Operation Market Garden (The trucks thread)

[Capt.Sensible]

OK, I'll order it up later today and go and have a look probably some time next week. Beltring ticket purchase looms....

[Owen]

Yes please.
That would be great.

[Capt.Sensible]

Arse! Problem with library ticket that might take a few days to sort out but it is WIP.

[PsyWar.Org]

Don't know if anyone here gets a chance to visit the National Archives at Kew but the Administrative history of 21 Army Group is available there, reference: WO 205/996. See here:
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[craftsmanx]

Am I the only one to notice the contradiction in all the quotes. Initially the problem on the 1400 trucks was due to a piston fault in manufacture but then it seems that the problem was due to higher octane fuels burning out valves and guides. As a former VM I can assure you that these are two completely different problems.
Incidentally in "Craftsmen of the Army" vol 1. In the chapter covering OMG there is no mention of this problem which I'm convinced there would have been if it had existed as these were thr people who would have been directly involved in these breakdowns.

[sapper]

Comcerning the bedfords. I have the company war diaries here, With a description of the long haul from Holland to Normandy carrying supplies night and day non stop with two driversm so that the trucks never stopped.
They also had a "one ton" overload. a continuous run backwards and forwards. Thousands of miles.....no Bedford broke down, with one minor accident.
Where do these people get these stories
Its here for all to read
Sapper

[von Poop]

As nothing has been stated as a certainty then I can see No real contradiction evident whatsoever.
There is speculation, and possibilities suggested, and enough 'smoke' for the 'fire' to be worthy of investigation. On rereading the thread fully you will see that the most that's ever suggested by the initial story is 'a problem', not necesarily even 'breakdowns' that would be evident to the men on the ground at all, perhaps even something on the supply side.

This thread hangs solely on that elusive 21st AG Admin history written by men who were there and would be directly involved in any 'situation' (if there was one). It's been subject to too many misunderstanding's already and can go no further until that document's been checked. We have a man who can access one of the two copies apparently held in British libraries but can't expect him to throw up everything just for the sake of this.
He'll get there.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Capt.Sensible]

I haven't forgotten about this but life etc has been too busy lately to fit in trips to the Bodleian. Rest assured, I will get there sometime in the next few weeks.
H

[Rich Payne]

Originally Posted by sapper

I am also rather amused at the statement that the pistons had been made but had become unusable while on the shelf. That’s good for a laugh. Seriously! How would alli pistons somehow change while waiting to be used? Admittedly all metals deteriate with time, Gold the “Noble metal” being for all intents and purposes free from that. But in this case we are talking about thousands of years!


As a lifetime Engineer. I am quite aware of all areas of production. The only way that "alli" will deteriate is if it oxidises! Through salt, or prolonged exposure to weather. Being the pistons (Come to that any engineered component) would be greased up for storage, (standard army practice) I completely fail to see how a high precision component machined to tight tolerances of about +-.001 could change by sitting on the shelf?
To me it sounds ridiculous, and the more that comes out, the dafter the story becomes it seems to me.
Sapper.

I hope that the period documentation appears on this one so that we can find out if there really was a problem. In the meantime, I see that I lost track of the thread when it first appeared and have to say that I am a little uncomfortable with the suggestion that comments I had made in all seriousness were 'Good for a laugh' and making the story 'dafter'.

I realise that I made the cardinal error of not quoting sources. A case of laziness at the time. The story comes from an article on the WM20 BSA in the September 1986 issue of 'The Classic Motorcycle" by Bob Currie. After War Service as a Motorcyclist, Bob was the Midlands Reporter for 'Motor Cycle' and had probably better contacts with the industry than anyone else.

In an interview with former B.S.A. technical author Arthur Lupton, he states "...the truth was that the aircraft industry had a virtual monopoly on virgin aluminium. It was we who had to make-do with melted-down saucepans".

"...the oddest complaint of all came from Chillwell Ordnance Stores, at Nottingham, where they found that a number of brand-new M20 pistons that had been in stock a long time wouldn't fit the cylinders; we looked into it and discovered that though the pistons had been dead size when they left the works, they had been on the shelf so long that they had 'grown' and distorted - one outcome of the second-hand aluminium we were forced to use."

The article includes many references to actions necessary to remedy defects in production. I can also quote instances of Norton's Service department modifying machines already delivered to Chilwell. The point is that these quality controls generally worked but production delays would have been inevitable. I would suggest that the problem with the B.S.A. pistons would be due to impurities in the castings, perhaps zinc. Pistons are not of course pure aluminium and are not ground cylindrical so as to allow for differential expansion. Ironically, the problem is likely to have been greater for large factories with their own foundries rather than smaller plants who bought in from firms like Wellworthy or Hepworth & Grandage.

There has been a suggestion that if there were problems it was inevitably Bedfords. I don't know how far back down the supply lines these 1400 were needed but they could have been 4x2 Bedford OYs or Austin K3s rather than the 4x4s such as Bedford QLs, Fordson WOT6s (even more pistons !) or Austin K5s. Bedford incidentally supplied 52245 QLs from 1941 - 1945 according to Vanderveen.

Rich (who spends a lot of time scraping cosmolene from ex-WD components)

[sapper]

Wellworthy's closed a long time ago. I knew the firm well, and had been there as an advisor. I don't think they would have been best pleased to hear their products were not up to standard.
Now the melted down saucepans! It never happened, all the saucepans and iron railings that were collected were left in a damn great heap and never used.

Aluminium in its normal state is useless, It only becomes a viable metal as an alloy. The most common alloy combines copper, that produces duralium "Dural" in the old days. Copper is an electrical conductor so where aluminium is used in places where it Must be "non conductive" Such as in Atomic Energy uses, then Silicone is the alloying agent that makes aluminium "Viable" though the Dural Cooper mix is by far the best.

The very idea that any engineering component would be sent into a battle zone without close inspection is ridiculous.

Where do these stories come from? One author wanting to sell his book invents something and all the others quote him as reference,

These claims of dodgy trucks are the same trucks that did that long red ball journey from Normandy to Holland without one breakdown. The only losses we sustained were from enemy action.
Sapper