US Air Force M718A1

[Badgerord]

US Air Force M817A1

Did the Air Force ever use the M718A1 Ambulance.

Are there any pictures available?. I have googled my fingers to the bone with no luck.

[Hambone]

I've looked at many pics of the 718 over the last 10 yrs., never saw an Air Force version, maybe Ken would have more info.

[Mr. Recovery]

Well they did use this one a while back. I don't think they had any 718's unless a SeaBee gave one to a unit!

https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit ... ambulance/

They also used this.

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[SEABEE62]

We lent them our Army one...but got it back later... Seabee

[rickf]

Let's interpret that, The lent them the Army one they "borrowed" from the Army and then the "borrowed" it back from the Air Force. And probably sold it to the Marines, Or traded it for beer!

[muttguru]

I know for a fact that the USAF used the M718....I supplied a captain at Mildenhall AFB with a TM-20 and -20P plus a Zenith carb for the M718 they had been hiding in one of the storage facilities. It didn't have most of the ambulance kit on it when I saw it.
Eventually it was turned over to the local DRMO at Molesworth when the captain returned stateside.

But that doesn't answer your question about the M718A1. Never seen a USAF M718A1 anywhere.

Ken

[Badgerord]

Thanks all!!

My wife is a former Air Force Nurse and she asked me why we don't have any Air Force vehicles.

I can't tell her it's because the Air Force doesn't have anything that is interesting

[Mark]

I can remember seeing blue m151a2s or 151s/A1s? I didn't know the differences back then.There might have been more but don't remember.

[Mutt Hunter]

My 73 A-2 started its life blue. We found the blue paint under a lot of rattle can-applied green...and found the blue in places you could only get to from the "factory" or through an extremely OCD senior airman.

dee

[rickf]

It would have been the OCD Airman since they only came from the factory in one color, Green. As Henry Ford said, "You can have any color you want as long as it is black"

From what I have seen the Air Force had green vehicles for security, blue vehicles fort transport and official use and yellow vehicles for ramp operations. What can I say? They were "Special".

They had damn good food though!

[Mr. Recovery]

Security Police had 151's at one time but haven't seen any 718's and yes the Air Force food was Great!!

mmu_get_jpeg AF Raido mutt.jpg

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[Walter]

Good Evening Everyone:

A long time ago in my former life, I was an Air Force 'General Purpose Vehicle Repairman'. As I recall my AFSC was 47350. I had one of the more unique Air Force tours for vehicle maintenance kinda guys. If you were in the 'right' unit none of the tactical vehicles were ever painted Strata Blue. Right after tech school at Chaunte AFB, I was assigned to Detachment 1, 68th Tactical Air Support Group at Shaw AFB, SC. We were a DASC unit - Direct Air Support Center. Dasc's were a com link between the Forward Air Controllers (FAC) both aircraft and ground based units. Marshall Harrison, an OV-10 FAC, talks about how the DASC's were actually used in his book A Lonely Kind Of War

The ground FACs had either a MRC 107 or MRC 108 radio pallet that took up the entire back seat area of the jeep. The top picture in Mr. Recovery's list of pictures is an example of a FAC jeep. They were equipped with 4 radios operating on 4 separate bands, HF, UHF VHF and FM. One was to talk to the Air Force aircraft, one to talk to the Army air assets, the FM to talk to the ground pounders and the HF for longer distance communications. There were three primary aircraft that the USAF used during the Vietnam era, the O-1 Birdog, the O-2 Oscar Duce and the OV-10 Bronco. All three of were also equipped with the same radios, or the equivalent aircraft variety.

During the last week at Chanute, we covered diesel engines, that were not as popular in 1971 as they are in today's military. Over in the corner of the diesel shop there was a forlorn looking, large engine on a stand that was painted OD green. Our instructor prefaced his remarks by telling us that he had never seen one of these in his entire Air Force career, but that he was required to show us the engine as part of the course. He started it up so we could hear it run. He told us that it was a Multifuel and would run on anything from 10 wt oil up to and including mogas. That was the extent of our training on the multifuel!

It was also about that same time that we all began to get orders for our first PCS. Everyone else in my class had orders that read "Something or another Transportation Squadron" Mine read about Detachment 1, 68th TASGP. When I asked the instructor what the heck that was, his response was simple "Don't have a clue, but they must have vehicles, or you wouldn't be going there" Some help he was!

The base taxi picked me up at the main gate and took me to my shop. Along the back fence of the Chanute main motor pool was a whole row of OD green 'stuff'. They included M-543 wreckers, M35 duces, M715 Weapons carriers and M151 jeeps. No - we did not call them Mutts. There was also a whole raft of special trailers, aka Mobilizers, como vans and trailers for all sizes for the vehicles, 416's 101's 105'setc. The jeeps came in two variety's. There were slick models that was the standard run of the mill M151A1. And there were also the MRC107/108's I mentioned above.

I spent a little over 2 years in that outfit. We did several field exercises and deployed the entire unit into the field for training exercises 2 or 3 times during my assignment, including one with the 82nd Air Borne in the Piney Woods of North Carolina out side of Camp Lejune. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of my time at Shaw.

However in the summer of 1973 I was shipped to Detachment 1, 51st ABWG (Air Base Wing). The 51st was based at Osan AB in the Republic of South Korea. Detachment 1, was assigned to a small isolated site out on the coast, about 30 road miles from OSAN. It was Koon-Ni Range. It was an Air to Ground Gunnery range. The thirty miles from OSAN were not much more than Water Buffalo trails, in many spots not wide enough for two duces to pass with someone going down into the ditch. Our compliment of equipment included 2 jeeps. One was a slick 151 with a hard top, aka arctic top, the other was a 718. I have attached a grainy picture of it. We were required to have an Ambulance -- incase something happened. There were no litter racks in it, but boy howdy did it make a swell range vehicle for hauling picks, shovels rope targets and the like!!!

We also had 2 M-37's, probably some of the last ones in active USAF use; 2 M35's, probably A1's as they had the multifuel with the side exhaust that came out between the duals on the right side. We also had 2 - 5 ton dumps, one was a short wheel base commercial 4WD International (It was the only rig on the whole place that was painted Strata Blue, and an M-51. It was a gas job. We also had a 5 ton M-52 Tractor. After 12 months they finally sent me to Hancock Field where I got to work on Strata Blue junk for my last 8 months.

Enjoy the pictures!

Regards,

Walter

[Refit1701]

Not a 151 I know but this is a slide from 78/79 from an estate sale. The main attraction was the Shuttle Enterprise but this showed up. I collect old slides of rockets.

( I attached and deleted this image four times and it still shows as upside down to me. I give up.)

saturnv026.jpg

[Walter]

Good Morning Everyone:

Two quick items. Where I was talking about the back fence of the 'Chanute" motor pool. It should have said Shaw.

Also, in the second picture the landing craft you can see in the distance was not Navy, Marines or Army. Believe it or not it was USAF! Who knew the Air Force had their own navy as well!!! The operator of the craft was also an Air Force Buck Sergeant. He came to work every morning dressed in the Navy style -- Blue Jacket uniform -- the dark blue dungarees and light blue shirt with the appropriate USAF markings. He used it to clear out the local fishermen before the strafing range was opened each day. It leaked like a seave. It had an older, two cycle, Detroit engine. The bilge pump was driven by v-belts directly off of the Detroit. When the bilge pump failed, the only thing I could find was a 24 volt electric pump out of a Cadillac Gage armored car as no one had a replacement for the original in the entire pacific area!

Regards,

Walter

[raymond]

Since your picture is upside down, it left me wondering,.......................

the estate sale wasn't someplace "down under" like in Australia, was it

Not a 151 I know but this is a slide from 78/79 from an estate sale. The main attraction was the Shuttle Enterprise but this showed up. I collect old slides of rockets.

( I attached and deleted this image four times and it still shows as upside down to me. I give up.)

saturnv026.jpg