Light Car Patrol, 1917
A stripped down Model T Ford from Number 4 Group, 1st Light Car Patrol, Australian Imperial Force, used as a raiding unit during WW1 in modern day Syrian regions. It is armed with a pintle mounted Lewis gun and has been very heavily stripped down almost into a buggy type set-up for the desert conditions it was operating in. Due to the small size of the unit and how personalised the vehicles were many were named. (1)
As an example another vehicle from the unit was 'Gentle' which in comparison to this stripped Ford Model T was an up-armoured Daimler with 50 horsepower compared to this vehicle's 20 horsepower. At least 12 vehicles were operated by the unit between 1916 and 1918, with names including Anzac, Billzac, Osatal, Silent Sue, Imshi, Bung and Gentle. (2)
Members of No. 1 Australian Light Car Patrol, in two Ford Model T cars, each carrying a Lewis gun, returning from the Jordan Valley to the Dead Sea Post, in Palestine. Note the Commonwealth crest sitting under a palm tree. Some members wear a plume in their hat.
Despite the small size of the unit, they seemed rather successful in the desert during WW1 (3) and were one of the inspirations for the later Long Range Desert Group / Long Range Desert Patrol LRDG of WW2, and some of the trails, maps and data gathered by 1st LCP was used by the LRDG decades later.
Light Car Patrol were involved in fighting around the Khan Sebil (now Khan al-Sabil) region of Syria, where LCP vehicles were used on attacks on convoys, including one of the 22nd of October, 1917. In this action the LCP were acting as forward scouts during a push towards Aleppo when they encountered a Turkish patrol of one enemy armoured car and six infantry transport trucks. A moving battle commenced between both vehicle groups, with the Turkish forces fighting while driving back towards Khan Sebil, with the Turkish armoured car being knocked out and captured along with it's crew of seven Turkish soldiers. Two Turkish airplanes were hurried called from Aleppo during this stage of the battle but due to confusion began strafing their own truck convoy rather than the LCP before flying away and returning to base.
After a four mile driving gunfight north into the desert the rear Turkish convoy truck was brought to a standstill by machinegun fire from one of the LCP's .303 Lewis Guns and Turkish soldiers dismounted and fled into the desert- twenty-five were killed and five captured. The pursuit of the other five trucks continued for another fifteen miles over increasingly rocky and rough roads before darkness fell and the LCP vehicles halted overnight four miles to the north of the village of Seraikin. Throughout the pursuit heavy rifle and machinegun fire was exchanged between both convoys, causing many killed and wounded in the Turkish lorries but no Australian losses. The Turkish vehicles had iron tyres which was much better suited to offroad driving than the LCP's, and the pursuit resumed on the 23rd of October, with another Turkish vehicle being knocked out and captured but the rest fled into nearby villages. (3)
1- Frank Canvin, http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-armour/allied/aust-ww1.htm , (1980)
2- https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C827 and https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C53674 , Australian War Memorial
3- David A Finlayson, Michael K Cecil, Pioneers of Australian Armour: In the Great War, Big Sky Publishing, (2015)
