Improvised Air Transportable CCKW"S

Stories about fighting in all theaters of WWII. I ask that these be stories directly from veterans and not previously published material.
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42cckw
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Improvised Air Transportable CCKW"S

Post by 42cckw »

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I have a friend who is 87 and was a motor pool SGT during WW11 with the 43rd Div on New Guinea and New Georgia, He has told me many stories about motor pool life in the jungle, they never had what you needed you always had to improvise, you have seen the pictures of them tipping a jeep on its side to fix the transmision , he said thats exactly how he did it ,anyway one day after riding him around in my 353 he was looking it over and commenting on what good shape it is in and he told me that some of the trucks they had were flown into New Guinea in C47's that had been cut in half with a cutting torch and it was his job to see they were welded back together using a Generator that had a jeep engine towed behind a Ford jeep , I did mention they had a air transportable truck that had a bolted flange in the frame behind the cab he just looked at me and said don't know about that all the ones we got were cut in half with a torch and it was my job to see they were glued back together :lol: . He told me most people can't imagine the conditions they had to work in . They had jeeps ,dodges GMC"S and a few studebakers. As we were riding in my open cab truck, He looked at me and said you should have been with me one day when we were crossing a small stream on New Georgia Island in a GMC just like this one with a smile on his face , I got half way across when all of a sudden a great big wall of water hit the side of the truck :shock: and killed the engine, with water flowing from one side of the cab and out the other that thirty seconds before that you could have walked across that stream and not got your knees wet ,now the water was starting to push his truck down stream with him in it, some of his buddies that had already crossed threw him some ropes while he was standing on the seat in the cab, he then tied the ropes to the truck while his buddies tied them of to some trees to stop the truck from moving further down stream, he told me they always laid the windshield down and drove with no tops, finally using ropes and two other trucks with winches they pulled him and the truck to the other side,and with a smile he says I bet you never had that happen to ya :!:
JIM 42CCKW
armydriver
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Post by armydriver »

Great story, and thanks for tellsing it. I have a friend that lives down the street from me. Bob was a Marine and fought at Guadalcanal, Tarawa and Siapan. He tells the story about going to a memorial that they were holding on Tarawa, after the battle, for the Marines killed on the island. They had found an old Japanese stake bed truck that was made by Chevorlet. It had no brake fluid in it, therefore no brakes. He said his sergeant poured water into the master cylinder and they bled the lines and off he and several other Marines went back to the beach. He said they were headed down a small hill towards a one way bridge across a small ditch . He kept pressing on the pedal but no brakes and there was a tank coming across the other end of the bridge. He said they were all waving at the tank to stop as they could not.
Thankfully the tank stopped as they buzzed by him in the brakless truck . They abandoned the truck, when they could finally stop, and walked the rest of the way to the beach.
You do with what you have to do with when in a pinch.
52 M38 Willy's
Former owner and restorer of CCKW353 " Betty Boop"

proud father of a career Army officer/Blackhawk pilot/ War in Iraq veteran
Retired high school history teacher at Lt. Colonel Robert G. Cole CMH High School, Fort Sam Houston Texas
proud great grandson of four Confederate soldiers.
great great grandson of a War of 1812 veteran
great great great grandson of 2 American Revolutionary war veterans
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