Showing posts with label WW2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WW2. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Stuck in a POW camp in Borneo for 3 years of WW2, Reg Newman from Wales drew up plans for a camper trailer, which his daughter finally discovered... and a TV show was contacted etc


When Captain Reginald Newman was imprisoned at the brutal Kuching prisoner of war camp in Borneo during the Second World War, he spent three years doing hard labour and surviving on a cup of rice a day.

However, the British army captain, from Powys, Wales, spent his free time dreaming of caravan holidays back in his beloved homeland and, when he managed to get his hands on a scrapbook and coloured pencils, he began creating meticulous plans for a luxury two-berther he could build upon his release.

However, when Mr Newman was finally set free at the end of the war, the memory of his time in the barbaric Japanese prison camp left him so traumatised that he hid away his detailed drawings and didn't share them with his family.





Thirty years later, his daughter Jan discovered the pencil-drawn plans while clearing out her father's possessions and was astounded at just how detailed the tiny designs, written on a 4x7 inch notepad were.

 Jan eventually contacted the team behind hit Channel 4 show Amazing Spaces, showing presenter George Clarke her father's ambitions for the 1930s caravan.





http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-4028478/Tear-jerking-moment-daughter-British-WWII-POW-drew-meticulous-plans-1930s-caravan-captivity-sees-dream-realised-70-years.html

Thanks Dave!

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Reasons they used the Cadillac engines in tanks and landing craft, and how that relates to Pearl Harbor Day


the 346 cu in Cad was quiet, dependable, and proven, idled easily and started without problems.
Using the car engine in pairs for the M5 Stuart and M 26 Pershing, and the Chaffee, tanks freed up airplane engines for more airplanes to get made
Using car engines meant that most mechanics would already be familiar with them, and not have to learn some new design
Most of all, Cadillac had plenty of spare parts, and were already making these engines, and developing a new engine would take months that the military didn't have when Pearl Harbor was attacked

http://usautoindustryworldwartwo.com/General%20Motors/cadillac.htm