Truck identification help required

[Mick_Marsh]

Ok, chaps.
Here's a question for you.

My uncle was in the RAAF. He was in Darwin. He was there when Darwin was bombed. He also tells a story of, late one night, riding an Indian motorcycle up and down the landing strip. Much to the disgust of his CO.

Attached is a photo. My uncle is in there somewhere.
What can you tell me about the trucks? Note the TAC on the Blitz.
What can this information tell me about anything else associated with the photograph?

Thankyou for your assistance.

[DennisM]

The other truck could be a Chev, as I thought I could glimpse the grille between the 2 soldiers, cheers Dennis

[Mike C]

Mick,

It's a poor quality image but I think I can deduce the following:

(1) The truck, with visible registration '1905' or '1906' of '1965': these all correspond with RAAF serials 201905, etc, and are a group of Chevrolet 160inch WB 'Truck, Heavy, GS'. The chassis serials are all '4215Mxxx' so are Series 15, 3 ton, 4x2 Chevrolet built in Melbourne at Fisherman's Bend (the 'M' in the chassis serial). The guards are the high cut-out type military type, so this truck is most probably fitted with 10:50x18 tyres on two-piece rims.   
(2) The Blitz is most probably an F15 - the registration visible has a '1' as the fourth numeral, and only one group of CMPs that falls into the number sequence 20x1xx are F15. So a 4x2 Ford F15.
(3) Unit Sign: the only RAAF possibilities in the NT that I can find are 613 or 617. From the shapes, it appears to be 613 which was 61 Operational Base Unit. The background colour to the plate was Sky Blue.

Regards

Mike

 

[Mick_Marsh]

Thanks, Mike.
Excellent info there. I'll be Googling "61 Operational Base Unit" at work today.

[dugite]

On enlarging the TAC on the Blitz it looks more like "619" to me - not sure if this helps, Mike?

[Mike C]

I agree that the sign looks like 619, but I have been unable to find a unit sign allocated by NT Force that had that number, hence my comment that the two numbers 613 and 617 were the only numbers I could find that came close .

 Tac signs as such were not issued by the RAAF - it was very much a RAAF unit 'thing' however, the NT was an exception: all units, including US military and RAAF, were issued with unit signs by the Army's NT Command. The NT command listing has only 617 and 613 as allocated signs to RAAF Units, and we know it is an RAAF truck because it has 'RAAF' above the reg number.

Hence, I had to go with 613 as the only known possibility.

If it is actually 619, I have no record of that number issued by NT Command or that corresponds to an RAAF unit designation.

Mike

[dugite]

thanks Mike 

[Mick_Marsh]

Any 619s in army or navy?
They might have "borrowed" the trucks. My uncle tells the story he "borrowed" the Indian motorcycle.

Could it have been issued in another state?

[Mike C]

Hi Mick,

I had a look at that also. RAN didn't use a centrally-issued unit sign system, so the few signs you see are like the RAAF: a unit 'thing' without uniformity or sometimes logic! As I said, NT was an exception: the signs were uniform and issued by the Army's NT Command. As far as I can tell, this did not occur anywhere else.

I'll have another look at Army later today, but I don't think there was a '619' in my WW2 Army list either.  It may be that '619' was issued later than the list I have, but I've been through the diaries of NT Command quite some time ago (AWM 52 1/7/1 and 1/7/2) and didn't find any note of that number (and hence didn't transcribe it to the database).

Best I can do, Mick.

Mike

[Mick_Marsh]

I found out my uncle was in 12th Squadron.
He flew in B24 Liberators.

[dugite]

In WW2 it would have been known as No.12 Squadron - there would be a Wikipedia page for it 

It was USAAF (and later, USAF) terminology to use terms like XXth to number Squadrons etc

Does a family member have his logbook/s ? - they would be very interesting for you.

Here's a bit from the AWM  https://www.awm.gov.au/unit/U59377/

[pop058]

I found out my uncle was in 12th Squadron.
He flew in B24 Liberators.

awesome story about a Liberator that has it's final resting place in Kroombit Tops NP.

[Mick_Marsh]

Does a family member have his logbook/s ? - they would be very interesting for you.

I'll ask him. He does have his fathers bugle and bayonet from The Great War.