In the Second World War Ford produced a truck for the US armed forces, the Ford GTB. This was produced and delivered in different variants. Colloquially, the vehicle was also known as the Burma Jeep, which comes from the claim that the truck was designed for the Burma Road.
The Ford GTB (or G-622 in the nomenclature of the US Army) originated from a US Army program for trucks with a low silhouette. Although the vehicle was somewhat unconventional in design (which made it highly recognizable), the technology was tried and tested, as Ford used many components that had long been in series production. The engine was also used in the G8T, which had been in production since 1941. The characteristic feature of the Ford GTB is the engine offset from the center of the vehicle to the right. This allowed the engine to be moved relatively far to the rear without restricting the driver’s legroom. However, this leaves no room for the passenger’s legs. Its folding seat is turned 90 degrees to the left.
The engine is a six-cylinder in-line gasoline engine. With a displacement of 3.7 liters, it delivers 90 hp (at 3,300 rpm). There is a storage space for tools to the left of the engine in the direction of travel. The transmission is a four-speed manual gearbox with selectable all-wheel drive. The top speed is around 70 km/h. Fuel consumption in road operation is more than 30 liters of high-octane petrol per 100 kilometers. It is 4.59 meters long, 2.18 meters wide and has an unladen weight of 3,130 kilograms. Production of these light trucks began in mid-June 1942 – Ford had already completely discontinued the production of civilian vehicles in mid-February 1942. Most of the components were produced at the Ford plant in River Rouge, but final assembly then took place at the plant in Edgewater. At the end of January 1944, the process was then changed and final assembly was moved to the Louisville plant. https://militaeraktuell.at/investitionspaket-fuer-den-truppenuebungsplatz-allentsteig/ The Ford GTB was actually intended as a vehicle to equip the US allies as part of military aid. However, the Soviet Union rejected the vehicle type outright. The US Army did not, and the first 6,001 vehicles were delivered to the Army, almost a thousand of them with a Gar Wood-type vehicle winch. Nevertheless, the Army preferred another truck in the same payload class, the G-506 from Chevrolet. The Navy saw this as an opportunity to circumvent the Army’s first access to trucks – which was given priority with certain vehicle classes. From September 1942, the Navy negotiated with Ford, and in December 1942 the US Navy ordered 1,500 of the GTBS variant as “bomb service trucks” – vehicles for loading fighter planes with bombs. The GTBS also had a loading crane for lifting bombs. The GTBS was the only version that did not have twin tires on the rear axle. After these vehicles were delivered in March 1943, an additional order for 800 more vehicles was placed. None of the GTBS vehicles were equipped with a winch.
Later, the Navy ordered a pure transport version, the GTBA, which was identical to the Army’s GTB except for the Navy’s typical “Ocean Grey O-5” livery. All these vehicles were equipped with winches. Initially, the Gar-Wood winch was used, but it was in great demand for installation on the GMC CCKW and 1.5-ton Chevrolets. So later the MU-5A winch from Braden was used. Both winch types had a pulling force of just under five tons. At 50 units, the variant used as a tow truck, the GTTB, was the rarest. Curiously, these vehicles had no winch. The last version to be produced was the GTBC. This was an improved “bomb service truck” with a winch and twin tires at the rear. A total of 4,701 GTBCs were built. This vehicle variant was also used by the United States Army Air Force. Their low silhouette (without a tarpaulin and with the windshield folded down) made the vehicles suitable for shipping or transporting bombs up to under the wings of aircraft. The cargo variants were equipped with a 40-gallon tank, while the “bombs service trucks” had tanks with a capacity of 26 gallons. https://militaeraktuell.at/general-dynamics-erhaelt-auftrag-von-us-marine/ Before production was discontinued in 1944, 15,274 units had rolled off the production line. The vehicles were only used in the United States and in the Pacific theater of war. After the Second World War, the vehicles were mainly used by the Navy, which later operated the vehicles in the Korean War and only retired the last Ford GTBs in 1967. The all-wheel drive with the 7.50 x 20-inch off-road tires provided propulsion even in the heavy rain typical of tropical climates with correspondingly softened ground. Thanks to its small turning circle (around 10 meters), the vehicle was also quite manoeuvrable. Of course, the compact cab also contributed to this. A very persistent legend is the claim that the Ford GTB was designed for use on the famous Burma Road and found its primary area of use there. The first assumption is simply wrong and there are no documents that prove the claimed use on the Burma Road. However, there are pictures that show the Ford GTB in tropical surroundings beyond the Pacific theater of war.
In fact, the Dutch troops in Suriname received a small number of Ford GTBs. They used the vehicles for crew transportation and at least four as gun trucks. The “Koninklijk Nederlandsch-Indisch Leger” (KNIL) had been maintaining trucks armed with machine guns for air defense since the early 1930s. The vehicle types used were Opel, Chevrolet, Ford and Ford/Marmon-Herrington. In the Dutch East Indies, the KNIL used gun trucks on Chevrolet Master chassis. Since the attack by Venezuelan rebels on Curaçao, the Mariniers (marines) stationed there had already been using Gun Trucks. In 1939, the governor of Suriname, Johannes C. Kielstra, complained to his government that he did not have adequate means to defend the South American colony. He used the 100,000 guilders granted to him to purchase six Ford 19c trucks, which were modified into gun trucks at Marmon-Herrington, albeit without four-wheel drive. Water-cooled .50 caliber Colt-Browning machine guns with heavy pedestal mounts served as on-board weapons. The machine guns were mounted on the Ford GTBs by 1947 at the latest. Some Ford GTBs were also delivered to the Netherlands itself. At the end of the 1940s, they were also used for driver training at the Hilversum Naval Training Center (“Marine Opleidingskamp Hilversum”, or MOKH for short).
