British Airborne Jeep

[paul a]

Ade,
You mentioned in an earlier post you had an original WWII Airborne jeep. I take it this jeep remained in British Army Service after the war and if it did it would have been totally rebuilt using stock parts back to a basic jeep and during the rebuild the engine body and chassis would have been separated and never reunited so this would have resulted in basically a bag of bits jeep. I have two jeeps both WWII one Ford one Willys one a french army rebuild and one a british army rebuild and certainly the british one and other british ones I have seen have all got totally mismatched bodies, engines, chassis's so which bit of yours will be original WWII airborne as surely there would be no trace whatsoever of its airborne origins

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Paul, glad to know you are a Jeep owner too

My Jeep was rebuilt to Airborne spec in 1944. It was overhauled (not rebuilt) in 1951 and demobbed in 1959.

It had all the holes welded shut in the bonnet and wings for the ammo rack and wireless battery racks and cable reel but these can still be seen. The seats still retain the "homemade" footman loops for the Jerrican straps and the floor bore evidence of the Jerrican mount. The chassis had bolts in the rear crossmember to replace the rivetts removed to mount the A frame brackets. The dash bears the horn button holes too. Holes for the wireless set were left unfilled by weld.

The WD cenus number is from a block asigned to the Airborne forces.

Cheers, Ade.

[paul a]

sounds like a nice bit of kit do you have any photos

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Paul, I just found this site tonight by accident which shows my Jeep, taken last year at Arnhem. I am off there tomorrow

http://www.airborne-herdenkingen.nl/...Frost%20bridge

My Jeep can be seen at the top left corner of the all the pics, in the 11 o'clock position.

The Jeep served with one of the Airborne Airlanding Light Regt's RA. You will see the clover leaf ammo containers and wireless battery boxes on the bonnet and wings.

Cheers, Ade.