WC-51 Air Transportable - Hagerstown - Findlay

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Walter
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WC-51 Air Transportable - Hagerstown - Findlay

Post by Walter » Wed May 11, 2022 4:51 am

Good Morning Everyone:

Everyone here in Western PA are all coup soured over the long winter and are looking forward to the summer shows. I am selling my WC-51 Air Transportable and will have it at Hagerstown, MD this weekend, and possibly the following week at Findlay, Ohio. We will be at both shows on Friday and Saturday.

Here are some pictures. Stop by and see it!
HHC 2015 Display -- 3.jpg
At Restoration -- 2.jpg
At Restorastion -- 1.jpg
1943 WC-51 Air Transportable -- Ready To Load On The C-46.jpg
Regards,

Walter


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Re: WC-51 Air Transportable - Hagerstown - Findlay

Post by 70th Division » Thu May 12, 2022 10:54 am

Hello Walter,

That is one beautiful and rare Dodge WC-51 !!!
It looks great and well restored !

I am not sure if you are "showing" it or "selling" it , as a typo ?

It must be a great Dodge to have and share with others :D :D :D


Best Regards,
Ray

Walter
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Re: WC-51 Air Transportable - Hagerstown - Findlay

Post by Walter » Fri May 13, 2022 4:38 pm

Good Evening Ray:

I am showing it -- in order to sell it. You are correct it is a great truck. So why am I selling it? Like a lot of us time is catching up, way too quickly. While my son grew up around jeeps and WC's even driving one on the 20112 ALCAN Convoy, he doesn't have the passion to to have a large collection of MV's. So we made a decision on which ones to sell and which ones to keep. There is a whole deep story being written by a Command Historian. The initial impact was on the defense of New Guinea in mid 1943/

If you are in the area on Saturday, please stop by. The earlier the better.

Regards,

Walter

Walter
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Re: WC-51 Air Transportable - Hagerstown - Findlay

Post by Walter » Tue May 17, 2022 5:15 am

Good Morning Everyone:

Just a quick reminder, we will have the WC-51 Air Transportable at Findlay this weekend. Not sure of our exact ETA, but hopefully we will be there sometime Thursday afternoon or early evening. See you all then!

Regards,

Walter

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Re: WC-51 Air Transportable - Hagerstown - Findlay

Post by 70th Division » Tue May 17, 2022 10:17 am

Walter wrote:
Fri May 13, 2022 4:38 pm
Good Evening Ray:

I am showing it -- in order to sell it. You are correct it is a great truck. So why am I selling it? Like a lot of us time is catching up, way too quickly. While my son grew up around jeeps and WC's even driving one on the 20112 ALCAN Convoy, he doesn't have the passion to to have a large collection of MV's. So we made a decision on which ones to sell and which ones to keep. There is a whole deep story being written by a Command Historian. The initial impact was on the defense of New Guinea in mid 1943/

If you are in the area on Saturday, please stop by. The earlier the better.

Regards,

Walter


Hello Walter,

Good luck with the show and selling the beautiful and rare Dodge !!
A new owner should be very happy with it !
Time does fly !!

I hope to get a Dodge or two started by next year !


Yours certainly is unique, do you know how many were made, and how many are still around ?

Best Regards,
Ray

Walter
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Re: WC-51 Air Transportable - Hagerstown - Findlay

Post by Walter » Tue May 17, 2022 7:43 pm

Good Evening Ray:

Bagley and Berman did 150 WC's while in Australia. I restored mine based on their documentation in a Technical Bulletin issued from the South West Pacific Area. They took existing trucks and modified them at the Holden Plant to make them Air Transportable. Once they proved the concept in June of 1943, their idea migrated east and both GM and Dodge began building Air transportable trucks on the assembly line. I remember seeing the production figures from the Dodge state side factories sometime ago. I believe that that figure was several thousand. I dont know of anyone who is tracking how many still exist today, but anecdotally I hear, every so often that someone has come across one of the factory built trucks, either here or in Europe.

When I showed the truck at the 2011 Dayton convention, there was a small contingent of Australians in attendance. Based on their comments that they nor anyone else in that part of the world who is into HMV's had ever come across one of the WC's that Bagley and Berman did. The short answer is that probably none of the 150 that they did are known to exist. I suspect that once those Dodges were flown in to whatever remote Island, and once the Americans moved on, those trucks would have been left behind. In theory, I suppose there might be some of them still being operated in a small village on a remote island by folks who have no idea that they can be shipped by air. More likely those 150 are probably sitting in a jungle somewhere, slowly rotting into the ground.

Many thanks for the compliments.

Regards,

Walter

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Re: WC-51 Air Transportable - Hagerstown - Findlay

Post by 70th Division » Wed May 18, 2022 8:51 am

Walter wrote:
Tue May 17, 2022 7:43 pm
Good Evening Ray:

Bagley and Berman did 150 WC's while in Australia. I restored mine based on their documentation in a Technical Bulletin issued from the South West Pacific Area. They took existing trucks and modified them at the Holden Plant to make them Air Transportable. Once they proved the concept in June of 1943, their idea migrated east and both GM and Dodge began building Air transportable trucks on the assembly line. I remember seeing the production figures from the Dodge state side factories sometime ago. I believe that that figure was several thousand. I dont know of anyone who is tracking how many still exist today, but anecdotally I hear, every so often that someone has come across one of the factory built trucks, either here or in Europe.

When I showed the truck at the 2011 Dayton convention, there was a small contingent of Australians in attendance. Based on their comments that they nor anyone else in that part of the world who is into HMV's had ever come across one of the WC's that Bagley and Berman did. The short answer is that probably none of the 150 that they did are known to exist. I suspect that once those Dodges were flown in to whatever remote Island, and once the Americans moved on, those trucks would have been left behind. In theory, I suppose there might be some of them still being operated in a small village on a remote island by folks who have no idea that they can be shipped by air. More likely those 150 are probably sitting in a jungle somewhere, slowly rotting into the ground.

Many thanks for the compliments.

Regards,

Walter


Hello Walter,

Thanks for that excellent information about these variants !

I would agree with you, that if they were flown into remote locations and outposts, they are probably still there.
Hopefully the natives are still using them !!

They certainly wouldn't have been broken down again, and be flown back to civilization.


Maybe in the future some far traveling G member might come across one in the remote Pacific of even Burma or China.

That would be a real discovery :D :D
My WC-52 project that returned from Norway was originally a WC-55, I have a couple of them.

I remember seeing a picture of 2 prototype Willys Overland little tracked vehicles, that ended up in Antactica.
The pics were in an old school National Geographic Magazine from the late 1960's I think,or very early 70's.

But they were the ones that Willys built during WW2 , but nobody knew what happened to them.
I had just read an article on them, so was very familiar with them, and then happened to see them pictured, abandoned near the coast of some research station in the Antarctic.

I am sure they are still there !!


Best Regards,
Ray


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