Thanks to David S for commenting on this post and providing additional info. I didn’t get this one right. Thanks DS.
“This is the M35 Transport, designed by the REO Motor Company in 1949 (Post-WWII) and entered service in 1951. The M35 replaced the venerable CCKW by GMC, the famous deuce-and-a-half from WWII generally and the Red Ball Express in particular. Still in US service today, the M35 has seen vast amounts of military service from Korea to Vietnam to Saudi Arabia and all points in between.”
I made an assumption based this from the zoo’s web site:
“For many riders, half the fun is bouncing along in the army surplus troop carrier called a deuce and a half. It lumbers through and over mud, rocks, water and stumps with the dexterity of mahout’s elephant on shikari in India. It essentially makes its own roads and is not for the faint of heart.”
—The original post is below (as is)–
Recently, I found myself (with some neighbors, too) at the Catoctin Mountain Zoo, wilting away in the summer sun. One of the draws of the zoo is that they have a “safari ride” where kids can feed “animals of the world,” including camels. Walking up to the loading ramp, I was surprised to see a deuce and half , the vehicle that Eisenhower claimed “won the war.”
There have been many references in books and movies mentioning the importance of the vehicle, and I always wondered “how it rode.” Well, I’m here to say that in the MD mountain side (with rock garden “roads”) on this safari ride, it didn’t feel all that great, even with the padded seats all the way around. But it had a mean sound and bounced us all around pretty good. It was easy to envision a truck like this hauling masses of men and equipment to vital places. It’s good, too, to see one working well into the 21st century. That’s something you don’t see everyday.
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