Thread: Australian M715 Kaiser?

They were based at Vung Tan and Cam Rahn Bay if that helps?

I have a Vietnam Vet neighbour who was in Vung Tau - I can ask him, dunno if he'll recall the vehicles though...
Cheers
Mike

Originally Posted by 2 rocks

I have a Vietnam Vet neighbour who was in Vung Tau - I can ask him, dunno if he'll recall the vehicles though...
Cheers
Mike

If you and him wouldn't mind - that'd be great Mike.

Following this thread with interest,nice little jigger!

In answer to the original question, Did the Australian Army ever own said vehicle; the answer is No.
Did Australians ever operate said vehicles; Yes. They operated a lot of different types of US vehicles which were drawn from various US Army motor pools to satisfy the needs of smaller detachments such as Navy clearance teams, Advisors, and almost anywhere where an Aussie was singularly, or at least a small number of "outside troops", were detached/attached to an American or ARVN Unit and required transport.
When our Unit's advance party first landed in country, no Australian vehicles were yet in country so approaches were made to the US and a couple of light and medium trucks were placed at our disposal. This was a temporary arrangement in this particular case as our own Unit transport was still en route via the Sydney.
In cases similar to this the vehicle in question would still have retained it's American Parent Unit's ID stencilled on the front and rear bumpers, may have been adorned with an Aussie Tac sign temporarily and more than likely gained the obligatory red Kangaroo stencil as well.
This following shot shows a couple of 87 bods (Wally E , Rob H and Maurie T) clearing rocks from between the rear duals of a US Deucenhalf dump truck that was on loan to us to replace a temporarily unserviceable tipping teaspoon tipper.

Liken the whole operation to a civvy company, who owns its own Company fleet, but flies a rep intercity. That Rep would hire a vehicle from a rental company for the duration of his interstate stay and hand it back before he leaves to return to the parent Company. Same thing happens in Armies!
When the RAAF units were detached overseas they often didn't have their own transport supplied in the early days, hence the RAAF later on purchased a number of vehicle from the Army to fill this void. Until this purchase went through it was common to see RAAF personnel driving US vehicles, Mutts, Broncos and the likes of such.
Regards
Glen

Thanks Glen, that's useful.
I'm thinking of just leaving the US unit markings off but retaining the stars and vehicle numbers, and adding a red 'roo, possibly naming it and maybe adding an 'A' before the 'US'....

Originally Posted by 87County

Is this it? looks sort of .... American ?

Nice !

http://www.davidallenracing.com/m715-3.jpg

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Originally Posted by MartinSmith

Getting back to the original point, I've found a reference to an Australian Underwater Demolition Team in Vietnam, presumably Navy men, having both an M715 and a Gamma Goat.
Anyone know anything about them?

try asking over at AUSJEEPOFFROAD.COM - AJOR - Powered by vBulletin there is a couple of people that have them in Aus on that forum

nice find too ;-)