Model T Ford WWI ambulance to be featured in inauguration parade
- Thread starter Dean Wilkinson
- Start date
Wayne Krakowski
PCS Member
Totally awesome,also 2 horses from Toronto police have been invited to ride with the police unit from Michigan,cooperation at its finest.
I posted this on Facebook, but forgot to post it here, sorry.
I will be working in DC for the Inauguration Day festivities, I hope to be able to find this before the parade.
I will be working in DC for the Inauguration Day festivities, I hope to be able to find this before the parade.
Wayne Krakowski
PCS Member
Steve, hope you have a quiet shift,so as you can see many of the entries.
Mike McDonald
PCS Member
I think we should "Comp" this person for one year's dues in the National PCS and whichever Chapter covers his home town. I will gladly pay his due(s) if another member can do the legwork. THX-MM
John Royark JR
PCS Member
Just going from memory, too lazy to dig my TPCs out at the moment, but is the one that was at the International in Jersey, or Albany?
Mike McDonald
PCS Member
New Member
FYI, I mailed in a New PCS Membership Application and Dues Check to Jeff for George King (the WW-I / Model-T Ambulance Owner) today, so hopefully he will be an Official PCS (National and New England Chapter) Member by next week when he is rolling down Pennsyvania Avenue! MM
FYI, I mailed in a New PCS Membership Application and Dues Check to Jeff for George King (the WW-I / Model-T Ambulance Owner) today, so hopefully he will be an Official PCS (National and New England Chapter) Member by next week when he is rolling down Pennsyvania Avenue! MM
Dawson "Blackie" Blackmore owns a WWI ambulance, and had it at the PCS Meet in Albany. Blackie's is green, this one apparently is blue. If I can find the guy on Monday, I'll ask.
Mike Burkhart - Deceased 1948 - 2016
December 30, 1948 - October 21, 2016
There was a nice story about it on the "Today" Show this morning on NBC. Super great!!
Gregg D. Merksamer
PCS Life Member / PCS Publicity Chairman / PCS Ele
An additional story on this Model T Ford ambulance taking part in Obama's Second Inaugural are also found in a Connecticut newspaper called THE DAY ...
http://www.theday.com/article/20130107/NWS01/301079955/-1/zip06&town=Norwich&template=zip06art
The owner, George King III, was also interviewed by Channel 30 NBC news ...
http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/video...-Participate-in-Inauguration-Parade/185888352
I did notice an error in THE DAY's coverage which I promptly directed to the article's author Anna Isaacs, namely there is NO WAY this Model T ambulance weighs 21,000 pounds; 2,100 pounds is likely the correct figure, as ease of shipment and handling on the battlefield (or manhandling, at those times it had to be pushed through the mud) were considered fundamentally important plusses of the Ford platform. This is one reason why the wheelbase, at 100 inches, was kept so short in relation to the body's overall length and rear overhang (Model "TT" truck ambulances, constructed on a longer 124 inch wheelbase, debuted during 1917). Even though these wood-planked, canvas-topped bodies were officially-rated for three recumbent cases, up to ten casualties could be carried out of a particularly-severe battle by using the fenders and running boards.
While researching these vehicles for my 2004 book PROFESSIONAL CARS, the most interesting thing I might have learned was that the first ambulance bodies built by Ford in the U.S. were too short to be used, since the American Field Service’s specifications were erroneously-converted from meters to yards. In an e-mail I received from Mr. King this evening, he recalled (from the Surgeon Generals report published after the war) that the prototype was made from photographs; once it was discovered that the ambulance was "too small in all directions," they had an American Field Service car shipped over from France to copy. Mr. King believes that car to be the one that was returned to France in 1938 and thus is the only existing original in captivity.
Despite this developmental glitch, the AFS ultimately had 47 sections, 3,500 volunteers and 1,100 mostly Ford-built vehicles tending to the wounded on the Western Front by 1917. Typically, each section comprised 30 American drivers and mechanics, 5-7 French personnel including a commanding officer, 20 Ford ambulances, a Ford staff car, a light Ford repair car, a pair of two ton trucks and a kitchen trailer. Shortly after America formally entered World War I in April, 1917, the U.S. Army Ambulance Corps was established with Camp Crane in Allentown, PA designated as its mobilization and training center. Substantially-augmenting the 2,113 Ford ambulances already serving in existing volunteer units at the time, the U.S. government would order 10,042 Model T ambulances by November 1st, 1918, out of which 5,340 had been completed and 4,362 shipped overseas by that date.
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http://www.theday.com/article/20130107/NWS01/301079955/-1/zip06&town=Norwich&template=zip06art
The owner, George King III, was also interviewed by Channel 30 NBC news ...
http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/video...-Participate-in-Inauguration-Parade/185888352
I did notice an error in THE DAY's coverage which I promptly directed to the article's author Anna Isaacs, namely there is NO WAY this Model T ambulance weighs 21,000 pounds; 2,100 pounds is likely the correct figure, as ease of shipment and handling on the battlefield (or manhandling, at those times it had to be pushed through the mud) were considered fundamentally important plusses of the Ford platform. This is one reason why the wheelbase, at 100 inches, was kept so short in relation to the body's overall length and rear overhang (Model "TT" truck ambulances, constructed on a longer 124 inch wheelbase, debuted during 1917). Even though these wood-planked, canvas-topped bodies were officially-rated for three recumbent cases, up to ten casualties could be carried out of a particularly-severe battle by using the fenders and running boards.
While researching these vehicles for my 2004 book PROFESSIONAL CARS, the most interesting thing I might have learned was that the first ambulance bodies built by Ford in the U.S. were too short to be used, since the American Field Service’s specifications were erroneously-converted from meters to yards. In an e-mail I received from Mr. King this evening, he recalled (from the Surgeon Generals report published after the war) that the prototype was made from photographs; once it was discovered that the ambulance was "too small in all directions," they had an American Field Service car shipped over from France to copy. Mr. King believes that car to be the one that was returned to France in 1938 and thus is the only existing original in captivity.
Despite this developmental glitch, the AFS ultimately had 47 sections, 3,500 volunteers and 1,100 mostly Ford-built vehicles tending to the wounded on the Western Front by 1917. Typically, each section comprised 30 American drivers and mechanics, 5-7 French personnel including a commanding officer, 20 Ford ambulances, a Ford staff car, a light Ford repair car, a pair of two ton trucks and a kitchen trailer. Shortly after America formally entered World War I in April, 1917, the U.S. Army Ambulance Corps was established with Camp Crane in Allentown, PA designated as its mobilization and training center. Substantially-augmenting the 2,113 Ford ambulances already serving in existing volunteer units at the time, the U.S. government would order 10,042 Model T ambulances by November 1st, 1918, out of which 5,340 had been completed and 4,362 shipped overseas by that date.
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For those of us in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Chapters, the former site of Camp Crane is now better known as the Allentown Fairgrounds, site of the "Spring Melt Fire Flea Market", which is where we buy a great deal of antique ambulance equipment every April. Small world, huh?
Mike McDonald
PCS Member
Inaguration Day Parade
Just curious if any member saw the Model-TT / WW-I Ambulance in the parade today.... videos or? THX-MM
Just curious if any member saw the Model-TT / WW-I Ambulance in the parade today.... videos or? THX-MM
Wayne Krakowski
PCS Member
Watched on CNN just saw a bit of it,those reporters on CNN were all over the place,they thought it was their day or something,switched to C-Span,guess what no commentary but did show most of the parade it was right near the front,(I can not download but it was there,)
Bill Marcy
PCS Member
Mike, please allow me to thank you for taking the bull by the horns with your generous gift of PCS membership. Truth is, people like you and many others make the PCS such a great organization.
I did not get to see the ambulance when I was down there for the Inauguration yesterday. Due to someone else being ill, I had to sub into a different position that offered me less mobility - I was in a first aid station all day. You all saw more of it on TV than I did.
The parade vehicles apparently assembled on the other side of the Capitol from where I was (west side on the Mall, right near CNN's broadcast booth). Even though they were less than a mile away, with the security-related street closures, it might as well have been in Connecticut to me.
The parade vehicles apparently assembled on the other side of the Capitol from where I was (west side on the Mall, right near CNN's broadcast booth). Even though they were less than a mile away, with the security-related street closures, it might as well have been in Connecticut to me.
I never saw it i watched the whole thing just to see it, and never laid eyes on it !
Gregg D. Merksamer
PCS Life Member / PCS Publicity Chairman / PCS Ele
If the attached "grab" were as big as my bedroom TV screen, it would clearly show how the Model T ambulance was in a prime space toward the front of the parade, passing the Presidential box at 5:10 PM smack dab between Barack Obama's beloved Kamehameha Schools Warrior Marching Band from Honololu and the similarly-esteemed Jackson Memorial H.S. Jaguar Band from Jackson, N.J. But just when I thought I'd capture a great shot of it on the DVD recorder, CNN cuts away to a correspondent further up Pennsylvania Avenue so she can banter aimlessly about how cold it's getting! I quickly switched over to C-Span and found all that they had managed to get were some shots of the World War I "doughboy" soldiers escorting the vehicle! Did ANY network still covering the parade at that point have a camera pointing in the right place? Wouldn't there be justice in that!
I quickly switched over to C-Span and found all that they had managed to get were some shots of the World War I "doughboy" soldiers escorting the vehicle! Did ANY network still covering the parade at that point have a camera pointing in the right place? Wouldn't there be justice in that!Attachments
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Wayne Krakowski
PCS Member
Gregg not to technically savvy,but up here we a parliamentary channel,they feed into a network C-Span that showed the parade minus all the jibber-jabber CNN seemed to be famous for,it is a public affairs type channel,there was one moment on CNN where you saw the red cross and figured this is it but Mr Blitzer wanted to tell everyone he could read the sign that preceeded everything in the parade.
who would name their kid WOLF ????? really ??
James Fischer
PCS Member
Wolf=short for "Wolfgang" (fathers name)
Wolf=short for "Wolfrick" or "Wolfie" (German Shepherds name)