WWII Mobil work shop vehicles

abn deuce · January 31, 2009

From time to time there have been postings of the exteriors and a few more photo's of the gutted interiors of these types of vehicles, I thought I'd start a thread of period photo's of them in use . Here's what I found on the Life magazine site I hope others will add on .

Does any one have a list of how many and what types these work shops were made?

Caption : Air Artillery, Italy 79th Ordnance Co. soldier repairing Army watches in his truck bed workship at field depot, in the Cassino corridor of battle. Location: Italy Date taken: February 1944 Photographer: Margaret Bourke-White

Edited January 31, 2009 by abn deuce
correct text

Joris · February 1, 2009

The US army really thought of everything, a workshop van to repair army watches..... :readpaper:

pop larkin · February 1, 2009

If you can get yourself a copy of the "Catalog of American Army Vehicles of World War II" (its a modern re-print of the March 1944 (2nd edition) of "catalogue of standard ordanance items") it has all the technical info on almost all vehicle used by the US forces in WW2.

Listed in the Ordnance Maintenance Trucks, 2 1/2-ton, 6x6 (4DT) section is a list of the workshops available. They are:

Small arms repair, M7A1

Automotive repair, M8A1

Artillery repair, M9A1

Instrument repair, M10A1

Welding, M12A1

Machine shop, M16A1

Electric repair, M18A1

Instrument repair M23A1

Listed in the section is all the info regarding the type of workbenches and equipment kept on board, plus some small pictures of the interiors of each workshop

abn deuce · February 1, 2009

Thank You pop larkin , All the different needs of an Army on the move taken care of .

While a number of these different work shop vehicles have been saved it would really be something if some of the workshops could be recreated , I m sure the many of the machines and tools would have been used up long ago either by the military or if they got into civilian hands , It would be something different to see beyond dump trucks and cargo trucks .

arthur.m · February 2, 2009

It would be great to re-create a shop van with all its tools and acessories. I have a DOD 10/42 closed cab Jimmy shop van, with some remaining stenciling, including the words "welding shop". Unfortunately the Norway army got rid of everything inside the van body, all I have is bolt holes and an oily corner where the genny once worked. Now I have to get a copy of the book mentioned above. Thanks for the info! Not that I realistically could think of getting all the stuff together.. We use the van as a play room for my son's Legos and our cat sleeps in there.

Arthur

N.O.S. · February 2, 2009

abn, what you need to do is persuade one of the skilled photographers in the upcoming Overloon raiding party to take some proper shots of the workshop dioramas in the museum there.

I took some but they are useless - the vehicles are set up as night-time scenes with low level interior lighting so you need a 'proper' camera with decent flash. The dioramas are something else however with great attention to interior detail - and you can get 'up close'!!