I have been reading excerps from Damien Lewis's Nazi Hunters in the Daily Mail. It is about Operation Loyton in 1944 when an SAS group parachuted in to the Vosges Mountains in occupied France. At a later stage they were reunited with the Jeeps from which they usual operated.. As Lewis puts it ".....six floated down in special cradles strung from enormous parachutes at each corner." I did not realise the RAF had a Heavy Drop capability at this stage. What aircraft would have been used? I would have thought this more of a job for a Hamilcar Glider. The first aircraft that I was aware of dropping MSP's was the Blackburn Beverly but this was not around until the 50,s. ( The Beverly design evidently was inspired by the Hamilcar.)
Yup Halifax had the capability and was used operationally for the duty 1944 onwards http://association-sas.chez-alice.fr/PgeLargageJeeps.htm Ross
Thanks for that Ross Answer in One. I should put this in the "What I have learned about WW2 today thread" So underslung load in the Bombbay ,your link explains it very well and apt as the jeep shown is with SAS armaments and markings
The Horsa glider could handle a jeep (as could the Waco) so the Hamilcar would not be necessary, but the Halifax dropped jeeps from a dropping beam, though whether this was in the bomb bay or slung below the fuselage I have not yet found out. The Hastings used a dropping beam to drop jeeps at Suez (on crash pans, just like in the link above), but of course a Hastings didn't have a bomb bay, so the dropping beam was below the fuselage. Chris
Doesn't add much to the thread I'm afraid but as a personal connection my late uncle Don and his crew dropped a Jeep, two "joes", 3 containers and 3 packages as part of the SAS Operation Tombola in northern Italy on the night of 5th/6th April 1945. The aircraft was a Halifax Mk II, JN898, which I suspect had been modified in some way as he only ever flew it on these two occasions, despite aircraft being more-or-less interchangeable between crews in the squadron. The vehicles were mounted on a pallet or sledge of some sort I think for the drop, although I couldn't swear to that - there's a series of photos available somewhere of a Halifax dropping a Jeep, maybe from the IWM? I think they carried the Jeep in the bomb bay but again, not sure. They'd attempted the drop the night before but had to abandon it with engine trouble, and return to Brindisi (he was with 148 Special Duties Sqdn). Don's aircraft, K-King, was one of two which dropped Jeeps the next night in support of the SAS. Cheers, Pat
Good selection of pictures of the Jeep under-slung on a Halifax here: http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2014/12/military-pallets-boxes-containers-part-7-air-despatch/#
Thanks for the replies, certainly increased my heavy drop knowledge ,I was aware of WW2 resupply and containers etc. But thought dropping vehicles started with the Beverly. On a personal note ,I did see a Ferret on an MSP dropped from a CV130 candle straight in ,quite spectacular. That was on Ex Ruby Signet in Denmark that was in the 80's I think.
