I wish a Merry Christmas to all wwiiafterwwii readers, a few days early. Below is a Christmas card of the British XII Army of 1945, the first peacetime Christmas which Great Britain had since 1938.
Tag: tanks
WWII armor in Cambodia 1953 – 1975
This is a look at Cambodia’s use of WWII tanks and armored vehicles before the coming of the Khmer Rouge in 1975.
Sherman’s last ride
The USA’s M4 Sherman tank of WWII had a long career after that war, seeing service with numerous armies in several conflicts around the world after WWII. The last active user was the South American nation of Paraguay.
(Sherman Repotenciado of Paraguay’s Regimiento Escolta Presidencial; by 2018 the final active-duty unit anywhere on Earth still using WWII Shermans.)
the M8 Greyhound in Mexico after WWII
The WWII American M8 Greyhound armored car has had an incredibly long run in Mexico, still being upgraded in the 21st century. Beyond these vehicles themselves, it is a chance to look at Mexico during and after WWII. At least in English-language sources, Mexico – considering its size and population – is often given scant attention.
(US Army M8 Greyhound during WWII.)
(The Mexican army’s M8 Modificado II, still in service almost 80 years after WWII ended.)
WWII, the autobahn, Ike, the Interstates, and one-mile-in-five
Earlier this summer I was talking with a fellow veteran and the subject of “one-mile-in-five” on the Interstate highways came up.
The vague gist is that before WWII, Germany designed its famous autobahn network with war in mind. Near WWII’s conclusion, Gen. Eisenhower was impressed with the autobahn and during his later Presidency ordered a copy of it made, the USA’s Interstate system, mostly for military reasons including for US Air Force bombers to use when their bases got taken out by Soviet ICBMs – and one mile of every five is straight and level for this reason.
Like many Americans I have heard this before and in fact, the specific highway identified by my acquaintance (a certain stretch of I-80 in Nebraska) I have also previously heard as an example location.
(German Bf-110G staged for autobahn operation near the end of WWII in Europe.)
(Harley-Davidson WLAs of the United States Constabulary on the German autobahn after WWII.)
(Sign of the USA’s Interstate highway system.)
This is the type of thing that enough Americans have heard that it becomes accepted through cycles of repetition. To anybody who has driven the endless straightaways of I-15 in Utah or I-70 in Kansas it probably seems reasonable that bombers could land there, and there is usually somebody in earshot to interject “yes he’s right, I’ve heard that too”.
“One-mile-in-five” and the military on the Interstates in general, has equal portions of real fact, misconstrued things, and outright error. Mostly in wwiiafterwwii I cover weapons and equipment; for readers who prefer that I will return to that in the future. Perhaps this will be of interest however.
WWII weapons in the Indonesian Independence War
From WWII’s end in 1945 until 1949, pro-independence Indonesians in the Dutch East Indies and the Netherlands military fought a conflict which saw a huge variety of WWII weapons, both Japanese and Allied, in further use.
(A WWII Dutch M.95 rifle rechambered to .303 British by Indonesia during the 1950s.)
(Kawasaki Ki-48 “Lily” bomber of the Indonesian air force during the late 1940s.)
(Indonesian troops with Arisaka Type 99 rifles during 1949.)
MG 151: post-WWII use
The guns arming WWII warplanes were usually of limited general interest, just a component of the overall aircraft and leaving service with the planes they were installed in. Germany’s MG 151 on the other hand, had an extremely long and varied career after WWII, being used in any number of roles in the air, on the ground, and even on the sea; all around the world for many decades.
(MG 151 being serviced on a Luftwaffe fighter during WWII.)
(French MG 151 crew on a “Pirate”, or up-gunned H-34 Choctaw, during the Algerian War.) (photo via tenes.info website)
(Image from a 1980s South African VHS video promoting Vektor’s helicopter mount of the MG 151.)
M24 Chaffee during the Vietnam War
The American M24 Chaffee light tank of WWII saw postwar combat in southeast Asia for a quarter-century starting in 1950, first with the French army, then the South Vietnamese army, and finally the South Vietnamese air force.Â
(A French army M24 Chaffee in combat during the Indochina War.)
(A M24 Chaffee of the ARVN (South Vietnamese army) attacking Gia Long Palace during the 1963 coup.)
(With a PanAm Boeing 707 in the background, a M24 Chaffee of the VNAF (South Vietnamese air force) guards Tan Son Nhut in Saigon. Even as the Vietnam War was being fought, the airport’s civilian side continued to handle commercial aviation. These air force tanks would be the last WWII Chaffees in Vietnam.)
why there is a WWII vehicle at Chernobyl
The 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was one of the worst man-made catastrophes ever, and the worst event in the history of the Soviet Union other than the 1941 German invasion during WWII.
Quite improbably, a vehicle of that war played a very minor role in the 1986 event.
(ISU-152s of the Soviet army during WWII.)
(A German road sign points east towards Chernobyl during the “Barbarossa” operation in 1941.)
(Liquidators (cleanup workers) with a ISU-152 at the disaster in 1986.)
(ISU-152 in Pripyat, Ukraine during 2018, with the New Safe Containment (NSC) structure of the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the background.)
WWII gear in Afghan use: Part III – tanks and artillery
Long isolated and neutral, Afghanistan before 1973 used an amazing assortment of WWII-era tanks, artillery, and fighting vehicles. In many cases, they remained in Royal Afghan Army use long after they had faded elsewhere in the world.
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