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GPW 73992

I found it in a scrapyard in Hounslow, west of London near Heathrow Airport, just 5 miles from my house.  It had been sitting there in the open in a trailer, which itself was sitting in the back of a truck. It had been there, immobile, for 20 years as far as they could remember. It was rusted solid - wheels, engine, the works. Over "x" years, I took it to bits, restored everything and put it back together again and it has now been on 5 D-Day tours to Normandy. It was there for the 45th Anniversary in '89 (then was in a container for 15 years, including it's 60th birthday) and back to Normandy again in 2004 for the 60th Anniversary of D-Day. In 2005 it went to the MVT Kemble D-Day Show as a British field ambulance as it did to Normandy in 2010. It's British Army history is unclear. For some reason the bonnet/hood has been modified by the removal of the windscreen catches and welding up the bolt holes, (-desert use? - without screen?). I have now discovered that it was delivered new to the Australian Army, fought its way up the Pacific coast to Japan where it served in the Bitish Commonwealth Occupation Force of Japan, had an engine change, then was acquired by the British Army and brought to the UK.  

Australian Army Number was 159948;  British Army Serial was M159948 (changed to 75 YJ 49 in 1950); was 'demobbed'/struck off charge in 1956 and Civil Registration/Licence No. is M 1599.   Its DoD was 30 Oct 1942 in Dallas Tx, which is the same date as my birthday in Oxford, England !!

The photograph shows it at Camp Griffiss (Bushy Park) where Eisenhower had his headquarters and where he, De Gaulle and Churchill planned the details of the D-Day lendings.  It is just a mile from where I, my family and the jeep live.  

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