Rolls Royce armoured Car markings in Palestine/Libyan Deserts

[Ignatieff]

Anyone got any good images for either The Duke of Westminsters Armoured Car Brigade (Libya 1916) or the 11th and 12th Light Armoured Motor Batteries?

[Over Open Sights]

What's this? Taking on the Senussi at Siwa? I'll have a trawl through me books when I get home this afternoon. Might find some photos somewhere.

http://www.landships.freeservers.com/tford_patrol_car.htm

Interweb search finds loads of photos from 30s and 40s in Palestine. Not much from the early days.

[Over Open Sights]

Some interestin' info on this discussion thread:
http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?8436-WWI-and-interwar-Vehicle-Numbering

[Plynkes]

Got nothing that really helps with markings (apart from the fact that they seem to show they had no markings except (perhaps?) for a serial number visible on the side in one of the shots), but I do have some photos from the Senussi business you might find interesting...

Cheshire Yeomanry in Minya, Egypt







Rollers Rollin' in the deep desert








The Rescue




Aftermath of the rescue of sailors from the Moorina and Tara, at Bir Hakim.







Note the prevalence of cold weather rather than tropical gear in the rescue operation photos. When reading of the campaign, you get the impression that the hardship the Tommies moaned about the most was the freezing cold and pouring rain. Not really what you expect in a desert campaign.




Misc




Model T Ford of the Light Car Patrol.



Al Askari was an interesting fellow. An Arab officer in the Ottoman army who was awarded the Iron Cross by the Germans, and later worked in Libya trying to help stir up revolt. He looks pretty glum here, but it seems he didn't mind who he was stirring up revolt for as long as he was doing it for someone, because pretty soon he was with T.E. Lawrence in Arabia and he became a bigwig in Faisal's army. He ended up as Prime Minister of Iraq, before being assassinated in a coup in 1936.

[Ignatieff]

God bless both of you gentlemen!

[Over Open Sights]

Plynkes, where, oh where did these photos come from? Must know. Massey's book mentions the RR armoured cars driving around with the lids off. I wondered what they would look like. Great to see the Model T without engine cowling, too. Massey describes the chaps on the Siwa expedition as "cheerful optimists". They certainly look it!

Well, not much luck in any of my collection of "The War Illustrated" or sundry books of photos, I'm afraid.  Have to agree with Plynkes that his photos suggest no markings other than serial numbers. It seems that roundels are a product of post war operations in the middle east, particularly with RAF vehicles.

[Plynkes]

The first two yellowy ones I pinched off the internet.

The rest came from my copy of this book:

[Marine0846]

Great photos.
Thanks for sharing, very neat.

[Ignatieff]

As I lay here in bed on a lazy Sunday morning my missus tells me that the Duke of Westminster became the lover of Coco Chanel after the war...interesting character.   Though on googling him you find he was also a bit of a closet nazi in the 1930's. 

[Plynkes]

Not so sure about the 'closet' part. I think he was about as closeted as John Barrowman (a comparison that would send him spinning in his grave if he knew about it). 


Interestingly, after browsing through that book again (it's ages since I read it), I discovered that the armoured car element of the Western Frontier Force was initially provided by six Rolls Royces of the Royal Naval Armoured Car Division. They were sent back to Alexandria at the start of 1916 and replaced by Grosvenor's Light Armoured Car Brigade.

Don't have any pics of them in action. You often see them depicted in model kits as having R.N.A.S. plastered on the side in large white letters, but the only photos I've seen of them in the Dardanelles (they were transferred to Egypt from Gallipoli) again seem to show no markings at all.


The Gallipoli pics, again not very useful (especially as Ignatieff wasn't asking about the RNACD), but interesting enough to post I reckon...





I'm sure I have seen a photo of an RNACD car in East Africa, but I can't recall where.

[Ignatieff]

cracking!

[carlos marighela]

I dragged out my copy of David Fletcher's War Cars. All the RR's seem to be quite unadorned apart from a four digit number on the  side of the bonnet, apparently in white paint. This appears to be preceded by a War Department broadarrow and what appears to be the letters 'LC' ( Light car?)  So.... "LC arrow + 1234' The LC is consistent with other photos of Fords and the like.

The contemporary Times History of the War doesn't add much in tems of markings. Hope that helps.

[carlos marighela]

I've not seen that photo of the captured 'Turkish' machinegun before. Clearly a Russian Maxim, no doubt captured in the Caucasus and passed on to their Senussi allies.

[Ignatieff]

Sanusi book arrived today, oooh yes!

[Over Open Sights]

Have spent my book budget for the next three months already..... I want that book too

Been doing some more digging. As most of the force that fought in the Libyan Desert were drawn from units from the whole of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force I doubt that there would have been any markings similar to divisional insignia. Example: Elements from twenty Yeomanry regiments fought the Senussi.  The Western Frontier Force was a body created in haste to counter the unexpected threat from the west. Can't seem to track down which higher formations these ACs and LCs Batteries had been attached to after they transfered from RNAC sections on their return to Egypt after Gallipoli.

Stick to the Broad Arrow, AC/LC, and four digit numbers. Nowt else.