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Page Updated:
July 16, 2006
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THE
ARMY TRUCKS
by Ted
Aylan-Parker (61,63-66,71,80-85,90-01,03-04)
Up | The Army Trucks | Camp Seven | Camp Seven A | Canoe Building | Chief's Paddle Award | HSR Awards: Then and Now | HSR Songs 1981 | Infernal Incinerator | Keith Whiten Memorial Award | Leaving | Lost Kennabi Cabin | Purple Bead Award | Supervisor's Award Recipients | Steam Train | The Victoria Railroad Co.
Today, there
are the SUV’s. Yesterday, there were the “Army Trucks”! When the
camp opened in the late 1940’s, there
were logging and cart tracks, loosely defined as roads. These “roads” required
special vehicles to traverse them. With great vision, or out of necessity, the
camp invested in two World War II army trucks to solve the problem; and did they
solve the problem!
They were
war surplus Canadian Military Pattern (CMP) trucks
designed and made in Canada for the Second World War. The initial design was
begun in 1937 by Ford of Canada and followed British specifications. General
Motors of Canada joined the project in 1938, and the two companies worked
together for the duration of the war. (Probably the first and last time that GM
and Ford have worked together.) By September 1945 (the end of WWII) the two
companies had built 410,000 regular trucks, plus 306,000 modified trucks, plus
50,000 armoured vehicles, plus 91,000 modified civilian vehicles. We had two of
the regulars; and they were beauties.
Here are a
few websites dedicated to the CMP trucks:
They were
called 15 CWT, which stood for “Fifteen Hundred Weight”, which meant the vehicle
weighed 1,500 pounds. (C=100 and WT=Weight) Not big for an army truck, but
extremely versatile.
They were
right hand drive, two or four wheel drive, wooden steering wheel, a hatch in the
roof for the passenger, who acted as an observer, front windshields that were
hinged at the top and opened outwards (just so that you could have flies on your
teeth by the end of the day).
To start the
engine, there was a key; which only activated the ignition. You actually started
the engine by pulling a lever on the floor. This wasn’t a sure thing, since the
battery was usually dead. Consequently, as a general rule, at the end of each
day, you would back the truck half way up the hill from the Ab Shack (Q.M. Shed)
on the way to Mill Valley and Kennaway cabins. While you stood on the brakes
with both feet, your partner would jump out, grab a few rocks and stuff them
under the tires. The brakes were never really dependable, if at all. Which
brings us to the thickness of the bumper. I swear that it was an inch thick of
solid steel; so, if you met another vehicle on the road and couldn’t stop, you
just turned into the bush and had a few trees slow you down. The bumper was a
god-sent.
In the
morning you would get in, turn the key, yell at the other guy to remove the
rocks and roll down the hill. At a precise moment, you’d “pop the clutch” and
hope that the engine caught. If it did, you didn’t turn the engine off until you
had finished your job, or, you made sure that you parked it on a hill for
restarting.
“Popping the
Clutch” is a phrase that’s slowly disappearing with the introduction of the
automatic transmission. In addition, our trucks were from the era before the
modern clutch, where double clutching was required both to gear up and to gear
down. You certainly learned basic driving skills when you learned on the army
trucks.
What about
the terror of a flat tire in the middle of the wilderness? Not a problem. (The
Brits spelled the word tire as “tyre” back then, but that’s another story.) The
technology to ‘cure’ a flat tire in the wilderness has been around for a long
time. Canadian Tire reintroduced the technology to the public just a few years
ago as a new idea, but it wasn’t. Here’s how it worked. If you had a flat, you
turned off the ignition, unscrewed a spark plug, screwed in a special unit with
a pressure hose into the cylinder opening and screwed the other end into the
flat tire. When you started the engine, the cylinder pressure would blow up the
tire with a gas vapour mixture. The only draw back would be if you let the new
“air” out of the tire and you happened to be smoking a cigarette at the same
time. Your imagination could paint a picture, but nothing ever happened to my
knowledge.
Speaking of
gasoline, the level of gas in each of the two saddle tanks was determined with a
very modern stick shoved into the tank. The real gauges lost their ability long
before we took possession.
Steering was
another danger that your mother never warned you about. There was no power
steering of course, and even worse, the steering was direct; which meant, if you
hit a rock with the front wheel, and the front wheel turned, the steering wheel
would spin like a roulette wheel and break your thumbs. So, one of the first
things you were taught was not to wrap your thumbs around the wheel. (To this
day, I still drive with my thumbs out.)
 Never was it
a soothing, quiet ride. It goes without saying, that there was no muffler, but
to make matters worse, the engine was located in the cab, between the driver and
the passenger. The engine cover was ‘long gone’ and the noise was deafening. As
an added bonus, when accelerating up a hill, the engine would be screaming, and,
just before reaching the crest of the hill, the cover for the engine’s air
filter, would take off straight up in the air. It was the passenger’s job to
catch the lid in midair and replace it when the engine settled down.
In the late
1960’s or early 1970’s, our two trucks were on their last wheels. Someone,
somewhere, was able to locate a “new” army truck. Myself and another fellow were
sent south to pick it up. At first glance, I burst out laughing. The truck was
new to us, but it was exactly the same vintage as the two that we had just
exhausted. Anyway, it had a shiny, bright red paint job and we proudly drove it
all the way back to camp, with one of us standing through the observation door
in the roof, since the it was right hand drive as well. This truck had two
extras that the other two didn’t. It had a winch on the front bumper and a tow
truck lift winch in the back bed. These came in handy to pull cars out of
ditches and to drag the Queen boats out of the water in the fall.
Finally we
had to give up on the ‘new’ truck as well. As far as I can remember, it was sold
to someone locally. For several years after, we’d still see our old friend
chugging through the Highlands.
Life’s
experiences! You can’t buy them all. If you’re lucky, you get to live a few of
the good ones.
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