willysmjeeps.com

You kindly sent me a picture of you and the USAF M606A1, but I can not read the small stencil on the hood. I'm guessing US AIR FORCE, then a number with a white rectangle and then even smaller something something air base?

Can you give me the missing info please?

Cheers Chris

US AIR FORCE

66B 14530

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY

Thanks Wes, Great new website layout by the way, cool.

That was taken 37 years ago when I weighed about 135 Lbs. It was taken Dec 68 at U'Tapao RTNAF about 75 miles south of Bangkok. I believe it was Strata Blue and was being used by the BX (post exchange) staff. In fact now that I think about it more what attracted our attention to the jeep was it had two very good looking American girls in it. And of course we just like jeeps and it didn't fit in well with all the M151's we had on base.

Wes,

Post that photo here, I would not mind seeing it either.

PS: did you get a photo of the girls that were with the jeep?

No, we were lucky the girls even said hi to us. Here's the photo.



Heres a stateside recent color photo of another USAF M606A1 but I don't recall the owner.



NOTE: For the folks that like to split hairs over marking accuracy these two jeeps are both USAF and one is a 1965 model and the other is a 1966 model. Note the difference in hood number locations.

I don't want you guys to think we were there on vacation. We actually did get a little work done while we were there

Thanks Wes

As I have already started re-painting my M6060a1 in OD and it's looking good, I will stick with the colour. The limies over here will not know the differance.

Speaking of markings I know on my m38 is will be 52A then my serial number is that correct?

Actually the first two digits are the contract year, the letter is the purpose the vehicle is used for and the last set of digits are the registration number just like the Army.

I have been veryyyyy slowllyyyy loading USAF blue jeeps on my "MyPics.com gallery. It's slow but I'm getting there. Here's the link:
http://usafjeeps.mypicgallery.com/

Great photo's Wes! Thanks for sharing'em!

Ok then what would be the correct range for my 2/52 m38, the hood has been sandblasted before I bought the jeep so I dont know what was there.

Bill,
It's times like these when folks realize how important the surveys I send them are. As you can see from our M38 data base on the Yahoo site we don't have a lot of USAF hood numbers to interpolate with.

At any rate my feelings are if you're not positive what the original hood number was then don't try to fudge in a number that will skew any future attempts to establish an accurate data base. Instead simply use the first 3 or 4 digits of the closest hood number and add your serial at the end. This will become obvious to researchers years from now trying to sort out hood numbers.

As an aside the USAF did not start using their own version of registration numbers untill 54 or so. Therefore unless you intend to portray an M38 in use by the USAF after 1954 the original Army hood number sequence would be correct.

Here's an example of a USAF M38 when the USAF still used the Army hood number.



The next transition was to drop the Army's 209 prefix which just ID's vehicle type and use the USAF letter designation for vehicle purpose and the last 5 digits of the original Army hood number. Thus in this example you can see the original hood number on the side of the hood has been painted out with Strata Blue and the A-12273 entered on the hood. You'll also note that the earlier full registration number under the word USAF on the door sill area has also been painted out.




And finally the USAF starts procuring under their own contracts and here is how they did it for those. One note here, I have seen these jeeps built on USAF contract with the numbers on the aft end of the hood side, on the cowl and on doors (hard top models). The year of the contract followed by the letter designator for vehicle purpose and then the registration sequence number.

Thank you wes. If I remember right there is one spot in my hood that has not been sanded yet so I will check there. If not I will try to figure out what numbers to use.