Hello,

I have a 1940 M21 frame that was produced about 2 weeks before Dunkirk. It was a civilian model sent to a dealership. It had a layer of khaki over its original black paint and I am surmising that it may have been appropriated for military service due to equipment shortages following Dunkirk. My question is.....given it was not part of a military contract, what, if any, type of tank number might it have had while in military service?

email (option): stevlas58@hotmail.com

Steve in the back pages of O&M there are lists of impressed motorcycles with C numbers. Unfortunately with hardly any frame numbers and makes called 'various'. I doubt it would have had a number on the tank. The tendency was to stamp the census number into the crankcase and paint it on the number plate.

Here is an impressed AJS and Triumph. Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

Ron, thank you for the information. I learn something every day about these bikes.

email (option): stevlas58@hotmail.com

Don't know why, but the laughing soldier with the brodie helmet always reminds me of captain Hans Geering (the late Sam Kelly) in Allo Allo...

email (option): wd.register@gmail.com

I don't think that Triumph was one 'that got back' either...From the equipment level and happy faces of the soldiers I should think it was taken before they went through the grinder...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

I believe that it's a 2nd BEF photo...They'd just done a quick in and out via Cherbourg. Much of 52nd (Lowland) Div did bring their equipment back as they weren't directly threatened but Alanbrooke had seen that the situation was hopeless.

This fairly well-know image shows KOSBs just back in Southampton. A few civilian impressed in amongst them too.