
Pioneering Aircraft With No Fuselage Covering Built In NZ In 1910
The first lightweight tracked carrier vehicles built by Vickers-Armstrong in 1934 were designed to carry a machine gun and its crew, or for towing light field guns. Subsequently the design was modified to suit the British Army’s changing infantry requirements as they devised new uses for the vehicle, such as carrying mortars and their crew, as an observation post vehicle, and as a support vehicle carrying supplies.
This Bren Carrier was one of the first armoured military vehicles imported into New Zealand in the late 1930's. Photo: © Historical Aviation Film Unit
The Museum’s vehicle is one of only two British-built Bren Carriers known to exist worldwide. The other survivor is another of the six brought to New Zealand in 1939, and is currently in Canterbury with a private owner.
At the (New Zealand) National Army Museum (then) Assistant Curator of Technology, George Pycraft discussed the museum's carrier. While George refers to the vehicle as a 'Universal Scout Carrier', it is more accurately a 'Bren Carrier No.2 Mk.I'.
In Robin Neillands book "The Desert Rats", he recounts a story about the peculiar use of one Bren carrier in the North African campaign:
"One of the soldiers, a South African, had a pet lion cub which he had brought up from infancy. The cub, now almost fully grown, had been given the run of the divisional transport area and was a favourite with all the troops. When the time came for the division to move up to the front, the South African soldier was determined to take his pet with him. The cub was too big for the soldier to carry and too heavy to go in a truck, so he put it in the passenger seat of his Bren carrier and drove it up to the front line, the lion sitting beside him all the way. Thereafter, the lion travelled in the carrier everywhere with the soldier and became something of a mascot for the whole division."In all over 113,000 carriers of all variants were built in Commonwealth countries during the Second World War. Powered by a Ford Flathead 85hp V-8 petrol engine these carriers could reach a top speed of 48km/h and had an operation range of 250 km
Bruce Cameron, a member of the New Zealand Military Vehicle Club talks about his Thornycroft-built Bren Gun Carrier. which is the second New Zealand example of the original six (from 1939) that is still in existence.
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