WW2 Surplus Trucks

lang This Pic Reminds me of My Father in Law..

https://www.hcvc.com.au/forum/attachment/27371

In January 1961 My Father in Law Who had Left School a few Months earlier & Done some harvest Work. Bought Himself an Army Surplus WLA Harley. It was packed up in a packing Crate But had 1500 (odd) Miles on It. as His First means of Transport..

He Still has It Today & up until 4-5 yrs Ago was Still on Full Rego....

Arent they still turning up brand new Jeeps in unopened crates?

Sorry mate but never were any jeeps in packing crates stashed anywhere, let alone Australia. There were motor cycles in crates disposed of up into the early 60's but not thousands. I have seen a couple of these preserved unassembled. The crates were made of heavy cardboard.

I have a mate Ian Parker who has a wonderful collection of Harleys going back to the early 1900's. He has a couple of nicely restored WLA's but had one still in a crate with everything still wrapped in greaseproof paper- worth an absolute fortune. About 10 years ago he arrived home from holiday to find his 18 year old son had decided to help out and had assembled the bike, dumped the crate, packing and original tyres which were "hard" and had wracked up about 100km on it. The police were not called but I believe there were noise complaints from 3 blocks away.

With about 60 years heavily involved in jeeps and owning dozens I have heard thousands of stories about "buried" jeeps in crates "first hand from my father's best mate's brother". Don't talk to me about Spitfires hidden in the bush in NT ready to fuel up and fly away! I have had quite a few idiots looking me in the eye and spruiking the total BS that they have personally seen them.

Firstly the Australians buried no big ticket items of great saleable value. Even in the Islands they lined good bad and ugly up in rows and contractors came and bought them either for recovery and sale or scrap eg Thiess brothers and others chartered numerous ships to bring their loot back to Australia.

The Americans had a huge sales organisation that sold vast quantities of equipment to international buyers in major operational areas. In many smaller places they pushed stuff into the sea. In Brisbane for example barges were going out each day to dump American stuff into the ocean for a couple of years after the war. None could be returned to USA to protect their economy and the Australian Army had more than enough of their own.

All their jeeps arrived in the battle area assembled ready for use

They did come across the Pacific in crates but went to International in Geelong firstly for assembly them both Ford and GMH got involved as numbers grew. The Army only received operational vehicles from the assembly contractors.

Lang

Duck s and tracked landing vehicles were sold in crates at Bandianna in 1974.........beechey,peter murray,w&p all bought Ducks in crates....Me and Bruce D bought one that had the crate opened ,and the wheels put on....$2500 each.......the tracked landing vehicles went for scrap price .under $1000....................Motor bikes in crates were sold in the 80s.......the army put smashed BSA s back into the crates the new ones had come out of......At one time the 350 BSA were selling for $80 each four to a pallet.............the very last of them reached $500 for a MP white bike......the 400 Suzukis couldnt be given away ,seen them sell for $5 each in lots of 8 or so.

John

We all have different info but I think you may be mistaken about the DUKW and Alligators. The tracked landing vehicles were never crated. Far from making it convenient, boxing such large items as DUKW and armoured vehicle would turn a self mobile large piece of machinery into a huge oversize box that nothing other than ships cranes and heavy equipment could move, certainly nothing commonly available across the Army transport system.

I have never seen a picture of DUKW in a crate but may never have found one. I had many days of free access at Bandiana while flying for the Survey Corps out of Albury and went through every shed and vehicle park in the whole huge complex around 1970. Every DUKW there (and there were not hundreds) was either on blocks or in "active reserve" ready to go at short notice for floods or whatever reason. The main reason for crates was to reduce the vehicle size by partial disassembly and often getting two to a box. Pretty pointless with DUKW and armoured vehicles.

Boxing only occurred to destinations that had major workshop facilities to carry out the assembly they never arrived at user units boxed and the work was achieved far back (even so far as the factory and never boxed). Most jeeps were never boxed - only those going to major civilian assembly plants or big Army assembly units in UK/Europe, Australia etc to reduce the size for shipping.

I could well be wrong but love to see some photos.

Lang

Jeep Shipping

I have just run through some of my reference material re boxed jeeps. Boxing was time consuming, expensive and inconvenient turning a mobile unit into one needing a crane. Forklifts were still comparatively rare and only found in factories and major goods handling areas. They were mostly small and not to be seen everywhere as today. Boxing only occurred where absolutely necessary and they found better ways to ship the majority of jeeps overseas.

Here is the complicated boxing system:




It would take longer to make the box than make the jeep.




Here is the fast method that was used:

Here is another way of shipping a jeep.

I hope the ice cream was chocolate.

Here is the International 6x6 section. Ex US Navy and Marines. International produced far fewer combat vehicles only 40,000 6x6 and 14,000 Half Tracks and another 25,000 4x4 Dodge Weapon Carrier style for the Marines. They did produce tens of thousands of non-combat vehicles.




This is interesting. The full account of International during WW2. They certainly gave GM and Ford a run for their money in total war goods produced.
usautoindustryworldwartwo.com/internationalharvester.htm

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