REME Help required with Shovels!

Hello and I would like to say how much I have enjoyed this site so far.
I was actually led here whilst trying to find out information about a shovel which I bought for my 1942 jeep. The shovel seems to have unconventional manufacturers markings for a WW2 shovel; it is an ace of spades symbol with A B & C stamped inside it. My investigations lead me to believe that this was the symbol of a company called A Bredt & Co who were/are based in Witten, in the Ruhr. It turns out that two different REME Workshops were based there from 1945 to 1947 and 1947 to 1957.

http://baor-locations.co.uk/WittenAnnan.aspx

According to this link vehicles were maintained there including jeeps. My thoughts are that during maintenance, if a replacement shovel was required, the job was contracted out to A Bredt & Co. The shovel in question is an accurate and good quality copy of the original shovel fitted to the jeep. This shovel appears to be quite rare and one of them actually has the original Federal Stock Number for a jeep shovel stamped on it (mine does not).
Can anybody shed any light on this, maybe somebody who worked in Witten or knew the company?
Any help much appreciated.
Jon Weller.
PS Try as I might, I cannot get the pics to work. If anybody needs a pic I can send them to you.

Jon

Welcome

A few thoughts

I think it is a coincidence that the manufacturers of your shovel and the REME Workshops were in Witten. Shovels were a pretty basic item of kit and a small stock was held in the Quartermasters Department of every unit. These would be topped up periodically from a RAOC Ordnance Supply unit The RAOC would purchase in bulk from the appropriate local manufacturers in your case Bredt and Co.

A REME Workshop would not be involved in the replacement of such an item, the vehicle would have been dekitted by its parent unit prior to despatch for repair/heavy maintenance or returned with a note to the effect that a replacement should be provided under unit arrangements

Do you have the vehicle log book of your Jeep? If so it should show the owning unit and it should then be a relatively simple task, using the data bank being assembled by members of this site, of tracing the home area of the jeep when based in BAOR

There are a number of contributors who are very familiar with the Ruhr area, they will doubtless add their thoughts in due course, similarly the RAOC experts can provide a definitive answer to the G1098 system.

Hi rsjon
If you load your pictures to photobucket like this


left click on img and it will copy then paste here
cheers

Thanks for your replies. I think I have managed to upload the pics this time.
I do not have a log book for the jeep as it was imported from USA. Even if I did have, it would not help as the shovel was bought in England from a big pile of them!
I understand what you are saying about the RAOC doing the sourcing and buying of locally purchased supplies; however I am not so interested about who bought them, more,were shovels bought from this company, if so when, and were they marked as in the pics? I realise I would be very lucky to stumble across somebody who remembers this, but, stranger things have happened!
Best regards,
Jon.

Hi Jon and welcome to the site mate.

While the RAOC did purchase items from local manufactures, it would have been via a Base depot such as 15 ABOD and not a local unit. the GS Shovel was such a common item I doubt if the were purchased locally. If a unit required a replacement it would have been demanded via the supply chain, and issued out of stock, of which there were plenty after the war!

All American Vehicles were supplied under 'Lend Lease' kitted out as required, and a RASC/RAOC vehicle depot would de-kit it for storage, and re-kit with American parts where available. Over the years, common items such as Shovels & Picks etc may well have been mixed at unit level.

If I were to look for a Shovel to kit out a Jeep I would look for a U.S. marked example followed by a shovel with a WD mark if in British service. As issued new it would have a preserved wooden handle, and un-painted metal parts, but many were painted to match the vehicle in use, and infantry painted them green for camouflage purposes. [Or was it becouse Bullshit baffles Brains?]

Mike, it was because "Bullshit baffles brains" - the Gunners painted them Black and Green!

Bullshit rained supreme,

When I first joined up we had red painted ones for fire pickets, and white painted pick helves with black metalwork for guard duty.

Mind you after a scheme where a GS Shovel had been used to dig latrines and trench's etc, after a scub, a lick of paint covered up all the marks nicely, same as a re-spary of the vehicles made them look nice and clean a finishing touch with a kero soaked rag made it nice and shiny (for a while)

Mike_2817 wrote:

Bullshit rained supreme,

When I first joined up we had red painted ones for fire pickets, and white painted pick helves with black metalwork for guard duty.

Mind you after a scheme where a GS Shovel had been used to dig latrines and trench's etc, after a scub, a lick of paint covered up all the marks nicely, same as a re-spary of the vehicles made them look nice and clean a finishing touch with a kero soaked rag made it nice and shiny (for a while)

Not exactly tactical was it? Baddies would see you coming in the dark and hide. "Ooh look a white painted pick helve, run and hide and don't let him see our machine guns Paddy".

Reminds me of the lads patrolling at Catterick over the Christmas holiday. Radioed the guardroom to say there were figures moving about near amoury. Being Christmas, guard commander thought it was a joke. One lad kept watch whilst the other was sent back to guard room to say this ain't a joke. The one left behind was eventually found in a ditch after being knocked out by said intruders. One guard commander whose feet never touched.

Teabag wrote:

Mike_2817 wrote:

Bullshit rained supreme,

When I first joined up we had red painted ones for fire pickets, and white painted pick helves with black metalwork for guard duty.

Mind you after a scheme where a GS Shovel had been used to dig latrines and trench's etc, after a scub, a lick of paint covered up all the marks nicely, same as a re-spary of the vehicles made them look nice and clean a finishing touch with a kero soaked rag made it nice and shiny (for a while)

Not exactly tactical was it? Baddies would see you coming in the dark and hide. "Ooh look a white painted pick helve, run and hide and don't let him see our machine guns Paddy".

Reminds me of the lads patrolling at Catterick over the Christmas holiday. Radioed the guardroom to say there were figures moving about near amoury. Being Christmas, guard commander thought it was a joke. One lad kept watch whilst the other was sent back to guard room to say this ain't a joke. The one left behind was eventually found in a ditch after being knocked out by said intruders. One guard commander whose feet never touched.

"Paddy" ? ? Do you mean to say you were on first name terms with the buggers ?

I'll call them sir if they are pointing a weapon at me.

Teabag wrote:

Not exactly tactical was it? Baddies would see you coming in the dark and hide. "Ooh look a white painted pick helve, run and hide and don't let him see our machine guns Paddy".

Yes I would have felt a lot safer with a green painted one. I have also done guards with unloaded SLR's in the early 70's which were just as usefull

Nip back to guardroom to get guard comander to call duty officer to issue magazines of live ammo

Thanks for your input, none of which helps me unfortunately,
It always was a long shot that somebody would know the company!
Jon.

I'm sorry you did not get the information you wanted, members here pointed out that REME Workshops do not just get a replacement shovel, made and how the RASC/RAOC went about supplying them.

Perhaps you will fair better on one of the specialist forums re Jeeps you have also posted on.

Thanks. I think that is useful now knowing that REME could not just order off their own back, it had to be higher up.
I am now suspicious that perhaps these shovels were fitted to new Hotchkiss jeeps made under license after the war in France.
I will keep digging!
Jon.

Ah yes, patrolling with pick helves, been there done that.