LarryH57

Who can help with this? In 1944 due to a shortage of trained radio men for the newly formed First Allied Airborne Army twenty four members of the 40th Mobile Communications Squadron of the US Army Air Force volunteered to serve with the Airborne. These men were formed in to six teams with four enlisted men, with each team commanded by a combat trained US Airborne Commissioned Officer. Two of these teams were assigned to each of the American Airborne Divisions in Market Garden. These units were equipped with Jeeps and as they carried VHF sets for ground to air comms the men called them 'Veeps'. The radio equipment carried is not known precisely but it is thought to be the American SCR 118 and 624, a H/F and a VHF radio with Voice and W/T capability, and a portable Direction Finder, SCR 634 (the later item may have been in a Jeep trailor). Are there any photos available I could copy anyone?

Denomination of Quantity - I thought that was the name of the new James Bond movie!

Could the cable on the Chevrolet wheel be for a tire pressure inflation system?:-D

Sorry if this is not the correct section but I learnt through my local MVT area this week that the government is now in a consultation period concerning deactivated weapons, which could mean a variety of things - at worse banning deactivated weapons and everyone having to hand them in. Other proposals are that old sytle de-acts should be brought up to most resent deactivated status so that working parts are welded up (at owners expense) and that owners may have to have some sort of Fire Arms License as would anyone selling de-activated weapons if they are not already licensed. Strangely this seems to have sneeked in under the radar and only a few re-enactment groups (not just WW2 re-enactment) have been consulted. Consultation apparently ends in April! So who knows more on this subject and what can we do to protect our hobby?

The BV 206 must have been converted before the crash so well done to the Dutch. However it makes you wonder how well prepared or otherwise the UK authorities would be in similar circumstances! I cannot say that I have ever seen any 4x4 ambulances (let alone tracked ones) in the UK outside those in the 'Military' and Mountain Rescue. So it would probably be HMVF members to the rescue though not in the 'golden 1 hour' period to save the seriously injured. It may be just me but I get the impression that buying up a few BV 206 or similar vehicles for use on UK major airports would be considered impractical and that those responsible for crash rescue it would prefer to put out a £20 Billion Private Finance Initiative to come up with the same BV206 design in a different colour and mission statement logo on the side!

Catweazle, The UK worst winter (post war) that lasted 3 months was 1962/63 which I remember well. I was living at RAF Upavon at the time

And when its finally done Clive, you can sit beside them both as the oldest surviving MV enthusiast in the world!

My neighbour did his time in National Service by serving with the 60th Rifles (which I think was 60th Bn KRRC?). Anyway he is a bit down at the moment as his wife is not well so I thgought I would get him something to remind him of his National Service. Anyone know of any good books on the subject but not necessarily his unit? I can't say I have seen any books about National Service in general. NS only gets a mention in passing when reading about all the postwar small wars in the last days of the Empire.

Was that first photo taken during your tree living eco-warrior days protesting against the Reading bypass?

Things must be bad if Clive has to ask a question! BTW - what vehicle is the tank from? It looked a bit like a Landrover

As with anything in life some things that are OK in one place are not OK in another and the same applies to how much you do. If you go on a tour of the Western Front and you are walking along with your guide and spot say a cap badge in the soil and pick it up who is to say that is wrong. If on the other hand that same badge was placed carefully at the foot of a Commonwealth War Grave it would be wrong to take it. If me and a few friends get the funds together and rope of an area of the Western Front the size of a football pitch and dig it over for as much 'treasure' as we can find then I think that sucks too. But if the Belgian authorities invited in a team of archaeologists to do the same, prior to a new motorway being built on the site would it still be wrong? I have a 1939 Iron Cross from the Battle of Britain which was taken from the wreck of a German plane. It is bent and battered and I know that who ever was the holder, he hit the ground very hard when wearing it and that gives some people the creaps. Does it matter much whether it was recovered at the time by a local farmer or whether it was dug up by aviation archaeologists 50 years later?

You may not know this but the penalty for killing a bat is in the region of £10,000 fine or up to 5 years in prison, so if you enter one of those 'bat houses' and the mother bats fly away leaving loads of dead young ones, you are in the S**t if caught. You'll probably find they are being filmed too by Bill Oddie & friends, so don't forget to smile at the camera! Strange isn't it that some 'old bats' have died after been pushed to the ground in the high street for the contents of their bag and those responsible get a lesser sentence than if they had killed one of our furry friends!

After much thought I think the answer is Her Majesty The Queen! After all she has been in service as Head of the Armed Services for 56 years!

Many years ago I worked with a veteran of the Italian Campaign in WW2, who started out in the Heavy AA in the Royal Artillery but due to the need to keep supply lines in order (and the lack of targets for his AA guns in 1944) he and his comrades ended up in the Royal Engineers repairing roads through the Italian mountains.

The 9th Army was formed in the Middle East at the end of 1941. It was raised in The Levant (Lebanon), as the HQ for all forces which might have been used in that area against a German thrust which it was anticipated might follow further enemy successes at the time, in South Russia. The badge of the 9th Army was a charging elephant, and on its back was a castle from which flew the red and black flag of an Army Commander. The design was in red on a black circular background. The elephant was chosen as General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson as GOC was known by the nick name 'Jumbo'. Earlier in 1941 Maitland-Wilson had been GOC of Persia & Iraq Command (Paiforce) which used a Elephant head badge for the same reason. BTW - I think the K2 actually in the photo has the Jumbo badge on the nearside front

Hey Rlangham, I think I met you at the RAF Museum in the last year or so if it was you dressed up in a WW1 uniform of the Leics Regt in the Bomber Command hall? I went there with my son when the RAF Museum had various types dressed in period uniforms throughout the place which made a change! We had a good chat. I should get myself a HMVF collar badge if they make them!

"Hi very nice Kubel even nicer with out SS number plates and spurious "Normandy Camo" I agree - and for a 1945 vehicle it is very likely that there was very little camo paint left in Germany for non-armoured fighting vehicles, as suggested by photographic evidence

And now back to the question...... For anyone in a Series Land Rover like me if you ever get hydraulic failure of the clutch master or slave or the pipework between and you can't change gear as your foot is flat to the floor - well you can dis-engage the gear box by pulling the red topped transfer lever in to neutral (ie the central position). You can then free the gear lever and select the gear you want. In most cases you find the system is not working when you come up to a junction which means you have had to stall the engine to stop! Anyway after freeing the gear stick as above and getting the engine started and the revs just right -you or your assistant can push the transfer lever forward and this then brings the gearbox back into use and off you go with a jolt. Changing up and down through the box can be done in the same way. I'm not suggesting this is good for the vehicle but it does work and this how I went to Kemble along the M4 off at Jctn 17 all the way to the airfield. Luckily I had replacement parts in my 'get me home' spares box. Incidentally my spares consist of all the likely things that can go wrong, so I have fan belt, engine electrical parts including distributor cap, condenser, fuses, bulbs, clutch master & slave and pipework, Dot 4, P.O.L., spare hoses and in addition to a good range of tools.

Purely my opinion, but it has to be the RAF Museum. OK to be fair it was good but over the years it has gone down hill in my estimation. Firstly they ruined the Battle of Britain Hall by installing a mini cinema screen and seating slap in the middle of it to show a film every half hour - but you are not allowed in to the main BoB hall to look at the aircraft while the film is showing. And to be frank this seating area has bu**ered up the floor area and takes away from the visual aspect that once was a Spitfire & Hurricane in blast pens. But that's not all, as once the film has finished the lights don't come on to the same brightness I knew of old and it is so dark and I don't mean just dull, I mean so dark you cannot see the exhibits. That ugly screen could so easily have been left out and replaced by a wide screen telly in some quiet corner rather than a great lump in the display area. Next the RAF Museum moved the WW1 Graham White hangar at great expense from a few hundred yards away and used it to house many of the WW1 aircraft but so I understand from someone at the RAF Museum it has turned out to be less than ideal and costly to heat. Consequently it always seems to be closed when you go there. It actually opens for just 2 hours a day from 10am. By hiding these WW1 types away, the main RAF Museum has lost its focus. Who remembers when you started with WW1 types and moved on to all the Hawker biplanes then WW2 in a logical order. Lastly the Milestones of Flight. I had high hopes for this when it was proposed but as ever it seems that huge sums went on consultants and the building including that large steel structure outside. In the end it houses very little in terms of artifacts and irritatingly it has some beautiful aircraft hanging from the ceiling, which means they cannot be viewed by more than a few angles. Imagine you went to the Tank Museum and saw Shermans & Panzers hanging from the ceiling or perhaps a Tiger mounted vertically on a pole - well you get the picture. Sadly it seems that quite a few museums are ruined these days by people who have degrees in museum management but know nothing about history and architects / consultants drooling over the prospect of charging £20m because they heard the magic words 'Lottery Funding'. An example of the above: In a town I know well there is a local museum that has been around for years and I knew the old Curator. It was originally like a journey through time, starting with a display of Stone Age finds from the local area continuing right up to WW2 exhibits. The other half of the museum was taken up with Natural History and it had a fine collection of stuffed animals, sea birds & garden birds etc in beautiful dioramas of their natural habitat. Sadly the Curator retired and in no time the whole Natural History collection had been ripped out, as according to one staff member stuffed animals are not PC and the rooms they occupied were made into empty meeting rooms. OK it might not be PC to stuff animals now but these had been around for many decades and chucking them in a skip seems a little harsh. My kids enjoyed them without being traumatised! And as for the few wartime exhibits, you have guessed correctly they have all been removed!

I seem to remember reading that CMV has an exclusive agreement to distribute only through WH Smith's, which for me is a shame as I do not live or work close to a WH Smiths. My newsagent round the corner has stocked CMV for years and he had the December 2008 issue. When does this come it to effect?

One thing that seems to be rare these days is Regimental Museums. Could this be due to the amalgamation of all the regiments? I remember visiting the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry museum some years ago which was really good and staffed by ex-DCLI men. I'm not sure which town it was in.

Well I suppose we all know about Duxford but what other Military Museums in the UK get your vote?

Its a very early prototype of this: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=p_iup2jXQqI

I think Jack's point about avoiding insults is valid as they take away from the serious point I was making which is watch out, be careful in what you do as everyone seems to be super sensative to anything out of the ordinary. Just because I don't agree with the actions the Police took over the matter doesn't mean I have anything against those Policemen. Its how they are organised and given 'targets' by the Home Office that I don't like. In point of fact in the Spring I was stopped and searched by the Police as part of an anti -terrorist campaign as I left the London Underground on my way to a meeting in London. As an Englishman dressed in a suit and tie with briefcase and brolly I hardly looked like Al-Queda but I didn't mind and we parted as friends, especially when they thanked me for my 'complete understanding and acceptance' that they had to stop a cross section of the community rather than stop just men of a particular race & religion and be acused of being racist!

I'm sure many of you will have seen this in the press and may even know the man. Certainly he was wrong to own fire arms that are illegal and he does our hobby no end of harm - but when you read the following press report there must be a few of us who are thinking 'there but for the grace of god go I' when looking at the collections we have in our loft. Imagine all the innocent bits of kit and those manuals in your loft being listed in the paper. How menacing it could all sound to joe public with headlines like 'He owned a WW1 bayonet 12 inches long' or 'The manual of infantry tactics he had could have been used by terrorists' or he owned a Vickers, a Bren and a Lewis all of which could be re-activated' (with 'could be' emphasised). The list is endless. As they say in the media 'don't let the truth get in the way of a good story. So when you read the following press report only the items mentioned in the first two lines are illegal - all the other kit he owned was used to make him sound much worse. And god forbid that any of you have any techical know-how even if you never ever intend to use it; your nicked. ----------- A weapons dealer has been jailed for five years for illegally storing a Soviet anti-tank missile launcher, pistols and a shotgun at his home. David Sampson, 42, sold deactivated guns and grenades on internet site eBay under the name ‘millsbomber’. When police raided his home in Sittingbourne after a tip-off they discovered a £200,000 arsenal of weapons. Officers were shocked to find a Soviet AT3 anti-tank “Sagger” rocket launcher – the lethal weapon being used by insurgents against British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also seized a 9mm German Luger self-loading pistol dating from the First World War, an antique Belgian single-shot pistol and a double-barrelled 16-bore shotgun - which he did not have permission to own. Most of Sampson's huge hoard was legally held, including 750 hand grenades and an SAS-silencer pistol, because they had been deactivated and no longer posed a threat to human life. But Maidstone Crown Court was told during his sentencing on Monday that Sampson had the technical know-how to "reactivate" out-of-use weapons. During the raid in October 2006, police found the Luger pistol concealed behind a kitchen cabinet and the Belgian gun hidden in the garage. Paul Sims, defending, had told the court during Sampson's five-day trial earlier this year how his client was a reputable dealer who obtained the missile launcher from a Dutch man to give to the Army's Defence Ordinanace Disposal School (DEODS) for training. But his "customer" refused to give evidence on Sampson's behalf and his claims could not be supported. Sampson told the court the Luger was an heirloom that had belonged to his great-grandfather, who fought in the Great War. He insisted he would donate the piece to the West Kent Regimental Museum, but never did. He also claimed to have got the Belgian handgun from a friend who found it during a clear-out. The court was told that Sampson had arranged to buy the Sagger from an arms dealer he met at a Kent military show two years ago. Judge Charles MacDonald told Sampson: "These were slightly unusual prohibited weapons found in circumstances that were not explained and you should have known better. "The defendant has shown no remorse and has appeared arrogant throughout his trial.” Sampson was convicted of four gun-related charges - two of possessing a prohibited firearm, possessing a shotgun without a certificate and possessing a shotgun - all contrary to the Firearms Act 1968. Three of these charges carry a minimum sentence of five years. He was given 18 months for the shotgun offence and ordered to serve three counts of five years concurrently. Sampson showed no emotion as he was handed the sentence.