The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Breakdown Cranes on Chevrolet Trucks World War Two Australian Army

Dear Fellow Stovebolters,

I have an Australian assembled 1940 Chevrolet truck that was built by Holden's for the Australian Army. Are there any Breakdown Truck historians online at Stovebolt?

I have found some photographs from the Australian War Memorial showing 1939 and 1940 Chevrolet trucks that had a breakdown crane mounted on them. I am trying to identify what the manufacturer of the breakdown cranes are. The cranes could be either a Holmes M.E Model breakdown crane or the M. E. could refer to another manufacturer all together? It might have been a good place to fit the copy of an old brochure for the M. E. Breakdown crane amongst a bunch of Holmes cranes?

First of all I will include the link to the M. E. Breakdown Crane - then three photographs from the Australian War Memorial. Yes it is a bit like pin the tail on the donkey to see if the crane from the first site fits the others.

Thank you for any assistance you might be able to give me.

Accessed November 23, 2016 from, http://www.recoveryvehicles.com/history it is quite a scroll down to you get to the first image of a bare crane without a truck .... Look out for the title "M. E. Breakdown"
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P02399.014
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/127753
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/000365

Kind Regards
Lionel Evans

Hello All,

After some more research and very kind people such as Mike Saward and Tom Griffin from Recovery Centres in the US and the UK and their replying to my emails the crane was identified. According to Mike Saward the crane is manufactured by Mann Egerton from Norwich in the UK.

Did these cranes make it to Canada during World War Two?

Kind Regards
Lionel

I don't know much about the wreckers but thank you for posting the pictures.

We have a gentlemen here that goes by spanky that may see this and chime in. He's the "wrecker guy".