One for the Vintage Motorcycle buffs

[villiers]

Second generation of that lot are now all on Harleys (smaller ones on GoldWings)

[Bill Hollinger]

Pre-WWII Berlin bikers´ club ...

Looks like something from a Monte Python film!

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Attachment 48889
Us GIs in a lighthearted motomoment.

[WarPig1976]

Years ago I remember a story that something like 15/20 WLA's were found in Russia still in their crates. IIRC an American was trying to buy them.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

If all of the stories of crated Harleys (and Jeeps and Spitfires) were true, people would be using them for garden ornaments.

I understood that MOST military vehicles were shipped to the "pointy end" ready to drive off. In some cases as deck cargo (shame about the salt spray.

For decades, in Australia, there was a standing reward offered by a couple of buffs, to anyone who could find a "crated" Harley or Jeep, ANYWHERE. Oddly, NOBODY has ever collected. Then again, what would you rather have; a couple of thousand dollars or half a dozen, "low-mileage" WW2 vehicles?

As for the aircraft, SOME were shipped with their wings removed and lashed beside the fuselage in a sort of open timber framework. This practice was generally used for road and rail transport, NOT for the salt-sprayed deck of some U-boat bait. The Lancaster bomber was designed with the specific intent that all major sub-assemblies were of such a size that they could be carted from factory to assembly shed on the standard railway wagons of the time.

[WarPig1976]

Yup,,but one can dream!! Besides the Russians are still digging Tanks out of marshes over there.... You never know...

[Bruce_in_Oz]

It gets better:

There is another photo of the SAME bike and the SAME rider (complete with pipe and pigeon basket) outside the SAME "sandbag chateau", in Australian War Memorial Photo No. AWM E 00647. That photo appears in Roger Lee's excellent book on the Battle of Fromelles, 1916, as published by the Australian Army History Unit 2010.

The accompanying text reads:

"The Signal Office and Headquarters of the 4th. Australian Divisional Signalling Company situated on the outskirts of Vaulx on the Vaulx-Beugny Road. A motorcyclist dispatch rider is seen leaving for the forward units with a basket containing carrier pigeons for distribution among the fighting troops."