question Unusual staff car marking

[Willyslancs]

Can someone explain the door marking?

[Gordon_M]

Yes ....:angel:

[Gordon_M]

Oh well, suppose I'd better say what it is, too.

 

Fourth Service Command, US Army, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The Service Command structure took over the army functions and admin stuff in geographical areas of the US where the local units had been mobilised overseas. I had a couple of Service Command Carryalls once.

[Tony B]

Show off! :-D

[Gordon_M]

Me ? never ....:-\

 

The basic principle is that the fourth marking had four points, seventh had seven, and so on. There was one additional Northwest Service Command for Alaska Highway, Northwest Staging Route, and Canol Project area. They used large quantities of logistic type vehicles, 4 x 2 trucks, Carryalls, cars and staff cars, stuff like that, but it does seem that in 1941 or early 1942 they got a big bunch of half ton WC Dodges, either straight off the line, or quite possibly re-issues after active units got the new 3/4 ton WC Dodge.

[Gordon_M]

 

This image from olive-drab shows the technique, just count the points on this Ninth Service Command half ton ...

 

First and Second had special insignia that were very obviously One and Two.

[Runflat]

By happy coincidence, the latest copy of Vehiclues Militaires magazine (#50) has an article on this. Here are their graphics, though confusion on the First and Third Service Command!

 

 

 

[Gordon_M]

You can see the First has one bar, the Second has two squares, and the rest just go on the 'count the points' principle. It's worth noting too that the 'white on blue' colour scheme was for the patches and insignia. When applied to vehicles it was commonly just a white stencil onto the basic vehicle body colour, usually but not exclusively OD, like the Dodge pickup above.

 

Here's the Eighth Service Command insignia on one of my Dodges;

 

 

...and to round it off, here is the insignia of the Northwest Service Command, strangely missing from that article;

 

 

This was the one I was going to use on my VC 3, before I decided just to go with USAAC markings, though since the Army Air Corps was part of the Army, and the NWSC was responsible for the North West Staging Route ( series of airfields to stage planes to Russia via Canada and Alaska ) it would still be appropriate.

Edited May 26, 2013 by Gordon_M

[Gordon_M]

It certainly would.

 

The Fifth and Eighth ones are easy to make, most of the others get a bit complicated with odd numbers of points, uneven angles and curves, etc.

 

Another common marking was the 1" "FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY " on each door.