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Wednesday, June 9, 2010

If an Army Moves on It's Stomach, how does the Food Get There?

Being temporarily without our motorhome, I decided to look around my local area for interesting attractions that I ordinarily would have missed.  This excellent museum is one of the many places I've found.


This is the U.S. Army's Transportation Museum, located at Fort Eustis, Newport News, VA.  The museum is free and is quite impressive in its collection of Army vehicles.  There are so many neat things to see, I'm going to have to make this into several posts.

First off, the museum is NOT open on Mondays.  It is located just past the entrance gate to Fort Eustis.  If you don't have a military ID, you can get a visitor's pass right at the gate.  The museum's parking lot is large and has plenty of room for an RV.

The museum is laid out in historical order.  These wagons were used in World War I to move supplies to the Doughboys on the front lines.



Slightly move advanced were these Liberty trucks, they replaced the horse and wagon, but they were not quite as reliable as a horse.



World War II saw the invention of the Jeep, almost as sure footed as a horse.  Here is a rare example of an early model Jeep, known as a "Slat" front, from the construction of the grill.



These GMC "Deuce and a Half" 6 x 6 cargo trucks were much more reliable than a horse and transported thousands and thousands of tons of supplies during WWII.


The Army even came up with an amphibious version of the 6 x 6 cargo truck, nick-named the "Duck".


Many Ducks are still in service, they've been civilianized and are used as tour vehicles around the country.  Here is a picture of a civilianized Duck being used daily in Branson, MO.  How many 65 year old vehicles do you see still on the road every day?


The museum has this beautifully restored military Harley Davidson.


The museum has rows of Jeeps, maybe that's why you can't find  an Army surplus Jeep for $50 anymore like used to be advertised in the pages of Popular Mechanics.


This Jeep is a perfect one for me.  You only have to do three things, start, stop and remember to drive faster than the train coming up behind you!


More interesting and strange Army vehicles tomorrow.

Thanks for visiting and please feel free to leave a comment.



2 comments:

  1. Hi Guys, Nice to be able to stay connected with our Blogs. Hopefully before the summer is over we will be able to get together in or around Rhinebeck, I am going to add your Blog to our List Gene and Virginia

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