by Hans Smit
BY THE end of 2024 and in 2025, many Dutch transportation companies are hoisting the flag. They are celebrating 80 years since their (re)start after WWII. Old American and British army trucks played an essential role in that reconstruction.
After the liberation, the Netherlands was virtually looted. The occupying forces disappeared with everything that could roll: from trucks to bicycles. Therefore the Dutch entrepreneurial hunger and the need to rebuild the country could only be satisfied with the supply of GMC, Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford, Bedford and Reo trucks from the Allied troops.
The Allies surprised the Dutch with their generosity. Anyone who could prove that their trucks had been seized by the Germans was immediately given an army truck from stock. There was also a lively barter: an army vehicle in exchange for a driver to help in the reconstruction effort. Civilian transportation was key to repair roads and railroad tracks, as well as to move fuel, food and people. Generosity was also practical because the best trucks and drivers were headed for Berlin, and repatriation of the inferior equipment was expensive.
The Dutch carriers were grateful, but soon discovered that not all U.S. Army equipment was built for durability. The chassis proved to be weak, a wheel or complete axle would occasionally come off, and lighting was pitiful. When drivers set out early in the morning, the heavy gasoline engines woke up entire villages and city neighborhoods. And the loudly exploding blowouts (a combination of bad rubber & overloading) got on their nerves.
Still, an intimate bond developed between the drivers and their first Army trucks. They were reinforced, they got diesels (the German brand Henschel was popular) and new waterproof cabs (often with a pot-bellied heater bolted to the floor for heating) were introduced. The trucks were adapted for numerous uses: tippers for sand and rubble, closed beds for transporting household goods, food and livestock. Famous Dutch coachbuilders laid their foundations in these days.
Until the mid-1970s, dump dealers still offered cheap ex-army vehicles. Gradually they disappeared from the streets, but especially the agriculture, construction and automobile trade (crane trucks) remained loyal to their army trucks for many years.
* Hans Smit reports from the Arnhem/Nijmegen region.
* 1946 in Utrecht. With a Dodge T110L only slightly modified, Dutch freighter Keij picks up business again.
