Unknown British Motor-Powered Stretcher

[ArmchairSamurai]

Hello all.

I looked through my old books again looking for a specific vehicle, and then I remembered this oddity, so I thought I would post it here:



I had to scan it because no amount of keywords could pull this thing from the depths of the internet. Once scanned, I reverse image searched to no avail. The closest thing I found was this:

The frustration I feel in not being able to find this reminds me of trying to track down the allusive prototype Morris Gosling, or Nuffield Gutty, not to be confused with the Nuffield Guppy.

What do you all think? Thoughts on this motor stretcher? It's obviously a prototype, but who made it? Was it produced too late to see action? Did it see some action, perhaps in Burma? Or was it a one-off test bed that has been forgotten to time?

 

[ArmchairSamurai]

Dug deeper and found this, still not what I wanted, but closer nonetheless...

 

[dan_inbox]

Operationnally, it would have very little over the jeep-with-a-stretcher, wouldn't it?
And logistically, erm...

 

[ArmchairSamurai]

Operationnally, it would have very little over the jeep-with-a-stretcher, wouldn't it?
And logistically, erm...

You have a point, except as the description implies, this device was more meant for jungle warfare, and in my mind, that means the dense foliage where a jeep cannot go, where there are no roads per se, i.e. somewhere the Chindits or Australian Jungle Division would be.

 

[riggerrob]

Two wheels in-line, or a single wheel may be the only thing that will pass along a jungle trail.
However, considerable muscle is still required to keep it upright.
Note how modern medics tend to use 2-wheeled stretchers/gurneys, but the wheels are side-by-side to negotiate the rough gravel surrounding field hospitals in Afghanistan. They only have to push the wheeled stretcher a few meters from an ambulance or helicopter.

Also consider what hassle it was to deliver Jeeps by parachute or assault glider during WW2. Far easier to drop a cylinder to paratroopers. Finally, many of those paratroopers' cylinders could also be dropped by light bombers (e.g. Spitfire), for re-supply during the second day of a battle.

 

[Petrus]

Hello all.

I looked through my old books again looking for a specific vehicle, and then I remembered this oddity, so I thought I would post it here:

View attachment 682367

What book does this photo come from?
P.

 

[ArmchairSamurai]

Hello all.

I looked through my old books again looking for a specific vehicle, and then I remembered this oddity, so I thought I would post it here:

View attachment 682367

What book does that photo come from?
P.

The Observer's Fighting Vehicles Directory of World War II: Revised Edition by Bart H. Vanderveen. I recommend it, if only for the many different UK/US service trucks and such that are normally not well documented. Unfortunately, the Soviet and Axis sides in the book are a bit light, but it's still a useful reference nonetheless.