Association site and sign up to access it (whether or not you are a member) there is a whole sub section on Radio gear including Clansman. http://forum.emlra.org/viewforum.php?f=11&sid=609e8681281e8853fadeccb6972e12e4 I hope this helps Larry The Lwt

Marmite, I clicked on the Photobucket links and the photos did not open - BUT instead a link opened asking me to pay a donation to HMVF from Paypal. Is this your master plan? Sorry to disappoint at this time but I've already signed up to have my brain cells removed by Direct Debit for other clubs and as I have just saved my £1,500 in cash for food and incidental items I might find on the stalls at WPR I'm a bit flush at the moment!

Marmite, your Photobucket photos have disappeared????!!!