Overvalwagens!
Transport vehicles:
the quest for 4x4 trucks
According to Bart Vanderveen in Wheels and Tracks Magazine ("The DAF/GM connection") DAF
of Eindhoven converted a batch of regular Chevrolet WB trucks to all wheel drive vehicles in
1939/1940, supposedly for K.N.I.L.. The twelve trucks on the picture that came with the article did
not make it to the Netherlands East Indies and they fell in German hands in May 1940. The
Germans ordered the trucks to be adapted to Wehrmacht standards, which included the triangle
on top of the cab (erected when towing a trailer). Unfortunately we have no further information on
this story at the moment. We do not know if similar trucks had already been delivered to K.N.I.L.,
neither do we know what happened to the trucks in Wehrmacht service.
In the US Mission Report from August 1941, K.N.I.L. is said
to have 200 Chevrolet 4x4 1 1/2 ton trucks at that time,
while still in need of a further 900 4x4 trucks. The picture
was printed in Orient, a NEI monthly magazine, showing the
production lines of these 4x4 Chevrolet trucks in the US.
The Netherlands Purchasing Commission requested
permission to acquire G-4100 series Chevrolets. Initially
approval was recevied for 300 trucks to be delivered by
February/March 1942. That number was augmented later.
According to David Hayward, GM Historian, 912 Chevrolet 4x4
military trucks were eventually sent to the Dutch Indies in 1942,
but only 96 did reach Java in time. The rest was sent to
Australia after the fall of the NEI. The truck on this picture
(from Semarang: Beeld van een stad) may just be one of those
trucks that reached Java in March 1942 and survived the war.
The caption says it was a "British" truck (used to evacuate
Europeans in late 1945), but the improvised licence plate on
the back of the body suggests it was a locally found truck and
not one brought along by the British-Indian Army.
After the fall of the Indies, the Dutch forces in the West
Indies were able to acquire equipment as they liked from
huge undeliverable orders by K.N.I.L.
Around a hundred Ford/Marmon-Herrington 4x4 1 1/2 ton
trucks were sent to Surinam (picture through Hans
Heesakkers).
We have no further information on this delivery, but the
trucks seem to be 1942 Ford 2G8T's with standard US
Army steel bodies, converted to 4x4 by
Marmon-Herrington. Unique vehicles!
Note the "shaven" front mudguards.
We do not know how a large truck order to
Marmon-Herrington fits in with the Chevrolet order or did
the Dutch put their money on more than one horse?
A small batch of Ford GTB 4x4
trucks were also delivered to the
Dutch in the West Indies.
This truck, apparently in Navy
service, is shown in Surinam in
1943 (picture through Hans
Heesakkers).
Some of these trucks were
converted to guntrucks (see the
guntrucks chapter).