Re: [MV] American Glider jeeps

NIGEL HAY (Nigelhay@tanksrus.freeserve.co.uk)
Mon, 22 Feb 1999 08:25:47 -0000

The British Airborne prepared jeeps with a removable sterring wheel,no
windshield and cut down front bumper and I believe no rear spare wheel. I
understand grab handles were kept on to allow manhandling.The Airborne
Forces Museum at Aldershot UK would be able to give accurate info.
As an aside, near here lives an ex RAF tug pilot who towed in one of the 3
gliders that landed at pegasus bridge-he has some fascinating stories.
-----Original Message-----
From: Morgan Blanchard <bmorgan@gbis.com>
To: mil-veh@skylee.com <mil-veh@skylee.com>
Date: 21 February 1999 22:37
Subject: [MV] American Glider jeeps

>Howard:
> I have never seen a removeable wheel on an American Jeep. The only
>pictures I have ever seen of American jeeps in gliders they are in Wacos,
>which truthfully are a lot easier to get a jeep out of than a Horsa Mk 1 or
>Mk2. The point being that, because of the boxy nature of the Waco, you
>don't need to make special modifications to the vehicle to get it in and
>out. In fact you can sit a jeep crew in the vehicle and drive it out of a
>Waco ready to go, a trick I would not sugjest you try in a Horsa. I do
>know that the Americans used Horsas and Hamilcars upon occasion but the
>Hamilcar was used for flying in light armoured vehicles and the Horsa was
>used primarily as a troop transport.
> From looking at several photos of American Glider borne jeeps,there
>seem to be no special modifications to the vehicles and nothing has been,
>uniformly, removed from them. Most of these pictures are from training
>exercises and there were surely field modifications to vehicles, howerver
>the British modifications are not field modifications. They are tactical
>modifications undertaken on the division level and performed by the REME
>shops on a (unit) standard pattern. This is evidenced by the fact that all
>the British mods are in evidence during training exercises prior to combat,
>and the simple fact that they are nessicary to get the vehicles into the
>gliders at all.
> For all these reasons, the modifications done to British A/B jeeps are
>not appropriate for American Glider born vehicles.
>
>Morgan
>
>
>
> >Morgan, do you have these drawins available, I would like to make one of
>>these up for my jeep per my earlier post. There was a lot of ideas on
para
>>gear between the allies and it would fit very well as we do US 82nd Div,
>>325 GIR Thanks, Howard
>
>
>
>===
>To unsubscribe from the mil-veh mailing list, send the single word
>UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of a message to <mil-veh-request@skylee.com>.
>

===
To unsubscribe from the mil-veh mailing list, send the single word
UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of a message to <mil-veh-request@skylee.com>.