Workshop manuals

[Jamie 111]

This is one of things I found in among my fathers things when he died.

Dad was a Staff Sergeant in the RASC. He had been a mechanic all his life and was a mechanic in the army.

Dad was in Dunkirk, and his reward ( like so many others) for escaping from that sorry mess, was to be shipped out to Burma. He was there 4.5 years. Most of the time he and all the others had to fight like infantry men just to survive.The monsoons are a very tricky problem out there, in trying to keep vehicles moving. , Mud, Mud and even more Mud.

He was never the same when he came back. Drank too much and died at the age of 63.
He didnt say much, but you could see the hurt in eyes when he saw people buying Japanese cars and motor bikes, in preference to British cars (which were absolute crap at the time) How he hated all foriegn cars!

The manual covers Canadian Ford built military vehicles, which were issued to the British army in the war. It has 225 pages full of the usual technical data.
For its age it is in good condition. I may offer it to one of the Army museums some time in the future. What their response may be is anyones guess?

[Dave]

That 's a quality item there Jamie and some nice scans, and hats off to your dad.

You have to laugh though. The fact that the manual happens to be one of the Ford Motor Company. Henry Ford backed Hitler financially from the start, received the Grand Cross of the German Eagle - a Nazi decoration for distinguished foreigners. Hitler even had a photograph of Henry on his office wall !


For more see here:
http://reformed-theology.org/html/bo...chapter_06.htm
Ford, it seems, profitted from both sides in WW2, as well as Korea, where Russian built Ford trucks were used to supply the VC troops to kill Americans and Brits and all the other United Nations personnel....

[Jim]

Aye Quality pictures Jamie, and i am sure the museum that you choose to offer the item will snap your hand off..

Can understand why at the time you Father felt the way he did when folk was buying Japanese cars Jamie, today it isn't even given a thought..

Interesting reply about Ford Dave, for i never knew this...



I like the part telling us that Ford did not approve of Jewish financiers profiting from war, but it was acceptable that he did .. What a hypocrite..

[Dave]

Me neither Jim, I never knew until today. I heard a whisper about it the other day and decided to look it up when I saw this thread. The article I linked to stops short of calling Ford anti-semitic, but there are plenty out there that do. I even found one that seemed to be suggesting that he had his son "Edsel", murdered. Also, he put a Hoodlum in charge of the business who terrorised everyone in the company - except the old man himself of course.

[Jamie 111]

Nothing surprises me about Ford. The way he broke the unions with mob muscle still still rankles to-day in present day America among the working class and unions. Although on the other hand he introduced a lot of good working conditions for the work force, albeit under his terms. But history usually shows what Dictatorial devious swines these rich people were.

Modern robber Barons. The Kennedy fortune was rumoured to be based on prohibition money. The Chicago Mafia claimed to have got JFK the decisive vote in that city to get him to the White House.

Old man Kennedy was a President of a bank at the age of 25!! And this is the man as American Ambassador to Britain, told Congress that Hitler would over- run us! And how tragically ironic that his eldest son was killed flying a secret mission (at that time) during the war?

BTW they say old man Ford never sacked any of his staff. His method was to remove some piece of office furniture during the week-end. So when the intended victim would arrive for work Monday morning he would find perhaps a filling cabinet missing! They soon got the message and left!

As regards Dad resenting people buying Japanese cars.. this was in the very early days when foreign cars were first being introduced to Britain. As you say Jim it is all to common now to provoke any comment.

The War is over.. life must go on.