Look, guys -
I'm not saying that nobody ever crated a Jeep, hell just about
anything conceivable has happened to a jeep at one time or another.
And please don't send me a picture of a crated jeep, I know what a
crate looks like.
What I'm saying is that according to a guy that was involved in
shipping more jeeps than you or I will ever see, this is not the way
it was done at the arsenals. Most of this happened before I was born,
but I see no reason why the guy would make this up, and he has lots of
photos to back him up.
He said that all jeeps (and anything else) arrived on rail cars, were
stored in parking lots or warehouses (long term) and placed on ships
using a crane. If the hold was deep and the vehicles small, they were
placed on steel racks made specially for that purpose, up to 3 high.
They were never crated in the US, at least not after 1940 when he
started with the arsenal.
I have a picture of some WC-51's on just such racks on the wall in my
office. I can see the advantage over crating, the racks were lighter,
more space efficient, waterproof and reusable. He said this was
standard practice.
Now if the army wanted to ship vehicles between bases, such as from
Manilla to Guam, the jeeps would have to be crated as they didn't have
the racking the arsenals had. But those vehicles would not be new, and
the crates not original. Of course there were manuals and procedures
for this, but that doesn't mean that was the way they were shipped
new.
Like I said, I can't see any reason the guy would lie to me, and he
said if anyone told me about finding a shipment of jeeps "new in the
crate" not to believe them.
He gave me photos of jeeps being prepped for shipment. According to
the photos, everything was prepped, run in and test driven before
being shipped. Even DUKW's were water tested on the Raritan river
(I've got pics of that too) That would mean each truck would have had
to be un-crated, tested and re-crated for shipment. Sounds silly even
for the army.
If I told you all the stories I've heard about what was supposedly
"discovered" at Raritan, it would make a book. People have told me
they heard about jeeps, motorcycles, missiles, land mines and one
story of a disassembled B-29 found in a warehouse. All bunk. All we
found was old buildings and trash. If we had found anything you would
bet it would be in my garage right now.
Most of it was concocted by the newspapers. When somebody found an old
steering wheel from a jeep in a ditch, the newspapers reported "jeep
parts found". Never mind that the thing wasn't even useful as scrap.
When somebody found a few dozen corroded anti-aircraft rounds the
newspapers reported "unexploded missiles found at old arsenal". Before
you knew it they were a dozen Regules Missiles, complete with nuclear
warheads and packed in crates ready for shipment.
I bet they sold a lot of newspapers.
This I know first hand, I've seen it happen.
If you want to say you bought a new jeep in a crate for $50, fine I'll
believe you. But I still have the pics.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 01 2000 - 21:37:50 PST