Hi everyone, A friend, from Belgium, has asked if someone might help in identifying the year this was taken. It was taken sometime (we think), between 1944 and early 1946 in Belgium. I’ve added both the black and white version and the colourised one, as the colourised one may be deceptive. The outfit may be that of a British soldier (with winter jerkin), but may not be. If it is the person we think it is he may have come from Nottinghamshire; this person was a friend of the family at that time. My father was in the BLA at that time and a photo of him in the RASC part of the BLA shows him wearing a similar jerkin, but this may have been standard issue. I know there are some very clever people in this group who know a lot about various types of vehicles; I’m hoping you might be able to help. Many thanks in advance + best wishes to you all, Paulene
Welcome to the forum Willow. I can purhaps assist a little bit.....the Jeep in the picture appears to have a Belgian military numberplate (21652) and tactial markings rather than British Army style markings. In 1940 after 18 days fighting Belgium was forced to capitulate to the Germans, but many Belgians subsiquently made their way to Britain to continue the fight. The British supplied much equipment, uniforms etc to the Belgian army both during and after the end of the war and, up to the late 1940's the army was organised along British lines, so the person in the picture could be, I suspect, a Belgian soldier in British uniform rather than the other way round. From the late 40's the Belgian Army became much more heavily influenced by the US Army as they obtained massive amounts of equipment, uniforms etc from the US under the Mutual Aid Programme (MAP) and organised their units along American lines.So given that time line I expect your 1944 - 46 timeframe is pretty accurate. Maybe you could enquire over at the ABL forum: ABL-History Forum - Te velde (geschiedenis) - en campagne (histoire) They specialise in Belgian military themes. Anyway, good luck with your search.
Looking at the war diary of my Dad's unit in Breda, North Brabant, December 1944/January 1945. Snow is mentioned up to the end of January.
Thank you so much, both for the welcome and the detailed reply. I don’t know a great deal about military vehicles, but I didn’t think it was a British vehicle. I will pass the information on to my friend, who I know will be extremely grateful for your help.
Thank you, Buteman. That’s helps a great deal with pinpointing the date. My friend will be very grateful for your help.
The jeep has a unit number of [2109] so it belongs to HQ 1 (Piron) Brigade (Belgian), also known as the 1 Belgian Brigade 'Liberation'. When formed in 1941, this unit had a unit number of [109] (the standard number for the HQ of an independent infantry brigade). I believe that his was changed in early 1945 (possibly in April), when all the units in the brigade seem to have been given a 2 to put in front of their unit numbers. The brigade was demobilised in December 1945, and a new 1 Infantry Brigade was formed in Belgium........moving to Germany in May 1946 to be part of 1 Belgian Division. I think that you can assume that this photograph dates from sometime between April and December 1945.
