Chugalug,
The Thruxton Jackaroo had a forerunner in the shape of the DH83 "Fox-moth", which specialised in 5-minute, 5-bob "joyrides" at many a seaside beach up to and after the war (except that it was 10-bob then). I always thought that it had a 4-seat cabin, but Wiki tells me there were only three. The owner/pilots used to fairly rake it in on a sunny afternoon - the queue of customers reaching right down the beach.
"Blood Wagon" was universally used as a name for the ambulance. But I must admit that this thing does look more like a hearse (and surely they could have found a lick of white paint and done a Red Cross if it was an ambulance ?). Hummingfrog will tell us, I'm sure.
81 (West African) Division were with us in S.Arakan (possibly the same outfit)....D.
Ormeside28 and Fareastdriver,
Yes, our ramblings about Bonds, Isettas and Chang Ans do seem rather small beer in this context, don't they ? Yet they all have their place in our Cyber Crewroom, in which our wise Moderators have allowed us seemingly unlimited scope - with the result that now we have one of the most popular and best supported Threads on PPRuNe.
Ormeside, you really were hiding behind the sofa when soft jobs were being handed out, weren't you ? Not content with being dragged round the sky on the end of a piece of string, cast adrift at the mercy of gravity, then when you did get down having to take your aircraft to bits to get the cargo out, then have to go to war with it, sounds like poor sport to me. But then: "serves you right, shouldn't have joined if......". (And wasn't it in your bit of the fracas that the well loved "Professor" Jimmy Edwards picked up his DFC ?)
Truly: "We each had to fight the War we were given" . You didn't choose your war - it chose you . Some of us had it (relatively) easy - you clearly had drawn the short straw !...D.
Cheers all, Danny.