Deep Sea FWD

[Great War truck]

What an amazing clip of film. I think that is the bigger 10 ton version, but otherwise much the same. You would think that it would damage the railway lines as it drove over them.

Thanks

 

Tim (too)

[DeepSeaDrifter]

Thanks for the feedback and great photos. Tim I especially liked the picture of the cats in Hawaii. Have you by chance come across any others from that era in Hawaii? The video clip was very cool. Nice to see the Holts in action.

The next one is unique in that it is the only motorcycle we've ever come across. This was also discovered around the same time as the tractors and in the same vacinity. I'm sorry there are no other (or better) images of this. I even got the DVD from the data dept on campus and reviewed it and really there was nothing there that showed any more than this picture. The thin frame makes me think this is a WWI era bike. I looked at a number of photos and couldn't quite find a match, although I saw an early Harley (1916, I think) that was very similar. It had a disk-like front tire (as opposed to spoked) and had the small curved handle bars which I think this one looks like it may have.

The same article about the tractors also mentioned that the junior officers in the mobilized artillery battalion would be switching over from horseback to motorcycles, some with side cars. Since everything else down there appears to be military, I have a hunch this one is too.

aloha,

Steve

[79x100]

The amount of ironwork surviving above the front wheel suggests to me the leaf spring fork suspension of an Indian and the heavily valanced front guard is perhaps indicative of the Powerplus ?

 

It is a V-twin and is lying on the sidecar chassis which also points in the direction of the Powerplus model.

 

I think that this is probably what it once was :-

 

http://pioneerflightmuseum.org/vehicles/indian.shtml

 

I'm not too well up on US motorcycles, but wasn't the Indian the most numerous with the US forces at one time ?

Edited October 14, 2009 by 79x100
extra thoughts.

[DeepSeaDrifter]

Here is the photo of the 1916 Harley Davidson that I mentioned. It shows the disk-like wheels. It's kind of hard to tell if the artifact actually has the same thing or if it has spokes and the marine growth has just filled it in. I don't know if this Harley was a military vehicle or not. Any thoughts on this?

aloha

Steve

[DeepSeaDrifter]

I think this next one is one of the strangest vehicles we've come across. It looks something like an old mining cart, but I suspect it may have been used for hauling ammunition. I think it's unusual in the difference in the size of wheels. It makes me think that it may have been designed for the back end to be very heavily loaded down and the front end not so much, perhaps it even had a rider. The large number of spokes used is also interesting. This was located in the WWI era area and on the very same dive as the dump truck and at least 3 truck chassis, one of which I believe is an FWD. I have been unable to dig up any old photos or restorations that match this one. I hope someone can provide some info or insight on the origin or use of this artifact. Any pictures, drawings, etc...would be fabulous. All comments and/or guesses are welcome.

aloha,

Steve

[les freathy]

The horse drawn wagon, do i detect the remains of a hot tar container notice the bottom sides are angled and there seems to be a couple of outlets on the rear shot just a thought

[Great War truck]

Sorry, i cant add anything to the motorcycle question. The US Army made use of Cleveland, Harley Davidson and Indian motorcycles during WW1 and it could be any of these.

 

The mystery wagon is very interesting. I certainly dont recognise it as an ammunition wagon. All wagons at this time were wooden with wooden wheels. The exception being workshop trailers which this most certainly is not.

 

I am inclined to agree with Les on this. It looks like a tar boiler to me. The angled sides to keep the tar on the bottom, metal wheels for the weight, look very similar to restored "civilian" ones i have seen at the GDSF (or similar). Photo anyone?

 

Tim (too)

[DeepSeaDrifter]

I must admit that I had no idea what a tar boiler was. However, since looking at a number of photos online, I am convinced that that is exactly what this wagon is. Although I didn't find an exact match, the shape of the bottom, wheels sizes, and the heavy duty spokes, seem to be common traits in all of them. I've attached a nice picture of a couple from South Australia. The taller one I believe was for sand. Info said they were used in the 1800's.

We're starting to get into the final remnants of my vehicle photos. I've attached a couple of a vehicle that is pretty much chassis and a steering wheel. Not much to go on as a silt cloud was stirred up obscuring visibility, so the sub ended the survey and moved on. I was hesitant to even post this but this group has ID others with very little for clues before, so perhaps this is an unusual steering wheel (or angle) that might give it away. I have it listed as a mechanical mule, but I suspect that is wrong. It was found in the Defensive Sea Area, so could be WW II era.

aloha,

Steve

[raf753]

Fascinating pictures .

At RAF Kinloss , we had an ex Kriegsmarine electrician , and when he saw my model 88's and half tracks , he told me that from 1945-47 as a pow , he was a crew member on a British LST , whose job it was to ferry ex German Army stuff out into the Baltic and push or drive them off the front . The stuff shoved off included artillery , tanks and tractors (in the broadest sense) . The reason given at the time was to stop the tractor stuff in particular being used for agriculture/forestry so that the post war industries had a market . Anyone ready to jump in and have a look ?

Also had a mate who was in Palestine doing a similar trick before they pulled out of there , but it seems they dumped more ammo than hardware .

Pollution ? What pollution ?

[Great War truck]

I am sure that the Baltic is littered with interesting stuff. Maybe we should suggest they build a giant coffer dam near Denmark and then pump it dry.

 

Anyway. I have been giving some thought too that chassis and i have no ideas yet. I will say that it is not WW1 as almost all US WW1 trucks were right hand drive and this is left. I cant add much more than that at the moment.

 

Tim

[Tony B]

The area off Alderney in the Channel known as Hurd's Deep, thousands of pices of kit and explosive dumped there over the yreas.

[nz2]

The photos of the tank wagon (not a vehicle on tracks) could well be a water wagon.

I have an illustration from an American catalogue showing a similar design of tank to this photo. It would appear to have been orginally horse drawn although could well have been altered or even manufactured as a tractor drawn unit.

The query as to the smaller front wheels, this allowed the front axle to pivot and provide steering without touching the body on full lock. Larger diameter wheels require a wider axle spacing to gain the same turning ability. The curved base of the tank also assisted to give a better wheel clearance when turning.

Tar tanks tend to be taller and with a rounded steel cover. The illustration I have does not show any cover to stop water sloshing about. I assume timber planks on top would over come this problem. Still if horse drawn the driver sitting on the front would still get a wet bum!

Doug

[Great War truck]

Hi Doug

 

Thats interesting. I have not come across any pictures of water tanks like you describe. Can you post any more information or a photo of it? I would have thought that a roof would be fairly important to stop water sloshing out. The only pictures i have of water tanks in the US Army of WW1 period are truck mounted on FWD's, Quads and Packards, but i would think that earlier ones would have been horsedrawn.

 

Tim

[nz2]

Will copy off latter when the scanner is working.

For transporting water over unevan ground I would say this design would most ineffective, with a great loss of liquid.

I agree its a most unusual tank shape having no lid. Its more like a vat as used in a factory situation. Could have it been used for transporting material like molasses where digging it out was a method of distributing it. That would put it into the horse drawn era, as using the molasses as a tonic for the horses. My knowledge of the Hawaian Islands is not that great but I seem to recall a sugar cane industry. Molasses could have been transfered direct from a sugar cane processing factory for use by the army horse corps.

Or a sludge or effluent transporter. The stinky and filthy jobs of handling such material would still have to be undertaken.

Doug

[N.O.S.]

Water carts of this era typically had hinged wooden lids on each side - here's a smaller example, you can see the hinges for the lids.

[DeepSeaDrifter]

I've attached photos of three more unrelated artifacts. One is just a set of wheels, but spokes are interesting and I think it looks like it might have been part of an artillery cart. There seems to be an inner ring on the axle near one wheel so maybe it was used to lay communication cable. I'm sure there's other possibilities. Another item I believe is the front end of an FWD based on the radiator shape and the wheels. I think this one is especially interesting because the wheel has broke away from the axle. I remember Tim mentioned that the earliest ones would have had wooden spokes so perhaps this one did and they have rotted away. The last one with the missing radiator looks like an FWD too. This one is from the Defensive Sea Area, the other two were found on the same dive as the tar boiler (or water cart) in the WWI era area.

This is my last post on this thread for a while. We are heading back out to sea for our dive season in another week. We have our usual "test and trial" dives, unfortunately none of them will be in the WWI era area which seems to produce the most vehicles. However, our first day we will make a 2 sub dive in the Defensive Sea Area and then out of it into an area we've never been through before. This dive will be entirely in the depth range where we tend to find vehicles, aircraft and lots of landing craft. The following 2 days will be in deeper water where we found the Japanese submarines and tend to find more ships and occasionally aircraft. Ordnance is found at all depths. I will post any new finds when I can. Thanks to everyone who has provided information, photos, comments and has even bothered to view this thread. It has been unbelievably helpful in identifying and developing a historical record on these great machines from a fascinating era. I hope to eventually incorporate them into our own website to share these and other artifacts we have found with others interested in our submerged cultural resources. Who knows....maybe someday it will lead to someone coming up with the funding to go down there and do a proper extensive survey.

aloha,

Steve

[Old Bill]

Hi Steve.

 

More great pics! The first, with the engine and front part of chassis, is a Liberty 'B'. It is probably a series 1 variant as they had the wooden wheels. Steel became standard in the series 2. The best give-aways are that the radiator is mounted well-forward and that the rad filler cover is of a large elliptical pattern rather than the screw-in type found on most early vehicles.

 

The second is an FWD again but the radiator has gone missing (along with a lot of other stuff!).

 

The axle is a bit more puzzling. My first thoughts were FWD as I thought the remains of the prop shaft (pointing upwards) off-centre suggested four wheel drive. The brake band on the right is very similar too. However, the hub-caps are the wrong shape so I'm afraid I don't know. Tim might be able to offer some light.

 

Cheers!

 

Steve

[Great War truck]

Yes, i agree with youre identifications there Steve. I am just wondering if the wheels might be the carriage wheels for a 155mm artillery piece like this one.

 

 

Hard to say for sure.

 

Good luck with your next venture Steve. I look forward to seeing the next group of photos.

 

Tim

[DeepSeaDrifter]

Well I thought we'd get shut out this season. Rough sea conditions forced us to move our "Test and Trial" dives from the target rich areas outside of Pearl Harbor and the Southern side of Oahu to the sheltered West side. We felt lucky just to find the wreckage of a F4U Corsair aircraft. The rest of the dive season was spent doing science dives throughout the islands, which rarely produce any wrecks, much less vehicles. However some late season scheduling produced 5 additional survey dives about 10 miles SE of Pearl. Deeper water than we've ever found any vehicles (about 550m range). As luck would have it, on our final day we found a Piper Cherokee airplane (1995 crash) and 3 vehicles. I'll start with the best one. This appears to be a touring car from the late teens to perhaps the late 20's, based on the spoked wheels. I haven't had a chance to really to look at many possibilities since we're still demobilizing, so I thought I'd share these images in case someone out there can positively ID it or at least point the right direction to narrow the candidates. Points of interest that might be unique, first of all would be the unusual doors. They appear to open on the same hinge. The back seat door seems to have a curve to it to accommodate the shape of the wheel. The door handle can be seen toward the back of the door. The forward door looks like it has a hole where that handle would have been and it would have opened swinging aft. The front headlights appear to be even closer together than most of the images of vehicles of this type that I've seen. The front fenders are quite dramatic in shape. The running board they would have connected to are missing. The pilot on this dive mentioned that the front windshield still actually had some of the glass in it.....amazing! Some of these cars have a two piece windshield, this one appears to have only one, however there are stubs on the top so maybe the upper broke off, but my guess is it just had the one we see. It has the high arcing back seat that I reckon had connected to a removable top. This is the first car/non-military vehicle we've come across (that was identifiable). That being said I thought I read somewhere that the senior officers for the first mobilized artillery battalion would ride in cars and the junior officers on motorcycles with side cars. Any thoughts, guesses, history, photos, and positive ID's are welcome.

aloha,

Steve

[ferretfixer]

I was told that the UK armed forces would on occasion dump vehicles overboard on return from overseas, though I can't remember why. Can anyone verify this? Fantastic photos Steve. Thanks for posting.

 

It was indeed common, postwar. For a lot of equipment to be sea dumped to get rid of 'Warlike Stores' Etc. To prevent it being reused, or the possibility of someone getting an Armoured vehicle going & causing damage Etc. There was SO much kit laying around, & everyone was understandably sick of anything to do with War. The quickest & easiest method was seadumping. This was especialy so with Ammunition & bombs Etc. The time used with labour, Gas, Logistics Etc for gas cuting was insufficient for the vast amount of work to be done. Postwar, it was almost the 'Norm' to seadump stuff. I can attest to the dumping of Small Arms & Ammo in bulk. My Father was also an Armourer, & was involved on occassion with this procedure. Everything was put into barges/lighters & towed out to deep water. The barges apparantly were hollow walled & had doors in the bottom of the load bays. these opened up to drop thier loads into the sea. He recounted many tails of camps that we had both been to in our Service carreers. Where, in his day. So many stens, brens, revolvers Etc by the hundereds. Had been stripped of internals & simply buried in woods around the garrison to get rid of them. To my knowledge, they are STILL there today! (NO, Im NOT revealing where they are!) It would NEVER happen today!

All Ordanace Ammo, Has to be fired off to get rid of it. There are specialist companies that tender for this service. NOTHING is Seadumped anymore to enviromental issues. (By Britain, anyway!) All Small Arms & Larger ordinance spares Etc & anything 'Sensitive'. Is Gas cut & melted as Secure scrap.

When I was Stationed at the School of Infantry as one of the school Armourers. I lived in quarters & had a Willys Jeep (& later a Kubelwagen) which I drove a lot & attended shows in. I was obviously known around the garrison for my collecting hobby! Another soldier who lived opposite me, told me about two .303" No.4 Rifle barreled actions he had dug up in a 'certain camp' not far from where we lived. I got both of them from him & in return offered to restore & build them up to thier normal configuration before they were stripped down. This i did & took both of them to one of the ranges for test firing after my restoration & evaluation.hey BOTH fired & grouped admirably! Just goes to show you dosent it? Both rifles were then De-Activated by me & got certs for. Back to sea dumping! When I lived in Sussex, I knew a captain of a dregger vessel. He bemoaned the fact that on frequent trips out to dredge shipping lanes to keep them 'deep water'. Old shells & the like were often bought up. this meant draging out the local E.O.D teams to deal with these things & the 'downtime' involved in the cessation of work till these shells were destroyed Etc. Eventually, they simply kept lobbing them over the side so they didnt have the inconvinience involved with E.O.D Etc!

he bought me one back as a souvienier. It was encrusted with barnicals and the like. I eventually got the fuse end assembly off this rusted & molusk encrusted example, & do you know what I found? The inside was as clean as the day it was made! Full of explosive Etc. It just goes to show you that airtight ordanance does NOT deteriorate very well internally! I DO NOT ENDORSE THIS PRACTICE OF OPENING UP ANY ORDANANCE BY ANY PERSON NOT QUALIFIED TO DO SO! IT IS EXCEPTIONALY DANGEROUS IF YOU DO NOT KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!

As an aside, this post could be linked to the recent article on the Richard Montgomery ship, & the associated Dangers attached! Mike. :nut:

Edited February 1, 2010 by ferretfixer

[Great War truck]

Hi Steve

 

Pleased to see that you have been finding and photographing things again. I had not responded as i am not really sure what youhave there and was hoping someone else would jump in with an answer. It appears to have wooden wheels suggesting it is quite early, but of course it might not be military at all but have been a privately owned one. Were privately owned cars dumped off Hawaii or just military ones?

 

If i had to hazzard a guess i would say that it was an "Overland" (as in "Willys Overland"). Now, lets see if i can back that wild guess up with a photo.

 

Tim

[abn deuce]

While I cant help with the id's I did want to say its a fascinating read , never know what you will post next !!

[DeepSeaDrifter]

Sorry I've been slow with the next vehicle. I was waiting on some captures from our new HD video cameras. I think you'll agree they were worth the wait. The inverted side view and the hub cap are from HD. The bumper and stern side view are shot through the viewport from the pilot. As you see this one is upside down and in pretty rough condition. The only really big clue here is that you can clearly read "Plymouth" on the side of the hub caps. Not much else to go on but the tires, which I assume place this more towards WWII. Still looking for a match on the previous car. I looked at a bunch of Willy's Overland as Tim suggested. Saw several that appear really close, but haven't found that perfect match. Perhaps its a year or so off the ones I'm viewing. I did see a historic photo of two cars that look very similar to this one, which was taken on the island of Molokai'i in about the 20's or 30's. I'm trying to get a copy.

aloha,

Steve

[Tony B]

Beautiful photos! Just keep posting they really are exquisite

[Great War truck]

Fantastic photos. Must be a great camera you are using. Wow, first time we have an object with its name on the side! sadly, i have no idea what age it might be. Anything from 1930's to 1950's. What age are the other objects that you have in the vicinity?

 

Tim