Dropped motorbikes

[ginamod]

Hi All,

I was told that the British dropped motorbikes with parachutes, packed into wooden boxes.
Can somebody confirm this rumor.
Which bikes would this have been,
how did the wooden boxed look like?

Many thx for appr. info.

ginamod

[RSwank]

There was the Welbike (though it was dropped inside a metal canister, not a wooden box).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welbike

Some of the links in the Reference Section at the bottom of the page still work.
Others can be found in the internet archives, e.g.:

https://web.archive.org/web/20110930...et/welbike.htm

(The above link has a picture of a bike in a cannister.)

Another bike that was developed (it was to be para-dropped inside a metal frame) was the Royal Enfield WD/RE (The Flying Flea).
It ended up mainly going in by glider, (only a few were every dropped by parachute). It was also carried in landing craft for a beach landings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Enfield_WD/RE

[Nick Beale]

There are examples of these motorbikes in military museums, for example: https://www.paradata.org.uk/explore-...ys=motorcycle+

British airborne forces comprised both paratroops and gliders, of course, and a glider could carry a normal motorbike.

[ginamod]

Hello dear Contributors,

what helpful and surprising answers.

An older time witness lectured about the first motorbikes in his village as far as he could remember (boy age, ca 1950)
His first memory is a red BSA 500, the saying was it should be a captured English bike, which was dropped from an English plane.
Now, by your help, it was definitely not a dropped WELBIKE.
Later, on the BSA 500 there was an engraved swastika discovered, and NSU was painted roughly on the petrol tank. No authentical documents could ever be presented for that vehicle.......
Many thanks for your great information.
ginamod

[Tony Jones]

Hi
The Heritage/Spitfire Hanger at Biggin Hill has one on display

Tony

[RSwank]

ginamod,

The BSA M20/M21 (500cc) was used extensively by the British military in WWII. It just was not dropped by parachute.
If these bikes were being sold as surplus after WWII they may well have been packed in wooden crates. Perhaps that is how the story about the crate got started.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSA_M20

[ginamod]

Many thx for your additional info !!
ginamod
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/images/editor/smilie.gif

[Empiricist]

As mentioned above, in the British airborne forces more typical was to carry the motorcycles by gliders.