From: chance wolf (chance_wolf@shaw.ca)
Date: Wed Feb 04 2004 - 11:42:50 PST
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nigel Hay" <Nigel@milweb.net>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 11:46 PM
Subject: Re: [MV] Any M26s Pacifics out there?
> Ineed it was a recent article in Classic Military Vehicles. There are
quite
> a lot of Pacifics in Europe, 15 years ago I was one of the "helpers" that
> dragged 3 out of a yard in France.
Wasn't that adventure an article in Army Motors about, uhh..100 years ago?
I remember bits of it, I think. I might be compositing it all with other
articles over the years, but I thought an American collector wanted one to
ship back home to the 'States, and when something of a more manageable size
was suggested, I think the guy replied that he "wasn't interested in any
vehicle unless you could walk underneath to do an oil change."
A logging outfit here in the outskirts of Vancouver, B.C. bought up a bunch
of trucks at the end of the War for logging at Stave Lake. The vehicles
wound up in various remote areas accessible only by an old Landing Craft
kept for the purpose, and among these vehicles were several CMPs, at least
one Jeep, one armoured Lynx, several WC-64KD ambulances, several Studebaker
5th wheel tractors and cargoes, at least one M-135 (a later addition) - and
one M26 Pacific. Many, many stories circulated about all this stuff for
years, and one weekend our local chapter of the MVPA, "Western Command",
booked a Hydro cabin at the accessible end of Stave Lake and had a
combination overnight./exploration event.
The first day we visited the nearer of the two spots and found the
vulture-picked carcasses of the armoured Lynx, the M-135, various bits and
pieces of the Studies (rusty cab fragments pushed off the side of a mound,
mostly), and CMP chassis in various stages of completeness (one still had a
"Western Command" or "Prairie Command" marking visible, from what I
remember.) There was also a CMP Cab 13 Cab top perched up out of harm's way
on a berm beneath a few trees, as though someone had meant to come back for
it at some point in the future.
The second day (after fussing with the boat for an eternity trying to come
up with a running outboard), three of us set off to the upper, further part
of the lake in the hopes of finding some of the rumoured goodies before the
daylight faded. Unfortunately, no sooner had we touched the landing and
walked a short way up the road, it was time to return to base rather than
risk getting caught out on the lake after dark (the 'lake' is a forest which
was flooded by the creation of a Hydro dam, and you have to "watch where
you're driving" in quite a few spots.) We did however spy an axle or some
other chunk of drivetrain sitting nearer the landing which one of our mob
thought likely from the M26.
Before anyone thinks of mounting an expedition similar to Nigel's in this
particular area, the logging outfit was apparently instructed to "clean up"
the site, and according to a couple of people (one who overflew the airstrip
at the site fairly often), the M26, the W64KDs and whatever else might've
been at that end of the lake were shovelled into a pit and buried. The only
way out was the Landing Craft, and that many vehicles exiting the site via
that route would've been noticed by a great many people who noticed nothing
of the sort.
Anyhow - fun times. Makes me want to fire up the Evinrude and snag one of
the metal detectors from the Props dept. at work.
(I did thieve a data plate from a destroyed Studebaker tractor cab. 1945
6x4. I still have it somewhere.)
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