This is a M76 Otter, an amphibious cargo carrier used by the USMC in the 1950s and into the 1960s. This one, apparently, was used by the Army.
The vehicle did see use in the Vietnam War.
Last edition:
Showing posts with label 1950s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1950s. Show all posts
Saturday, March 29, 2025
M76 Otter. National Museum of Military Vehicles.
This is a M76 Otter, an amphibious cargo carrier used by the USMC in the 1950s and into the 1960s. This one, apparently, was used by the Army.
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
M38 A1s, National Museum of Military Vehicles.
M38A1 with a recoilless rifle.
The first automobile I ever owned was a M38A1.
The prototype for the modern Jeep, basically, it entered civilian use as the CJ5, after entering military use in 1952. Doubtless examples are still in use, and civilians varians are still produced by Roxor in India.
Last edition:
M151 Jeeps. National Museum of Military Vehicles.
Labels: 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 4x4, Automobiles, Military, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Radio, Trucks, Wyoming (Dubois)
Tuesday, March 25, 2025
M151 Jeeps. National Museum of Military Vehicles.
The M151 "Mutt" entered service in 1959 and carried on into the 1990s. It had fantastic off road capabilities, and was also fantastically dangerous, given its independent wheel suspension system.
The last Jeep to see general use in the U.S. military, it was replaced by HumVeh's, although speciality vehicles, and even modern commercial Jeeps, continue to see some use. In these examples, the radio mount for a period radio is displayed.
I personally have a lot of experience from the 1980s, with both the M151, and this model of military radio.
Last edition:
M32 Tank Retriever, National Museum of Military Vehicles.
M32 Tank Retriever, National Museum of Military Vehicles.
This is a M32 tank retriever, which is obviously based on the M4 Sherman chassis. These were used by the U.S. Army starting in World War Two, although a tank retriever based on the Lee/Grant chassis was also used.
These remained in use during the Korean War and into the 1960s when it was replaced by the M88.
Last edition:
M24 Chaffee, National Museum of Military Vehicles.Labels: 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, Armor, Army, Army of the Republic of Vietnam, Korean War, National Museum of Military Vehicles, Vietnam War, Weapons, World War Two, Wyoming (Dubois)
Monday, March 24, 2025
M24 Chaffee, National Museum of Military Vehicles.
Like the M26 Pershing, the M24 Chaffee shows the speed of armor evolution during World War Two. A much more modern light tank than the M3, it remained in service until 1953 with the U.S. Army, and various other armies long after that. The tank was heavily, if not terribly successfully, used by the ARVN during the Vietnam War.
Friday, March 21, 2025
M60. National Museum of Military Vehicles.
The M60 was the great U.S. tank of the Cold War, and continues to be a great tank to this day.
Effectively an improved variant of the M48, so much so that in some armies it would be regarded as a variant of the prior tank, the M60 took all of the improvements to the M26 line of tanks over the decades and more or less perfected them. Indeed, some of the improvements, such as the 105mm gun, were retrofitted to the prior M48.
M60s remain in use around the world in upgraded versions.
Thursday, March 20, 2025
M48 Patton. National Museum of Military Vehicles.
The fourth tank to descend from the M26 Pershing, including the Pershing, the M48 was a long serving and very successful U.S. tank. It entered service in the mid 1952 in the U.S. Army, and it is still in service with various nations, including South Korea and Taiwan.
The M48 was the second of the US Cold War tanks to actually see action in a Cold War war, the M46 being the first in Korea, with the M48 seeing extensive use by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in Vietnam. The tank was already a second class tank in the US military by that time, the M60 having come on, but it was a perfectly modern tank and more than able to take on anything in theater. The tank was later upgraded to near M60 capabilities with the change from a 90mm gun to a 105.
The M48 entered US service in 1952, and was last used in the National Guard in 1987.
Related Threads:
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Wednesday, March 19, 2025
M47 Tank. National Museum of Military Vehicles.
The tank in the photograph above is a M47 "Patton" tank, the successor to the M26 Pershing. The tank had a limited production run, entering service in 1951 during the Korean War, and being declared a limited standard in 1955. Production ceased in 1953, and the tank was deployed to Korea in small numbers for testing.
The tank was the third tank to be based on the M26, including the M26. The second was the M46 "Patton", which was an upgraded M26 which was used during the Korean War.
A M5 Stuart light tank is in the background.
Related threads:
The M26 and its children
Last edition:
Monday, March 17, 2025
M103 Heavy Tank, National Museum of Military Vehicles.
A M103 Heavy Tank.
A Cold War giant, the M103 served from 1957 to 1974, with its final years being used by the Marine Corps. By the time it entered service, the M60b was already in use and the Army regarded the heavy M103 as obsolescent.
While very impressive in size, the tank was too big even for its own era, and plagued with various problems accordingly.
This one must be a rebuilding project. It's the second one I've seen, the other being at the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center / USAHEC
Last edition:
Mortars. National Museum of Military Vehicles.
Thursday, February 6, 2025
Saturday, December 28, 2024
Korean War Display, National Museum of Military Vehicles
The Korean War has always had a special fascination for me, as my father was a Korean War veteran.
The T-34/85 is the tank we normally think of when we think of the T-34. One of the greatest tanks of all time, it was the best tank of the Second World War.
Last edition:
Today In Wyoming's History: Sidebar: Wyoming and the Korean War
Today In Wyoming's History: Sidebar: Wyoming and the Korean War:
Sidebar: Wyoming and the Korean War
The Korean War is something that most Wyomingites don't particularly associate with our state, but the war did have a noticeable impact on the state, and Korea has been in the news a lot recently, so now might be a good time to take a look at it.
Part of the reason that we don't think much of the Korean War and Wyoming, is that we don't think much about the Korean War at all. The Korean War is one of several wars that have been tagged "forgotten wars" and, in the case of Korea, it's really true. Perhaps that was inevitable, coming between World War Two and the Vietnam War, as it did.
Wyoming's role in the Korean War is tied closely to the the decline in the Army's conventional war fighting abilities that followed World War Two. The largest war ever fought, World War Two was the largest conventional conflict of all time but it ended with the use of two nuclear weapons. Given that, the immediate assumption by the American military was that the age of conventional warfare had ended and that any future war, of any kind, would be a nuclear war. The Army was allowed to atrophy as a result. Between 1945, when World War Two ended, and 1950, when the Korean War started, the Army's training in conventional warfare dramatically declined.
An end to conventional warfare turned out to be a massively erroneous assumption, and the place we learned that was in Korea.
That the US would fight a war in Korea was something that, moreover, seemed an impossibility in 1945, when events took us there for the first time in the 20th Century. The US had actually fought in Korea once before, but in the 19th Century, oddly enough, when the Marine Corps landed briefly in Korean in an obscure punitive expedition. It was World War Two, however that brought the US back onto the Korean Peninsula, but only due to the end of the war.
Korea itself had been a Japanese possession since 1910, when the Japanese simply made a fact out of what had been the case following the Russo Japanese War. Korea had been more or less independent prior to that, but heavily influenced by its much more powerful neighbors. The Russo Japanese War effectively ended Korean independence in favor of the Japanese. The Japanese dominance was not a happy thing for the Koreans. Korea remained a Japanese possession up until after World War Two, when it was jointly occupied by the United States and the Soviet Union, splitting the country in half. The US had no intention to remain there but the original concept of uniting the country in a democratic process fell apart, and the Soviets and the US left with the country divided. The US had weakly armed the South and failed to provide it with heavy weapons. The North, on the other hand, was heavily armed and trained by the Soviets, who left the North with the means, and likely the plan, on how to unite the peninsula by force. In 1950, North Korea invaded the South with a well equipped and well trained Army. They faced a poorly trained South Korean Army.
Soon after that they, quite frankly, faced a poorly trained American Army. The US hadn't really given much thought to South Korea after leaving it, but the fall of China, followed by the Berlin Blockade, followed by shocking early revelations about Soviet espionage inside the US, followed by the development of the Soviet bomb, suddenly refocused attention on a country that now seemed to be a dagger aimed at Japan. President Truman made the immediate decision to send the U.S. Army into South Korea to turn the North Koreans back.
That Army, however, wasn't the same Army the US had in 1945 after the defeat of Germany and Japan. After VJ Day the U.S. had rapidly demobilized. Moreover, convinced that all future wars would be nuclear in nature, the U.S. had let the Army deteriorate markedly. It was poorly trained and not all that well equipped in some ways.
The intervention in South Korea required the call up of numerous Army National Guard units, and Wyoming's 300th Armored Field Artillery was one of them. Deployed in February 1951, the unit made up of young recruits from northern Wyoming and World War Two veterans proved to be a very effective one. It achieved a fairly unique status in May 1951 at Soyang with the unit directly engaged advancing enemy infantry, a very rare event in modern combat and a risky one at any time. The unit came out of the Korean War with Presidential and Congressional Unit Citations in honor of its fine performance in the war. The individual Guardsmen of the 300th AFA largely came home after completing a combat tour, at a little over a year, but the called up unit remained in service throughout the war. Other Wyoming Army National Guard units were also called up in this time, but only the 300th AFA was sent to the Korean War.
The Air National Guard's 187th Fighter Bomber Squadron from Wyoming was called up. The new Air Guard saw combat service for the first time in the Korean War. Nine Wyoming F51 pilots were lost serving in the unit during the war.
Of course, many Wyomingites served in the war by volunteering for military service, or by being conscripted during the war. Like earlier wars, Wyomingites volunteered in high numbers.
Official painting of the Wyoming Army National Guard depicting Wyoming's 300th AFA in action.
Part of the reason that we don't think much of the Korean War and Wyoming, is that we don't think much about the Korean War at all. The Korean War is one of several wars that have been tagged "forgotten wars" and, in the case of Korea, it's really true. Perhaps that was inevitable, coming between World War Two and the Vietnam War, as it did.
Wyoming's role in the Korean War is tied closely to the the decline in the Army's conventional war fighting abilities that followed World War Two. The largest war ever fought, World War Two was the largest conventional conflict of all time but it ended with the use of two nuclear weapons. Given that, the immediate assumption by the American military was that the age of conventional warfare had ended and that any future war, of any kind, would be a nuclear war. The Army was allowed to atrophy as a result. Between 1945, when World War Two ended, and 1950, when the Korean War started, the Army's training in conventional warfare dramatically declined.
An end to conventional warfare turned out to be a massively erroneous assumption, and the place we learned that was in Korea.
That the US would fight a war in Korea was something that, moreover, seemed an impossibility in 1945, when events took us there for the first time in the 20th Century. The US had actually fought in Korea once before, but in the 19th Century, oddly enough, when the Marine Corps landed briefly in Korean in an obscure punitive expedition. It was World War Two, however that brought the US back onto the Korean Peninsula, but only due to the end of the war.
Korea itself had been a Japanese possession since 1910, when the Japanese simply made a fact out of what had been the case following the Russo Japanese War. Korea had been more or less independent prior to that, but heavily influenced by its much more powerful neighbors. The Russo Japanese War effectively ended Korean independence in favor of the Japanese. The Japanese dominance was not a happy thing for the Koreans. Korea remained a Japanese possession up until after World War Two, when it was jointly occupied by the United States and the Soviet Union, splitting the country in half. The US had no intention to remain there but the original concept of uniting the country in a democratic process fell apart, and the Soviets and the US left with the country divided. The US had weakly armed the South and failed to provide it with heavy weapons. The North, on the other hand, was heavily armed and trained by the Soviets, who left the North with the means, and likely the plan, on how to unite the peninsula by force. In 1950, North Korea invaded the South with a well equipped and well trained Army. They faced a poorly trained South Korean Army.
Soon after that they, quite frankly, faced a poorly trained American Army. The US hadn't really given much thought to South Korea after leaving it, but the fall of China, followed by the Berlin Blockade, followed by shocking early revelations about Soviet espionage inside the US, followed by the development of the Soviet bomb, suddenly refocused attention on a country that now seemed to be a dagger aimed at Japan. President Truman made the immediate decision to send the U.S. Army into South Korea to turn the North Koreans back.
That Army, however, wasn't the same Army the US had in 1945 after the defeat of Germany and Japan. After VJ Day the U.S. had rapidly demobilized. Moreover, convinced that all future wars would be nuclear in nature, the U.S. had let the Army deteriorate markedly. It was poorly trained and not all that well equipped in some ways.
The intervention in South Korea required the call up of numerous Army National Guard units, and Wyoming's 300th Armored Field Artillery was one of them. Deployed in February 1951, the unit made up of young recruits from northern Wyoming and World War Two veterans proved to be a very effective one. It achieved a fairly unique status in May 1951 at Soyang with the unit directly engaged advancing enemy infantry, a very rare event in modern combat and a risky one at any time. The unit came out of the Korean War with Presidential and Congressional Unit Citations in honor of its fine performance in the war. The individual Guardsmen of the 300th AFA largely came home after completing a combat tour, at a little over a year, but the called up unit remained in service throughout the war. Other Wyoming Army National Guard units were also called up in this time, but only the 300th AFA was sent to the Korean War.
The Air National Guard's 187th Fighter Bomber Squadron from Wyoming was called up. The new Air Guard saw combat service for the first time in the Korean War. Nine Wyoming F51 pilots were lost serving in the unit during the war.
Of course, many Wyomingites served in the war by volunteering for military service, or by being conscripted during the war. Like earlier wars, Wyomingites volunteered in high numbers.
Friday, December 13, 2024
British 25 Pdr. National Museum of Military Vehicles.
Arguably the United States had the best artillery of the Second World War, but the British and the Germans had very good artillery. This depicts a British 25 pdr with its artillery tractor.
Last edition:
Monday, November 18, 2024
Tuesday, November 18, 1924. Adding to the public domain.
When Presidents realized that adding to the public domain was a good thing.
In 1954 the Harney National Forest was added to the Black Hills, so it is no longer a separate administrative unit.
Brig. Gen. R.E. Noble, Librarian of Army Medical Library, 11/18/24
Dr. Noble was a career military physician.
Last edition:
Sunday, November 16, 1924. French evacuations, Imperial Russian dreams.
Monday, November 11, 2024
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Wednesday, November 5, 1924. Expelled from the Forbidden City.
The news of the election hit the papers.
The former Emperor of China, Puyi, was expelled from the Forbidden City by Gen. Feng Yuxiang who unilaterally revoked the Articles of Favourable Treatment of the Great Qing Emperor after His Abdication
Puyi lived a tragic life, having been born into the anachronism of the Chinese Empire at a time it was collapsing. He'd go on to be Emperor of Manchukuo, the Japanese puppet state in Manchuria, a prisoner of the Soviet Union, a prisoner of the Red Chinese, and finally, a gardener. He died in 1967 at age 61.
President Coolidge made a Thanksgiving proclamation:
Last edition:
Tuesday, November 4, 1924. Ross and Coolidge win.
Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1924 Election, Blog Mirror, Calvin Coolidge, Nellie Tayloe Ross, Politics, Women, Wyoming
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