NigG (#327),
Nice pic of the Jeep - and the blokes look fine, too (your Dad's Driver, I suppose).
...I picked up a jeep and returned to pick up Sister, who had been waiting anxiously for an hour...
Should've taken the jeep in the first place, not the car. Marvellous little things. I've seen one haul a Vengeance (tail first) out of a soggy paddy-patch when nothing else could budge it.
Never had one of my own, but at Cannanore CDRE there was a RAF Liaison Officer, one Wing Commander Edmondes (the
onlie begetter of the "Edmunds Trainer" [don't ask] Edmondes > Edmonds > Edmunds - geddit ?). Not my CO, as he was "outside the loop" and answerable only to AHQ, Delhi, where they fell over themselves to give CDRE (and, by extension, him) anything the heart desired. Well, I suppose CDRE
had Porton Down behind them.
Nice chap: no end of help to me. Anyway, his heart desired a Jeep, and Lo - one appeared ! (the Colonel desired a nice Staff Car: top-of-range, brand-new, half-timbered, Canadian Ford V8 Estate delivered gift-wrapped. We'd like the loan of a P-47 Thunderbolt with a driver, and a Mosquito (ditto), plus servicing crew. Certainly sir, right away sir, would Sir like anything else ?
It was like having Aladdin's Lamp. There were limits. My heart desired an ASR launch to fish me (or someone else) out of the 'oggin' when a VV went off the end (40 foot cliff) of our runway. Paddling round in a pool of the Mustard gas we carried was not to be recommended. But the best I was offered was a surplus "Bomb Scow"; fortunately the war ended before
that was delivered. No one ever had to swim for it, although I incautiously authorised the Wing Commander to have a go with the Thunderbolt, he shot off the end - and vanished ! Reappeared a second later with spray blowing off his wheels. Met him again in 1949, now a Sqn Ldr (Armaments) at Bomber Command. Nearly everyone who managed to stay in in '46 dropped a rank or two.
But I digress. I had the use of the Jeep. Often thought it would make a far better ATC runabout than our Landy, for you could just reach down and pick bits of metal and squashed hares off a runway, whereas in a Landy you have to get out and bend down. But the body is a sealed "bath", if the drain hole gets bunged-up with mud in a monsoon, you find it flooded a foot deep inside in the morning, as the canvas top is little use. Then you have to fish about with a bit of bamboo to find and unblock drain hole, all seats now soaking, muddy, cold and wet. There appears to be no limit to the number of chaps you can have in plus hanging onto a Jeep.
Think it was originally called a "Car, ¼ Ton, General Purpose" > "GP" > "Jeep".
Danny.