Not really war related apart from the army truck nicked in Blackpool. A list of stolen cars, vans, lorries and motorbikes for Lancashire Constabulary to keep their eyes out for.
I must confess I love all this stuff. It somewhat counters all that 'Golden Age Greatest Generation' stuff with the far more interesting 'people behave like people always have' viewpoint. Be interesting to see if court records could find any convictions if make/model/date is mentioned.
I wonder what the figures for wartime crimes are, petty or otherwise, and are they any higher than peacetime, or lower? Was blackmarketeering prevalent, or was it an isolated crime perpetrated by a few miscreants? Outside of the military, was serious crime more or less ? (i.e. rape, murder, crimes of passion resulting in assault or worse) And lastly what about domestic violence? People were under pressure, and did they take it out on one another? I do know that wartime car accidents went off the scale with the blackout. I agree with VP. This is a very interesting sideline worthy of more attention.
Lots of motorcycles and the vast majority recovered. If standard immobilisation procedure was simply to remove the HT lead from these magneto-equipped single-cylinder engines then it wouldn't have been difficult to start them. Presumably these were all vehicles with eligibility for petrol coupons...probably stolen with fuel in the tank and recovered with the tanks empty. I dare say lots were taken by servicemen likely to be late back to the barracks...I doubt there was much investigation carried out once they were recovered. It doesn't look as if most of these were stolen by professional criminals who went equipped to steal and who had a market ready for the stolen vehicle...on the other hand, it was Liverpool so they were probably all found without wheels...
Failing to secure a motor car http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/45389-failing-to-secure-a-motor-car-what-was-this/
I'll start ! The army Matchless C79158 was an RASC G3/WO to contract C6094. Pretty much like this one.
Now that is a beautiful bike. I was responsible for sending a few beauties over to Australia in the 80's and 90's. Vincents, including Black Shadows, Velocettes, etc. Wish l kept them now. I digress!!!! Nick
Austin 10 https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=austin+10+ww2&client=firefox-a&hs=MTJ&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&channel=fflb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=ubBpVNjJIoTgaMyjgXA&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=657#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=m94MKMV08aWiJM%253A%3BGhwVPJIgmq0GrM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.caradvice.com.au%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2010%252F04%252F1946_Austin_10_file_101.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fgadjet-newproduct-rossha.blogspot.com%252F2010%252F04%252Fcar-advice-news_15.html%3B1280%3B960
Morris 8 https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=morris+8+ww2&client=firefox-a&hs=WAe&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&channel=fflb&biw=1366&bih=657&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=LLFpVNbRIsjKaNzYgsAG&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=t8PmcSvqWekisM%253A%3BA8cp1AnU9BbW0M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.eadt.co.uk%252Fpolopoly_fs%252F1.2220755.1370270456!%252Fimage%252F1195454680.jpg_gen%252Fderivatives%252Flandscape_630%252F1195454680.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.eadt.co.uk%252Fnews%252Ffeatures%252Fmorris_8_first_car_snapped_up_for_5_after_the_war_1_2220756%3B630%3B445
If they were parked on the side of the road or in peoples' driveways...and not garaged, or on blocks and the wheels and valuable tyres stored indoors...then they would have been eligible! I used to have a couple of late 1940s car mags around the place that belonged to my dad...and they were chock full of patent devices and locks and good ideas to secure petrol caps and tanks - and the vast majority of them couldn't simply be noiselessly jemmied off at the side of the road and the petrol syphoned out...too much fuss and bother and loud noises outside, Mabel! They'd HAVE to be taken somewhere out of sight and the hacksaw and boltcutters plied. Conversely - door locks and ignitions were somewhat primitive!
Stealing petrol coupons is the way to go. More crime:- A smash and grab in Accy, there’s probably been at least one every year since. Interesting suspect. The 3 Amigos robbing telephone boxes Googling this villain, he seems to have been the ‘Prince of Jailbreakers’ and you don’t get many of them these days.
Thurston seems to have been caught again in July. That's a relief. I hardly dared to sleep... http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1300&dat=19410714&id=-_JjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=R5cDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1494,2954113
A thread about wartime crime (both military and civilian) would be an excellent idea. Crime was a major problem in the US during WWII. The government had been hitting the mob pretty hard, but when the nation's attention shifted to the war the mob enjoyed its most prosperous era since prohibition. Rationing (particularly of gasoline) was a racket in this country, and hoods like Carlo Gambino made millions with phony ration stamps. War workers and off-duty servicemen had money to spend and they spent much of it on gambling, which boomed in wartime. Phenix City Alabama, right across the river from Fort Benning, became a famous sin pit. Dallas, Kansas City, Covington and Newport Kentucky, Emeryville California, and many other towns and cities were 'wide open' for gambling and prostitution. With parents working or in the services juvenile delinquency skyrocketed. All these trends carried over into peacetime America, contrbuting to a rising crime index in the postwar decades. Juvenile delinquency became a problem in Britain, too. In his study of British military psychiatry, R.H. Ahrenfedlt reported that many of the young recruits the army got late in the war had grown up on the streets with inadequate supervision. These kids were 'completely unsocialized' and useless as potential soldiers.
Reminds me of some paras from 12th Parachute Battalion who pinched a car and ran over an American soldier at Stonehenge cross roads on 8th September 1944. The Para Red Caps were sent out from the 6th Airborne Division to investigate. "O.C. out all night making enquiries regarding murder of American soldier at Stonehenge cross roads. 2 N.C.O's and 1 Pte 12 Para Bn detained and conveyed to Salisbury Police. Stolen Car recovered at Tidworth." http://pegasusarchive.org/normandy/war_provost.htm
I have seen the 21 Army Group disciplinary records for the period prior to D-Day, and 6th Airborne had more court martials than any other British division. That says nothing against the record of the 6th in battle, of course, but the disciplinary problem was obviously serious.
Apparently train vandalism was a problem. They have stats for 1941 which included sliced up seat covers. Still, I recall the 1970s when phone boxes still had phone directories and even MIRRORS in them, so perhaps there is some truth in the Golden Age!
Prior to his call up in 1943 my father was a police constable in Manchester. He told me that if anyone reported a stolen vehicle in the city they were given the advice to go to Ringway airport where they would likely find it. Ringway of course was the home of the Parachute Training School, the paras were resourceful bunch when public transport from the city to Ringway non-existant.