Operation Market Garden (The trucks thread)

[airborne medic]

I think my original thread has perhaps been misinterpreted. I feel the comment about the 1400 trucks was about the entire truck fleet of the 21st Army Group. Some of these trucks must have taken a lot of punishment if they were involved in the almost daily 700 mile or so round trip from Normandy to the Dutch/Belgian border. Is anyone in contact with any RASC drivers involved in this supply chain or perhaps a vehicle mechanic to help shed some 'front-line' views???

[sapper]

Utter Rubbish it seems to me, fourteen hundred trucks off the road? seems like the entire British three tonner fleet. Use you logic, 1400 off the road? Where do they get these ideas from?

AS to the truck? It was the Standard British army Bedford three tonner. As far as I know, the only mainstay truck,

Thinking about it, it seems to me that that truck could be first for the success story of WW2.

I can say this hand on heart. Not once anywhere, did we have one break down. When we moved to the lowlands, to supply everything we needed, it was not only RASC drivers, but anyone that could drive! and doubled up, so that one of the two could get some rest.

Not only that, but the trucks were running on "Overload" heavily overloaded to keep us going. It was a long way from the beaches of Normandy to the Belgium and Holland. Yet I have in my papers a report on the remarkable operation to supply from the beach loading, to Holland. (the red ball route)

The report states from all those long journeys, there was only one minor traffic incident, and no break downs.

Where do these people get these ideas from? I repeat...not once did we have a mechanical breakdown.

So where do they get these fantasies from? Like many others I read..I suppose ...imagination.
Sapper

[von Poop]

I'm sure I've got some reference in 'wheels and tracks' (specifically vehicle related magazine by Bart Vanderveen, probably the most authoritative and balanced author on trucks there ever was.) to a manufacturing (or possibly even water penetration in transit) problem with a large batch of british/canadian supplied trucks about this time, something about the pistons indeed.. I've also got a sneaky feeling that the problem was largely resolved before the trucks were actually issued, possibly even on delivery site.. I'll have a shufti but it's an awful lot of magazine to trawl through...

[sapper]

No Need! We never had a breakdown, rather shoots down this fairy tale. Besides... 1400 Tnat must have been about every truck we had. So what were we being driven around in?

[plant-pilot]

Originally Posted by sapper

No Need! We never had a breakdown, rather shoots down this fairy tale. Besides... 1400 Tnat must have been about every truck we had. So what were we being driven around in?

Sorry Sapper. I understand your view that you never saw one break down, and I know that in the army what you actually see does a lot to shape your opinion rather than what someone else said they saw, but if there is any truth in this story, and if these trucks were deliverd as BCRs or to be issued in theatre and found to be faulty before issue, you wouldn't have seen them break down at the side of the road. There would have been plenty of replacements held in large temporary depots in the rear, ready for the inevitable losses, that many at the front would never have seen, or even cared about.

Now I'm willing to keep an open mind while there's a bit of a dig to find out if there is any 'meat' on the story, maybe the number of trucks is wrong or some other detail is incorrect, but there seem to be the same reports in different places, and from what have been said to be reasonably good sources. It may indeed turn out to be rubbish, but I'd like it to be 'prooved' rubish.

I just feel that keeping an open mind rather than "I didn't see it so it didn't happen" is a better way of looking at it until some evidence is found one way or the other. Of course you are allowed your opinion, so it's up to you.

[sapper]

Did it not occur to you that 1400 trucks would have been damn near all of them?

[plant-pilot]

Originally Posted by sapper

Did it not occur to you that 1400 trucks would have been damn near all of them?

A very significant number yes, but again I would like to point out assuming the number is not in error if they had yet actually been issued, you at the front would not have noticed, but when they were required to increase the movement of stores from the beachead, they would not have been available.... not strewn along roads having broken down.

I say again, I don't know if the story is true or not. I am however saying that some root of the story may be and just saying that you didn't see all of them lined up along the road isn't really a convincing argument to it not being partly true.

If you see what I mean.

[Rich Payne]

I have read of a problem with wartime motorcycle pistons (BSA I think) which were within size tolerance at manufacture but unusable after shelf storage.

The problem was traced to poor quality recycled alloy. (The aircraft manufacturers got the new stuff and the automotive industry had to use the handed-in saucepans. )

If one takes in to account production at a scale undreamed of pre-war and questionable materials, it is probably not surprising that problems could slip through and that a lot of units would have been completed before the problem came to light.

This does not diminish the fact that some very clever designers and skilled engineers built some amazingly durable machinery in conditions that most of us would refuse to work in. All credit as well to those who kept them running in the field.

[von Poop]

By Sheer chance 'three-tonners, defects' is mentioned in the W&T index, I thought I'd include the whole extract verbatim from page 4 of Issue number 7. Apologies for the length but some of the numbers and possible factors are interesting

a case in point that has been bought to our notice by Mr. D.H. Colvin of London SW1 concerns a technical failure of 1,400 British 3 ton GS trucks in 1944 and we are anxious to get to the bottom of it, a few years ago Mr Colvin had read about this 'alleged truck scandal' in Ladislas Farago's biography of Patton and bought it to our attention.The nearest we were able to get to a breakdown of such magnitude was the engine failure of countless British Trucks following the introduction of Higher octane MT80 fuel, British Engines were not designed for operation on 80 octane petrol and as a result those of certain makes and types (we do not know which) developed severe burning of the valves. Changes were made to exhaust valves and guides for operation on leaded fuel and new engines were provided with valves made from an alloy steel containing 20 (Vs, 8) percent of chromium to lengthen engine life between overhauls.

But a lot of harm was done. Could it be that 1,400 trucks with old type valves were unknowingly issued for this very demanding long-distance work, that the valves burned excessively rapidly and that nowhere near the sufficient spares (and Manpower) were readily available to remedy the situation?

Mr Colvin has now reverted to this matter, having now read A Generals life - an autobiography by General of the army Omar Bradley and Clay Blair where again reference is made to this incident.
Apparently a fleet of no fewer than 1,400 trucks which were badly needed on the supply routes in France in the post D-Day period were delivered with defective pistons and there were no spare parts to replace them, as a result the burden on the US army to operate the Red Ball Express (some 6000 trucks running between Normandy and the front line) was disproportionally great.
Mr Colvin; "I find it hard to believe that with so much smoke there cannot be a fire of some kind here, Elsewhere in A Generals Life it is clear that both authors do not rate Farago's Life of Patton very highly so I do not think they have simply swallowed a concoction of his. Two points suggest themselves to me. First that there was a technical failure of some kind with the British 3-ton trucks and that this was magnified by the US Generals who at this stage of the war, as Bradley's ill-tempered book further confirms, were increasingly hostile to Montgomery's attempts, as they saw it, to cut them out of the glory. But second that the British took every step to minimise the story so that in effect it has never come out into the open in this country. Either way, there is an interesting detective story here which would be worth detailed research, starting perhaps with the manufacturers of the British 3-tonner.
Even if the story turns out to be just that, a Story, the fact that so many senior Americans believed it is not without considerable significance and even importance"
We have now discovered that the incident has, in fact, been referred to in several books including Chester Wilmot’s Struggle for Europe (as far back as 1951) from which we quote "In 2nd army's advance through Northern France, XII corps had been able to follow XXX only because VIII corps and nearly all of Montgomery’s Heavy, Medium and anti-aircraft Artillery had been grounded west of the Seine. By the start of September all the transport reserves of 21st Army Group were on the road. Imports were cut from 16,000 tons a day to 7,000 so that transport companies could be diverted from unloading ships to forward supply. This gain however was offset by the alarming discovery that the engines of 1,400 British-built three-tonners (and all the replacement engines for this particular model) had faulty pistons which rendered them useless. These trucks could have been delivering to the Belgian border another 800 tons a day, sufficient to maintain two divisions. By reducing the daily tonnage of first Canadian army, by bringing in fresh transport companies from England and by such expedients as welding pieces of airfield track on the sides of tank-transporters to convert them for supply carrying, 21st Army Group was able to provide enough supplies to carry Dempsey's two forward Corps into Belgium as far as Brussels and Antwerp, but with it's own resources it could not go much farther"
It is unlikely that any manufacturer would readily admit to whatever fault there was having been applicable to his vehicles, so was and is not much point in politely asking them. But do any of our readers know which make was involved?
We wholeheartedly agree with Mr Colvin that it would be of great significance and interest, even after all these years to find out what really happened to those 1,400 3 tonners.

Don't know if that helps or hinders the discussion but it's from an early issue and there's a good chance a later issue will clarify the possibilities further, I'll keep digging. I'll say again that Mr Vanderveen (sadly no longer with us) was a giant and serious figure in the world of Military Vehicle History and not given to consideration of 'silly' ideas. His style when disbelieving was brusque but here he seems to see some grain of truth to the story.

[Herroberst]

Sapper looking very much like James Bond...I refer to your avatar.

Hmm... Sapper was a Veteran who was transported/drove in a Bedford 3 tonner, He says they didn't break down.
Think I'll believe an honorable Veteran who was there rather than some nit wit author trying to make a buck.