190th QM Gasoline Supply Co US Army Continued
All the supplies were trained to Mt Isa and the fuel was dispensed into 44 Gallon drums , loaded onto the convoy trucks and dropped off at the various night camps along the Barkly and Stuart Highways but the majority of it was taken to Birdum where it was reloaded onto the train and sent to
Darwin. Labour for operations was supplied by Australian Army.
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The 190th QM received 22 GMC CCKW 2-1/2 ton cargo trucks from
Brisbane, they were convoyed to Mt Isa by US Negro drivers, when they arrived at Mt Isa they were in very bad mechanical condition and 18 of them had to have major repairs , I don't know how far out from
Brisbane the road was sealed back in 1942 but I would suspect maybe
Dalby, does anyone have an idea ..????. I would not say the drivers were at fault, the Negro drivers done a wonderful effort in Europe , look up in Google about "The Red Ball Express" we can't go there with S.H.P as it's not Australian History.
On previous convoys West of Mt Isa they had major problems with Radiator Frames breaking on the continual corrugations, The maintenance section of the 190th QM came to the conclusion there was a definite fault in the construction of the Radiator and Frame and the way it was fastened, after making a thorough study of the front end of the trucks a plan was thought up on how the problem could be remedied, what they done was disconnected the radiator frame from the Grill thus taking weight off the Grill, Front Fenders, and Hood of the radiator frame and making it a floating unit in itself. When all that weight was removed and the frame bolted to the chassis the invention was termed " The Floating Radiator" , I have no idea what they did as I have not seen under the bonnet of a CCKW but it must have been successful because after a test on 4/8/42 with 6 trucks out of 27 in the convoy No 70 hauling 85 ton of supplies all the other trucks then had the modifications.
They also had 4 International fuel tankers sent up from
Brisbane , these 4 tankers went with the convoy on the 4th August , 120
miles West of Mt Isa 2 of them had the chassis break in half, the other 2 went on to night
camp 1 , discharged the fuel and returned empty, the 2 broken trucks were repaired with Rail irons chained onto the chassis's to get them back to Mt Isa. And people today complained about the condition of the old sealed Barkly Hwy
Here on Mt Bundy Station I have located the remains of a US GMC CCKW, there's not much left , photo below.
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Image Could Not Be Found
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