timerover51

I know of a US Marine Corps M3 Stuart abandoned on what used to be called Arundel Island in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, and at least on Japanese Model 95 Light Tank on a sunken freighter off of Vella Lavella Island in the same area. The Stuart is stranded in a swamp, so not that easy to get at, but the Japanese tank is readily available in the cargo hold of the sunken freighter. Hard to say if more are out there.

I will take a look in my US Handbook on German Explosive Ordnance and see what I can find. Looks like it might be a ballistic cap for a 105 round. There were no apparent threads on the item? And what was the object made of that appears to be inside of it?

I have seen the same American Munitions material but there are other documents, which I do not have the time to cite in all or detail, which place doubt on the 75 number. These include 1921 Congressional appropriation hearings where the expenditures for these trucks are called into question and the numbers cited by the officers called in for grilling put the number much lower. And there are other citations.

 

Also the citation in the American Munitions documentof two Militors being used on the Transcontinental Convoy is incorrect. Lt. E.R. Jackson's 30 page, October 1919 report on the Transcontinental Convoy for the Tank, Tractor and Trailer Division of the Ordnance Department has a list of all the vehicles used, including serial numbers, as well as reports on their performance. Only one Militor is listed (on page 8) and it's the artillery tractor version and is serial number 6 with motor number AU955. I would also refer you to the recent book, American Road by Pete Davies (a Brit, oddly enough!) on the Convoy and his coverage of that single Militor as the "hero" of the convoy is effusive.

 

The Militor Corp was a company run by a man named Sinclair. It was formed for the sole purpose of building these trucks for the war and the implications were that it was done under some shady circumstances (lack of competitive bidding, new company with no track record, etc.), hence some harsh Congressional commentary. I've read a lot of the Congressional record (yawn) and, frankly, it appears to be more of a witch hunt than something based on fact, but I was mainly reading it to mine information about the trucks. Tough reading! It's clear the Ordnance Branch really wanted the Militor, though, even into the 1920s

 

Another document, With the Motors by Lt. Bryant, is an account of Artillery maneuver in 1923 where 11 Militors were used to transport a battery of 240mm howitzers in a loop around the Ft Bragg, NC, area.

 

Anyway, it remains unproven whether those desired 75 units were actually built. One thing I remember from the Congressional Record is that they ordered a whole bunch of tires for Militors they didn't have and they were a special size that didn't fit anything else! I'd have to go back and dig into my note to verify but I remember being pretty sure that up to 25 were produced. Just couldn't prove that 75 number.

 

The Militor wasn't a technical marvel. There was nothing new or whizbang in it. It was merely an assemblage of off-the-shelf parts or parts designs that better met army requirements. One of the reasons it existed at all was FWD's intransigence (thanks to the stubborn Walter Olen) in building a truck that more closely met army requirements. FWD (Olen) thought they knew "better" what everyone needed, so they were somewhat unwilling to alter their designs to suit military (or anyone else's) requirements (I have a great story about them being involved in the Jeep story). We all know the US Army wasn't/isn't always "dead on target" or reasonable with their requirements either, so at times it boils down to proverbial monkey with a football and FWD likely knew that. Being a successful company with lots of orders, FWD simply declined to provide the football. Still, FWD could have easily built a more suitable truck meeting the same standards and delivering the same performance as the Militor... but they didn't. In essence the Militor was part Latil, part FWD, part Nash Quad and part Walter in it's design and construction. It was patterned mostly after the Latil, whose performance it more or less matched. It's a fascinating truck!

 

timerover51: You said the 1st Div. Museum is restoring a Liberty B and the implication of your statement is that it was a proven Transcontinental Convoy truck. True?

Sorry to give that idea, but I doubt if it was one of the Transcontinental Convoy trucks, but I will check. As I periodically go to DC for research at the Archives, I will check to see if I can find out how many were built by looking through the Ordnance and Quartermaster Corps records.

My current research jag is to ponder whether any of the Militor 4x4s have survived. The is evidence that as many as 75 were built, but some dispute that. The numbers I have seen range from 5-75, but I tend to think it's at the higher end, having seen a report that indicated a fairly large number (around 20) were used in some USA maneuvers in the '20s.

 

The Militor was an interesting truck, with features from some the best 4x4s of the day. It's probably closest to a Nash Quad, with it's spur gear drive and LS differentials, but it has lower gearing to make it more capable and stronger components. It has the better Wisconsin engine from the FWD Model B and , as far as I can tell, the same type of transmission and transfer case (if not the same). The general appearance and layout is similar to the French Latil.

 

Anyway, just wanting to bring up a make I haven't seen discussed here yet.

I found the following quote in THE ARMIES OF INDUSTRY II. OUR NATION'S MANUFACTURE OF MUNITIONS FOR A WORLD IN ARMS 1917-1918, by Benedict Crowell, published by Yale University Press in 1921. Crowell was the United States Assistant Secretary of War in charge of the United States Army Munitions Program. This is a more popular account of his book on America's Munitions 1917-1918, which was his official report on the Army's war production published by the United States Government Printing Office in 1919. There are chapters on vehicle and tank production in both volumes, which can be located at archive.org for those interested in reading more about U.S. production.

The Ordnance Department also created the design of a four-wheel-drive Class T truck, calling the vehicle the "Militor," and built five of them experimentally. Two of these trucks journeyed from Washington to San Franciscoin the Transcontinental Convoys of 1919 and 1920, successfully serving as tractors in the rough going. After the armistice the Army bought seventy-five Militor trucks for the artillery.

Based on this, I would say that total production was 80. The five experimental trucks and the 75 production vehicles.

Note: The 1st Division Museum in Wheaton, Illinois is in the process of restoring one of the Liberty "B" trucks to an operating condition.

Greetings to All. My name is Dale, and presently I reside about an hour north of Chicago, Illinois, right near Lake Michigan. I am in my 60s, am retired from the US Army, and presently teach military history part-time. I discovered this site from a link on another web forum that I am on, where I do a lot of posting of military information that I have acquired over the years. I did my Army service in Alaska, so I know what minus 65 degree Fahrenheit is like, with no wind chill, and what that does to vehicles. Note, do NOT try to change a tire at that temperature on the side of the road.

While I do not own any former military vehicles, my favorite one, which I keep trying to convince my better half that we need (with lack of success so far), is the US amphibious truck of World War 2, the DUKW. Aside from its use in World War 2 and the Korean War, it would still be quite useful in some areas of the World.