CCKW 353 Airtransportable / Airborne

Now we are restoring (frame off) my 1944 GMC 353 LWB closed cap w/w, w truck mount and the one from a friend of mine, they are looking better than new.I will post pictures soon, maybe interesting....

Friends one is 1945 353 LWB Cargo Open Cap w/w, w/o truck mount and the airtransportable/airborne version, you know you can srew the truck in a half at the center of the frame with srews at flanges....That`s a really rare GMC?For which theatre are they mostly used, Europe /D-Day invasion or pacific?Was for aircraft transport (which C-47 to small?) or by liberty ships?There`s a dolly wheel for srewing at the front half and to drive for storage.

Any closed cab after 1942 or early 43 is questionable. Closed cab production stopped in late 1942. Can you post a frame SN? Is the original cab data plate still there? You may have a mix master truck.

The airborne CCKW is not super rare.. no more than a compressor or water/fuel tanker. The RARE ones are the Shop Vans (ST-5s esp). I don't think any were used in an assault role (ie put in a glider) but since I don't own one, I don't really research them much.

The RAREST production CCKW is a dump truck with out a winch. Less than 1500 were made. The airborne CCKW is not a production truck, it was modified after production from a standard truck.

Intresting
The serial # of my closed cab is CCKW 377865-B1, listing says March 1944 right?

what was the reason to customize the frame for disconnecting, only for easier transport?

One end goes in a C47 while the other end goes in another C47. IIRC they were used more in the Pacific then Europe.

i believe they WERE NOT USED IN THE PACFIC,

, "IIRC they were used more in the Pacific then Europe. "

there was no reason, to drop AIRBORNE troopers or gear in the pacfic theater. only in Europe.

1.) islands were small,
2.)and were dense forestry.
3.) beach landing with LST's were the main source of getting supplys into the troops.
4.) Marines used the IH TRUCKS, M5-6, M2-4 etc
5.) anything "COULD" have been used though..

there were some post war "kits" to transform a regular cckw into a airborne., that may be the source of late dated trcuks,
Production numbers are unknown.. at this time. the cab was also a CUT down version(windschield came off, level with hood), and bed was a two piece, cut in twop, bolted together, and all brake/fuel, etc lines had disconnects.

LINKS:
restoration link:
Restoration CCKW

Airborne CCKW

The GMC CCKW • View topic - CCKW 352 SN 313255B1 AIRBORNE AIRPORTABLE

pics ?

CCKW 377865-B1 puts you into 1944 (I think... not at home to 2x check), my GMC is 230-something and is a mid 43 open cab. Is there a matching data plate in the cab? Cab swapping is not unheard of and they really do come off with only 3-4 bolts.

Question is do you have all the parts?

The bolted bed?
The third wheel for the cab?
Disconnects for the electrical/brake/fuel/drive shaft?

A closed cab airborne CCKW defeats the purpose.

I don't think I've ever seen pics of the 'fold down cab'. The steering wheel will still be proud of the cowl, so why fold it down?

In all honesty (and I know this will get me in trouble) but without the third wheel and the bolted cab your frame is pretty useless. Yeah, its an airborne, but you ain't gonna take it apart without that landing leg and unless the bed also comes apart you ain't doing much with that, either.

Heres a picture of what 'The Marshall Museum' in the Netherlands is calling an 'air transportable' CCKW.

http://www.marshallmuseum.nl/US/Pics/Voertuigen/foto_GMC-CCKWAirTransporta.jpg

Note there is a lot of bodywork missing (fenders, bumper, windshield) and it doesn't show if they are removed as part of the mod, or if its just the display.

Fenders and windshields would be dead weight, but it shows the rifle rack?

I agree that more needs to be found out about them.. but as with most WWII airborne items there were more field expedient/constructed than planned production.

Military Vehicles magazine had a article on these conversions a few years back. I'll see if I can find mine .
Andy..........

I own one of these "Airborne CCKW's"

The term airborne is incorrect for these. They were not for parachute/glider units. The correct term is "Air-portable". They were developed so that they could be remotely delivered by C-46 and C-47 aircraft.

It took 3 planes to carry one truck. One for the front part of the chassis, one for the rear part of the chassis, and one for the cargo box full of the removed parts (windshield, fenders, spare tires, troop seats. The box on the air-portable was also capable of being split into 2 pieces

The pictures from the Marshal Museum shows one disassembled. It is the only one I know of that is displayed in that manner.

The chassis on these was split about in-half and was made to be field reassembled using fish plates. A picture of this setup on mine (prior to restoration) is below.

Most of the air-portable trucks were built after the ETO war ended, mine was 6-45, so few if any saw use in-theater. Even though they are considered rare there are many around. About 1 in 25 of the restored CCKW's are airportable.

If you have any other questions about these please contact me.

Bill

While I might be wrong I do not agree with your reasoning as to why I am wrong. I actually think you make my case. It was much easier to get a truck somewhere in the ETO.

1) Small island needing a truck with a landing strip would not need a whole LST showing up to provide one or a few trucks.

2) Dense forestry means it would be easier to bring one in to the airstrip for use at or near the airstrip rather than trying to get through the dense jungle.

3) On large operations that would be a yes. Small operations were still supplied by airdrops or air operations. Most of the airstrips along the island hopping were just there for the airstrip use in getting to the next island not for securing the island themselves. In other words, when the airstrip was taken there was no need to take the whole island if the airstrip could be held if there was little local resistance. BTW the main source of supply for the ETO was also by beach landing until suitable docks were taken. Either way supplies came mostly by ship in both theaters.

4) The Army did participate in the Pacific. Both my grandfathers can testify to this.

5) Except on remote areas where air transportability was the only or a better option. You could drive a truck from the docks in Europe. The Pacific had infinitely more isolated areas of operation that were only accessible by air.

As previously stated, these trucks were not airdropped. The plan was landed at a strip and the truck assembled on site. The Airborne operations in Europe were mostly parachute or glider operations. Airborne troops do not have several hours to assemble their equipment. Then need to get it in service as soon as they hit the ground. They are surrounded and do not have time to assemble a truck like these.

Again, I may be wrong but I don't think it was for the reasons you stated.
Another poster stated they may have come to late and were not used in theater at all but my recollection is they were designed to be used in the Pacific. If I had documentation I would present it. It may be the article mentioned.

68427vette said:

1.) islands were small,

2.)and were dense forestry.

3.) beach landing with LST's were the main source of getting supplys into the troops.

4.) Marines used the IH TRUCKS, M5-6, M2-4 etc

5.) anything "COULD" have been used though..

Click to expand...

DUKWs were used much more in the pacific, so right there you have a portable, land/sea vehicle that was already in production and is documented in use, in theater, in combat. The load rating of a DUKW and CCKW were the same... actually I have found the WDC that also allows for the overloading of the listed capacity.

The islands of the pacific had no roads, as most of them never had vehicles. The Japanese Army was even more backwards WRT mechanized forces than any other axis nation (although I think the Italians were pretty bad also). Even the Wehrmacht still used horses by the millions and were the major transport capacity of a division. And on the islands that were to be staging areas or major bases it was easier to have the Navy bring them in via ship than fly them in.... I'm not sure how the SeaBees got their dozers and graders in, but until they were done their work AC would probably have no chance at landing.

As I stated, there a lots of air-portable (thanks for that correction) CCKW frames, yet unless you have that landing leg for the cab you simply are not going to be able to do anything with it.

One must also remember, we took Jap airfields also instead of making our own. No problem landing at an already established airfield.

My biggest point is it would have been much more useless to have the air transportable truck in the ETO. Can anyone argue a transportable truck being more useful in Europe instead of the Pacific?

paulfarber said:

DUKWs were used much more in the pacific, so right there you have a portable, land/sea vehicle that was already in production and is documented in use, in theater, in combat. The load rating of a DUKW and CCKW were the same... actually I have found the WDC that also allows for the overloading of the listed capacity.

The islands of the pacific had no roads, as most of them never had vehicles. The Japanese Army was even more backwards WRT mechanized forces than any other axis nation (although I think the Italians were pretty bad also). Even the Wehrmacht still used horses by the millions and were the major transport capacity of a division. And on the islands that were to be staging areas or major bases it was easier to have the Navy bring them in via ship than fly them in.... I'm not sure how the SeaBees got their dozers and graders in, but until they were done their work AC would probably have no chance at landing.

As I stated, there a lots of air-portable (thanks for that correction) CCKW frames, yet unless you have that landing leg for the cab you simply are not going to be able to do anything with it.

Click to expand...

Here is the modern equivelent to the WWII two means of conveyance

ida34 said:

One must also remember, we took Jap airfields also instead of making our own. No problem landing at an already established airfield.

My biggest point is it would have been much more useless to have the air transportable truck in the ETO. Can anyone argue a transportable truck being more useful in Europe instead of the Pacific?

Click to expand...

Few, if any airfields were taken without damage. Japs knew we were there for the airstrip.

The vast majority of supply was done by Navy ships to beaches or prepared ports in the Pacific. The ETO benefited by road networks and while rail was the preferred method, vast numbers of trucks were used to get supply from ship, to depot, to division.

Why fly in a truck, on three separate planes, when the LST could beach and dump a dozen or so trucks, loaded with supplies, onto a beach?

Here are some supply stats:

US Army division supply (from "US Army Handbook 1939-1945" by George Forty) is stated as 1,600 tons a day to support a "division slice" plus two air wings (total of about 500,000 men):

• 1,100 tons of dry cargo
• 475 tons of petroleum
• 25 tons of vehicles

This was broken down as:

• 595 tons to the ground troops in the combat zone
• 65 tons to the air forces
• 365 tons to the divisional area

According to Forty's book, individual supply was 66.81 lbs per day per man in Europe (67.4 lbs in the Pacific):

• 7.7 lbs rations (6.7 lbs in Pacific)
• 0.426 lbs of clothing & equipment (1 lb in Pacific)
• 7.821 lbs of construction materials (11.9 lb in Pacific)
• 3.64 lbs of ammunition (5.14 lbs in Pacific)

Note the above is PER DIVISION!

So, why would an air-portable truck make sense in the ETO:

All of the Allies agreed to a 'Europe First' strategy. All efforts were made to defeat Germany, THEN Japan.

Second, Airborne troops were initially developed for behind the lines attacks. Up until Market Garden it was envisioned that they would play a larger role in the defeat of Germany (even a drop on Berlin?). So do so would require transport vehicles. Operations Shingle and Overlord went well, Market Garden not so much.

Third, as stated, Europe had the autobahn. It played heavily into plans for attacks.. what good is a hard surfaced road without trucks to use it? Bastogne was the result of 7 such highway converging and being a natural choke point for movement.

I don't agree and am done with this argument. Why not land and LST in the pacific? Why not drive the truck off the LST at Normandy or the docks when they were captured. Vast road network in europe. Isolated islands in Pacific. The only place they would use the trucks would be somewhere they could not get to by a road or it was not sensible to get a truck by road. If it took 5 hours to assemble these things it would probably take about 5 hours to disassemble them. Obviously these were specialized tools for a very narrowly defined specialized mission.

I am not sure what all of your supply info has to do with where they trucks were designed to be used or if where they were designed to be used even matters. If it was easier to move a truck by ship or LST then they would. Obviously someone thought air transportable trucks were needed or they would not have designed and built them.

I am not even saying the trucks make any sense but someone thought they did.

I think all the supply stats are supposed to convince me the need for more trucks in Europe. I agree. The supplies had to move from the dock or Normandy to the front. Why airdrop a truck when you can just move it with the supplies. I can't see a truck being flow somewhere in Europe to be assembled then driven back to the docks to pick up the supplies.

Thanks for the history lesson on the airborne. I actually learned a lot of this when I was in the 101st Airborne. Airborne was used to behind the lines to damage key facilities and take key targets while the traditional troops pushed and advance. By the time they got one of these trucks assembled the lines should have meet up with them.

As to Bastone, the 101st was trucked in by regular trucks then enveloped by the Germans as other units retreated. Bastone was critical and if they had an airstrip area capable enough to handle a C-47 the Airborne truck would have made sense in this specific case.

Again, I disagree and have been able to find any thing documenting their intended mission. I am not saying they were specifically designed for the Pacific but that was the impression I had. I am simply stating the trucks would have been more useful in the PTO. Not all the operations were on small islands.

I guess I was not really done since I went on so much after saying I was done.

Now I am really done.

A friend one owns a CCKW 353 Airborne tipper with a wooden box. To my knowledge and the litherature I have on hand these vehicles were used in Europe. The rear end chassis with to cargo bor/tipper body was the packing for the front end, however only with soft top cabs. So your truck seems to be converted somewere in some depot with a hard top cap, which in reassemble the trucks might have happened somewhere.
I think that your combination is from after WWII.
Wolf
For my understanding the serial number is incomplete, for all serials I saw were something like CCKW3531234567890B1, means 19 digets, including the winch version and the base model. My friends truck has a 19 digit serial number, which causes some problems over here.
The most of the trucks I saw and drowe were ex French Army!
Wolf

There CCKW Frame SN is NOT 19 digits.The most common form is CCKW353XXXXXX-XX there MIGHT be stars at the beginning or end, but nothing factory produced was 19 digits.

The registration number was not 19 digits. It would be either start with a 4 or a 7 and have 4 - 6 digits after it. 4 for production trucks, 7 for CCKW frames with a specialized body (shop van, etc). Early trucks did have larger number and a different font.

Thanks sothdave for that photo are those 621 cat scrapers? i shure gl would sale of those id be all over it, all i have are 615s and they are just to underpowered.