Operation Market Garden (The trucks thread)

[sapper]

The story about the pistons changing while on the shelf???

Does none of this convince anyone of you that it is not true. If so, there is little purpose in continuing this discussion.

It is rather like the Legend that Sword Beach was an easy landing, the same silly story, when in fact Sword was the heaviestly defended area anywhere on the Normandy coast. And by far.
Sapper

[Kiwiwriter]

I do know that the US had to briefly set up a branch of the Red Ball Express, called the "Lions Express" to replace the broken British trucks. I have to dig up my book on the Red Ball to find the details.

I read the same sources, which indicated that a lot of trucks were sent over with faulty pistons, and they had to be deadlined, which slowed the British advance. More than that I don't know.

[plant-pilot]

Originally Posted by sapper

Please note "Off the road" that directly states that 1400 trucks were broken down and off the road not being reissued but OFF THE ROAD! All 1400 of them,

Yes it is always posible to get a faulty batch where inspection has not been up to standards. But this has nothing to do with it, and the British army, if nothing else is thorough in their inspections.

Firstly, the army term 'off the road' is short for 'vehicle off the road' which is in today's army's world of the TLA now shortened even further to VOR.

Being VOR or off the road has nothing to do with breaking down, although once broken down and recovered to the unit, that vehicle would then be classed as VOR. VOR means that a vehicle is unavailable for use, whether from serious machanical fault, being over due servicing or even something as trivial as a bulb not working. I know in wartime that a vehicle wouldn't be classed as VOR due to a bulb, VOR still does not indicate 'broken down and off the road'. I thought I'd make that clear.

As an aside, our vehicles have the added complication of also being able to be 'off the water' or VOW. This doesn't meant that they are not in the water, else they would be VOW 99% of the time, what it does mean is that the vehicle is available for use on the road, but not available for use on the water.

Secondly, having had experience, it is not always true to say that "the British army, if nothing else is thorough in their inspections" as even military vehicles in recent years have had whole batches of issue vehicles recalled by the manufacturer in order for serious modifications or repairs to be made, making the whole fleet VOR on the spot. In one recall that I have personally experienced the faulty component was the breaks and every one of that type of vehicle was made VOR (left stood on the engineer park until repaired by the manufacturer).

That's not in the time when we had 1000s of one type of vehicle or in a time when vehicle production was under immense pressure, but in the last 8-10 years. So once again I say I'm not saying the story is true, but I'd like to see evidence one way or another rather than just have it dismissed out of hand.

[sapper]

OK I admit defeat. These stories become further out with each day that passes. many of them discovered a life time after the event. Despite the attempts by the Veterans to bring some sort of reason to what is being written...Sadly we failed, and miserably! for what appears these days are even worse in the way of complete nonsense than previously.

It seems to me that all our experience, know how, and battle experience counts for little when faced with some author somewhere trying to make a shilling or two. Unfortunately, I am now a lone voice trying vainlyto restore some sort of common sense. A commodity sadly lacking in many postings.
Cheers Sapper

[51highland]

If the 1400 trucks is true, were they shipped to Europe or were they parked in a field or somewhere in England. I can add, maybe to help , or not, but 51st Highland Division's Transport was taken away for the period 13th to 30th September 1944. 30th September saw them on the move again.

[51highland]

Reading "A Full Life" again by Lt. Gen. Sir Brian Horrocks, he states that he had " 20,000 vehicles in 30 corps. Pity it does not state how many were trucks. Also says that no unit was allowed to put more than 5 vehicles on the road without timing and permission from movement office in his HQ.

as an aside, he states that Irish guards lost 9 Tanks in the first 2 Minutes of action.

[Kiwiwriter]

My book on the Red Ball, "The Road to Victory," tells us that the Red Lions Express was set up on 16 September 1944 and ended on October 12 1944, to support the British and American forces in Market-Garden. The Americans provided trucks and drivers (and American supplies for their airborne divisions) and the British provided camps and control sites and supplies. It ran from the British supplyhead at Bayeux to the railhead at Brussels. Eight US truck companies were assigned, and each truck did 306 miles per day.

In all the Red Lions Express delivered 17,556 tons of supplies, with an average daily haul of 650 tons.

Sounds like Anglo-American cooperation at its very best to me.

[Herroberst]

Originally Posted by sapper

OK I admit defeat. These stories become further out with each day that passes. many of them discovered a life time after the event. Despite the attempts by the Veterans to bring some sort of reason to what is being written...Sadly we failed, and miserably! for what appears these days are even worse in the way of complete nonsense than previously.

It seems to me that all our experience, know how, and battle experience counts for little when faced with some author somewhere trying to make a shilling or two. Unfortunately, I am now a lone voice trying vainlyto restore some sort of common sense. A commodity sadly lacking in many postings.
Cheers Sapper

Sometimes I feel that way too. Its scary to think Sapper that we may have alot of believe everything you read folks in our midsts. Not cross referencing with more than one source or worst not believing a first person source who was there!!!

Be glad I'm not handing out grades.

Remember Sapper you are never a lone voice...You remind me of a veteran marine friend of mine who says simply:

They don't think like us anymore

Cheers and Thankyou for your service

[von Poop]

The point HO is that there's a 'tale' out there about 1400 faulty trucks.
Cross referenced from several different potential sources, one of which was published in 1951 by Chester Willmot, an author who landed with 6th airborne on Dday, was present at the surrender and had access to the very highest levels of command on both sides, and another which was in a book co-written by a very senior American general, Bradley (raising the potential political question mentioned). The question became as much to do with the origins of the story as its veracity.

Please don't try and say that anyone's denigrating Sappers point of view and personal experience, it simply isnt true and re-reading the thread from the beginning confirms that.

The knub of the thread is that there may well have been a manufacturing problem that never even came to the attention of the men at the front, perhaps one that was solved elsewhere. The original mention of Pistons deteriorating in storage was purely a suggestion from memory by one poster, the other references to them are to a 'fault' with them, nothing about how that fault may have occured or even specifically what it was, 'manufacturing fault' could mean a hundred different things, there is only some speculation of what that fault could have been. Manufacturing and supply side in the Second War was a simply vast and complex operation. The pressures of wartime production have been mentioned and could well be a significant factor. Trucks were delivered from several countries, dozens of manufacturers and arrived in various states from ready to go all the way through to virtual kit form requiring assembly at the point of delivery.
Maybe a record exists of a problem.
Maybe it will be found.
Maybe there never was a problem.
Wilmott was killed in an aircrash in 1954, if he hadn't been then we might have been as lucky as we are to have people like Sapper here and been able to enquire the origins of the story as he heard them.
Maybe someone will come along and say "oh yeah, we didn't even take 'em out of the crates".
But the possibility of a problem and why anyone ever thought there was one is still an interesting question that offers insult to noone, least of all the redoubtable Sapper.

[51highland]

well said V.P.