Firstly I am not too sure whether this is the right spot for these, but here goes anyway. It concerns ships, planes, Inters and Landrovers so I guess it could go almost anywhere.
First off, a bit of boring background.
At the cessation of WWll a lot of the major playing countries had built or were still busy building good equipment for the war but found that this was suddenly no longer required, so this situation turned out to be an ideal opportunity for a small country such as Australia to build up some of its basic equipment deficiencies at a bargain "fire sale"price.
The Poms had a couple of relatively new Aircraft Carriers surplus to demand, the HMS Majestic, launched in 1945 (although not commissioned until 1955) and the HMS Terrible, launched in 1947, and these were snapped up quick smart by us Aussies and renamed the HMAS Melbourne and the HMAS Sydney respectively. The Sydney served us through the Korean campaign as an aircraft carrier and following the cessation of these hostilities, was eventually laid up around 1958 or so, only to be recommissioned and modified to a fast troop carrier in 1962 as the South Eastern unrest was seen to be rather threatening at the time.
At around the same time the Americans had a couple of bargain basement "Landing Ships Medium" surplus to their requirements as well, and seeing that we had no capabilities whatsoever of transporting large equipment anywhere at that particular time, it was decided that it would be a very cunning idea to purchase a couple (4 in fact) ex USN post war surplus LSM's, rejuvenate them and incorporate them into a newly formed Army Unit - 32 Small Ships. This would enable us to move around our newly purchased 52 ton Centurion tanks.
These ships became the Army Vessel 1353 'Brudenell White', AV1354 'Harry Chauvel', AV1355 'Vernon Sturdee' and AV1356, the 'Clive Steele'. (There was another ship in the Unit, the John Monash but she was a different and larger type of ship.)
These little ships did sterling service transporting Engineer equipment to Malaya, Borneo and other local theatres and then the Vietnam conflict reared its ugly head, and not only did they do resupply runs from Australia and Borneo to South Vietnam, but they also saw a lot of service up and down the river from Vung Tau to Saigon. (One could almost think that perhaps someone somewhere had a pretty good inkling about things long before we the general public did!)
The first couple of shots cover the unloading of a couple of containers (probably Engineer stores) from the Clive Steele by American Sikorsky Skycrane choppers.
The next lot were taken at a slightly later date and cover the airlift and lighterage of trucks and vehicles to and from the HMAS Sydney, from an accompanying chopper during a resupply trip of the HMAS Sydney (later nicknamed the Vung Tau Ferry) in 1967. At this time 1 Coy RAASC and its various Platoons (us) and equipment were being about to be replaced by 5 Coy RAASC and all there lovely new trucks arrived. We were still in country (but counting the eggs) when this occurred but the only time we got to drive these brand new vehicles was from the hard stand to the Ordnance Field Park where they were stored until the new Company and Platoons had landed and settled in.
Of note is the fact that not only were the Transport Company's vehicles (6x6s) were being replaced but also that a number of the older style (well, about 3 years old anyway) Mk3 trucks 4x4s were still coming over. You will note in some shots that some of the Mk3s have weird looking crates in the back and these would more than likely be rather large bulky items like caterpillar powered generators or the likes of such that would have been transported over on the back of the trucks to save space and also double handling.
Not only was the deck cargo being lifted on and off the Carrier by Skycrane but at the same time lighterage was being supplied by the civilian stevedoring contractors "Alaskan Barge and Transport" (AB&T). At any one time there would be about three to four lighters (barges) along side the ship and all the derricks were working frantically.
You may also note the slinging techniques used; on the Mk3 or F1 or F2s the slings were around the hubs on the axle but on the Teaspoon tipper that is coming back on board to be RTA there were no such protruding hubs so the sling was around the tyre and through the rim!
Some of the 6x6s have a large VT on their windscreens denoting that they were for Vung Tau where some of the others, especially the 4x4s at that time would have been Nui Dat or even perhaps Saigon, bound. There is also a reasonable amount of writing on the doors of some of the trucks and I am sorry I can't help with that.
Whilst the deck cargo was being cleared by the choppers and cranes, more stores would be coming up from the storage areas below decks by the forward elevator. (On a lighter note, when we were being unloaded about 12 months prior to these photos being taken, a couple of us were playing cards by that same forward elevator when a shiny pair of boots walked briskly up, stopped, asked who was winning, and moved smartly on! Those boots - and that is all that I saw at the time- turned out to belong to Gen Westmoreland.)
And a couple of a Teaspoon coming home
Hope there aren't too many pictures for the one post.
Will put up some more one day when I get around to emptying some more old boxes.
Regards
Glen
