WW2 bike historian needed

Hi all.

I have recently been reading through some family memoirs and noticed that my grandfather talks about riding motorcycles during his service in the British Army. Given what I know about him this seems quite bizarre, given he was a continental intellectual with absolutely no mechanical ability and went on to a career in medicine.

He tells of an experience outside of Bremen where he was stationed as an interpreter for a Colonel as part of the British occupying forces under Montgomery in '45-46 (He spoke German, french, italian etc). These 5 or 6 officers in the interpreter corp were redeployed under orders and they were taken by a Sergeant-Major to a large barn outside the town and were subsequently given 5 days of instruction on how to operate a British Army motorcycle. He tells a very funny story about how totally hopeless these guys were trying to learn to ride these bikes fully loaded with all their kit and rifle. Subsequently they flagged down an army lorry heading in the same direction and put the bikes in the back of the truck and drank and played cards for the next two days en route to their next posting.

Can someone in the know give me some background on the bikes he would have been referring to at this time in Germany? Im trying to build a mental picture of the scene and the extent of my knowledge is limited to Steve McQueens triumph made to look like a bmw in the great escape. Was thinking it might have been a Norton and if so I might have to add another to the stable! Cheers guys.

At least two could have been BSA M20 and Norton WD. Both are side valve 500 singles.

My father was in the Royal Army Medical Corp (he was a surgeon) during the war and he rode a Matchless 350cc. He was very proud of the fact that it was the first bike available with telescopic forks.

Paul.

My Mom and Dad were young teenagers in London during the war and were evacuated to Devonshire a couple of times and later my Mom had a bomb hit her back garden taking half the house with it, Dad had an Incendary bomb land in the front yard but it didn't go off ( my uncle put the trash can over it not really knowing what to do ). Anyway my Dad said that there were a lot of Indian Scouts imported for the Army...might have been one of those? Cj

there were also plenty of WNG Ariels 350 OHV high ground clearance models and there were side valve vertical twin Triumphs. Most British manufacturers had contracts to supply the armed forces but BSA was probably the most common.
ando

79x100 is very knowledgeable on the wartime machinery so might suggest what is likely to have been in that area at the time.
As a general comment BSA M20's were the most common, fairly closely followed by the WD16H Norton .
The Triumph factory was bombed very early in the war so not so many of them about.
This my 16H, not yet in Norton colours. Did 150 miles on it yesterday, 50 MPH never felt so fast.

The original NOC in England has the most concentration of WWII history, so can joint them on also subscribe join Brit Iron list where much of them over lap on.

I'm currently restoring a BSA WM20, Here's a link to my blog:
http://kevinthegearhead.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/40/


I can heartily recommend the WD motorcycle site:

http://www.wdbsa.nl/

There is a forum attached to that site, and there are some great guys there that know everything about 2 wheeled WWII bikes.

Kevin

My Grandfather was an MP in England during WWII and rode around on a Brit bike enough to be good at it. After the war in the 50's my father and his brother were messing about with one of their bikes and were surprised when Grandpa asked to take it for a spin. He effortlessly took off on it and ran it away and up through the gears like it routine. He is not here for me to ask what sort of bikes he rode though....