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I'm starting to put the cargo together now & I need some advice. I've been carefully cutting out the boxes & using balsa wood to fill them with (Tom, thanks for the great tip).
I have a couple of questions that may have been touched on in another thread but I just need it to be confimed here.
How many pallets can fit onto the bed of an M35 truck?
How was the load stacked? Was there a pallet for C Rats; a pallet for beer; a pallet for ammo, etc, etc? If so, how was each pallet loaded? I understand that there were several menus of C Rats so were the rations varied on each pallet or were they all the same menus? Likewise beer: did you get a pallet of Budweiser; a pallet of Miller, a pallet of Hamms, etc, or did each pallet have various brands on them? Were thay mixed?
What about smallarms ammo? Lets say .50cal, for arguments sake. Were the cans transported in their wooden shipping crates or was each crate broken down & the cans loaded individually?
I hope you understand what I'm trying to say. Have I missed anything?
I'd appreciate all the help you can give me on this one because I want to get this bit right. I'd love to hear from the people who were actually there & saw how it was done firsthand.
Thanks fellas.
Joe.
WOW! your full of questions this morning! Taking into fact that I have not seen a pallot of beer in a very long time, I'd guess the pallot was about 4ft x 5 1/2ft. With sixteen cases per layer (dosn't sound right to me). But Being as I always was told there was 80 cases per pallot, and can see no resonable way to get there; I think it was really 84 cases or maybe even 100. Here's why. The pallot stood about 4 feet tall. A case of beer is about 5" tall, so I'm thinking twelve layers on a 3 ft. x 5 ft pallot for 100 cases. (remember this is all guess work). This is the only combo I can get to come up even close to being right. Be nice to see a couple pictures.
The most common beer in I-Corps was Millers, PBR, and Budwiser as well as Schlitz. I've seen Black Lable and Falls City every now and then as well, but still rather uncommon. Have also heard that they had Hamms and Olympia, but never saw any. Ballentines was also common and everybody hated the stuff. Coke was the most common soda pop, and 7up was also common up north, but never saw much Pepsi stuff. Might add orange soda pop in there too, as there was always somebody that wanted it.
A typical load would be five pallots (have done more than six before). Usually three beer and two soda pop. If you bought four pallots, one had tobe a Ballentines Ale! You could not even trade it on the black market as it was so nasty! So we always stopped at three pallots of beer. There also would be two or three cases of hard liquer stuffed in there as well. The cases were usually mixed inside with several different items (I had a list). And if there was more room to play I'd go up front and buy several cases of Hienze 57 sauce and Granny Goose potato chips that came in cans (I often filled four duffel bags with stuff like this.)
I don't remember ever seeing C-Rats in a skid, but know that's how they were shipped over there. The same way with small arms ammo (came in crates that were stacked on a pallot)
When it came to getting an ammo resupply, we had a squad that did that back in batallion. We'd tell them what we needed, and they'd get it for us. I don't ever remember having crates of ammo on a truck driving down the roads unless it was in a heavilly armed convoy. But do remember seeing five tons loaded with 105 and 155 ammo in convoys (not us) if they were relatively close by. Most of the time that stuff was just trucked over to a chopper pad that had a fork truck nearby, and then off loaded onto landing nets. This pad was usually within eyesite of the main ammo dumps.
gary
