Air Force M-43 markings

[TAKPAK]

Air Force vehicle markings

Here's hoping there is someone out there who can help with markings info. I am almost finished with my 1953 M-43 Air Force ambulance restoration. It was an "unmolested" all original rig, with no rust cancer, damage, etc. Interior was original and pristine, just had to clean it up. Has the original paint job, markings, etc. I am restoring it to as original condition as possible. So, here's the rub...what do the markings mean? On the rear door(s) at the top is U.S. Air Force (no kidding, right?). Below that is 53K and to the right is the number 771. I know the 53 is the year of the vehicle, not sure what the "K" or the 771 is. At the bottom, on the left door is "ADC" which I have heard means Air Defense Command (now an obsolete term)? Under that are the numbers "636" and "CAFS" lettering. On the bottom of the right door is the marking "A2" whatever that means. I would appreciate any information as I'm trying to make this ambulance as accurate as possible. Thanks!

 

[NDT]

771 is the 771st vehicle that the USAF bought in 1953. K is the class of vehicle. There is a thread on decoding this scheme here somewhere. All I got!

 

[Jericho]

CAFS , air force truck stencils changed some over the years , but, Us Air Force . then vehical ID , year and digital designator, %3 , year, K sub class, 771 is the truck serial ID, ADC is Air Defence Command, 636 is a unit number and CAFS C is the first letter in the base, installation designator. A air , F Force , S Station so your looking for an air force station that began with C CAFB is Castle Air Force Base, PAFB is Pease Air Force Base , WAFB Williams Air Force Base , Air force stations were frequently smaller installations, ADC dispersed small 5 ship formations to AFS, s and they sat alert to keep them less vulnerable, GAFS Galena Air Force Station in Alaska for example dispersed site , usually 3 to 5 alert birds. Some installations were designated AFS s because they didn't have assigne aircraft wings !

 

[Jericho]

When we deployed with the ARMY and were in their Order of March we usually adopted their bumper and door markings to fit in and not stick out , let the Army know where to put us , if it were an all Air Force convoy we didn't us March of Order, just common sense and a convoy commander to get every one in line, All most always an NCO doing it . of bigger concern to us were CHALK NUMBERS . chalk number is the number chalked on the truck door , it lets one know which CHALK (aircraft and mission) its going to fly on . its a hold over fro the Army Air Corp and we still use it, Army does as well if we are flying there stuff

 

[Jericho]

Oh not to run on, but all Air Force trucks have " FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY " stenciled on the door as well lol

 

[TAKPAK]

Wow, I'll be "keelhauled" so to speak. Thanks guys, for all the info. That helps immensely. Now I can make up signage denoting the history of the ambulance. I did look up "Castle" and it turns out there is a huge museum there, and it's close to an airport that USED to be the Air Station. I think I'm narrowing it down, thanks to all your help. Only thing I noted was the base designation all seemed to end with a "B", and this one ends with an "S". Station, perhaps, instead of Base? Only thing to figure out now is what the "A2" designation means?? I may have to give the museum at Castle a call, and tell them I know where one of their ambulances is.......!!! Oh yes, I purchased this rig from a fellow in LaGrande, OR. who had bought it around 30 plus years ago, probably at an auction. He'd been trying to sell it for several years when I found out about it. While the body and interior was great, it needed a full mechanical overhaul, and I had to replace the engine, as the original was missing. 15,000 miles on the odometer, which I assume is original miles.

 

[TAKPAK]

Must have only been put on the passenger door, as the driver's door is pretty well covered up by the spare tire and bracket!

 

[MWMULES]

Here is one of the threads on it.

https://www.steelsoldiers.com/showthread.php?76870-USAF-Ground-Vehicle-Registration-Numbers
​

 

[TAKPAK]

Thank you. I think I'm narrowing it down. However, I'd still like to be able to identify a couple of things.........one, find unit 636, and what it was. Two, figure out the location the vehicle came from. Based on current research, it appears that since mine says CAFS (S being the big factor) I have to find a "station, not a base. Only one I've found so far is Cheli Air Force Station in California, now gone. Time frame could work, Cheli was decommissioned in 1961. Did not see any 636 unit listed, but doesn't mean it wasn't there. And, what is the "A2" on the other door mean? Ambulance number 2 maybe??? Still checking. Since the club does a lot of displays, I always like to have accurate information.

 

[TAKPAK]

Well, I'll be darned, I may have stumbled onto the answers I was seeking. In doing some more research, I checked for "unit 636" and found it, sort of. Unit 636 was an Aircraft Control and Warning unit, and it was assigned to the Condon Air Force STATION, outside Condon, Oregon. It was part of the Air Defense Command. Therefore, the ADC on the door makes sense, the 636 now makes sense, and who'd of thought that the "C" in CAFS, would have been for Condon???? But, it does sort of come together, in that the ambulance was found/located at LaGrande, Oregon, which isn't too awfully far from Condon. Does this make sense to anyone else??? I'd like to be sure of my analysis, but maybe will never know.....for sure??

 

[NDT]

I think you nailed it.

 

[TAKPAK]

WOW.......I "done did" something right??? Whoo hooo......! I DO like to try to be accurate when I'm telling the history of a vehicle. Now all I've got left is figuring out what the "A2" on the right door means.......???

 

[steelypip]

It was a common procedure to put unit markings on the rear of the vehicle, just as in the army. As an example, on the SAC base where I spent most of my childhood, the maintenance squadrons all had strata blue six cylinder short wheelbase no-dually (half ton?) Chevrolet Step Vans with rear barn doors to run airplane parts out to the aircraft (you take parts to a B-52, not the other way 'round). On these, you'd see the usual lettering in yellow on the sides beside the sliding doors, but no unit specific information.

As these were not tactical vehicles, they had license plate brackets. The unit data was generally stenciled onto a scrap of aluminum about the size of a license plate and mounted on the plate bracket. It usually said something like 42BMW (for 42nd Bomb Wing) and AMS on the line below (for the Avionics Maintenance Squadron, in this case). There would not be anything specifically referencing a base, because the vehicle was an asset of the bomb wing, not the base (wing commander generally outranked the base commander, but both were bird colonels during my tenure there).

Medical units and their materiel would, I think, belong to the base (or station), not the unit, so your idea of looking for a "C- Air Force Station" from 1953-1970 or so is a good one. Unfortunately, there will be a lot of them - we had a Caswell Air Force Station near Loring AFB in Northern Maine during that period (a Nike missile site).

Unfortunately, the S in CAFS might also stand for squadron. Which would mean the ambulance belonged to the 636th C.A.F. squadron (whatever that might be). I think it's probable that CAFS was a station, though, because AFS and AFB were extremely common abbreviations.

If you can make a good guess about where, geographically the ambulance came from, that would help a lot with narrowing the options.

I just did a google search for '636th' and 'USAF' together and got:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condon_Air_Force_Station. See also http://www.fortwiki.com/Condon_Air_Force_Station.

It's pretty close to you: Condon, OR. It was active in ADC during that period (opened 1951, closed in 1970) and, most interestingly, was home to the 636th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron.

I think we have a match.

If you don't think this ambulance belonged to the 636th AC&W Sqdn at Condon AFS, there's a convenient alphabetical list of all the air force stations at the bottom of the Wikipedia article.

A look at this picture from ~1962 shows what might be your ambulance in the auto shop (bldg 102) parking lot on the upper left.

 

[Jericho]

No. The CAF. Isn’t a sub designator Vehicals were either base assets kept in the motorbpool and had only base markings. or uSquadron vehicals assgned to a section within a squadron , and had section/ squadron markings as well vehicles in maintence had two styles of identifiers. For example. Maintenance 7 was usually jet engine flight line section. That would have been thier call sign as well. Or earlier it may have said 509 th Propulsion on a squadronplacardbon the sides of ghevtruck. Door markings were standardized Air Force identifiers. Number plate was usually a Wing designator. Side markings on flight
line trucks were squadron / Section markings. Just google the Air Force Unit. CAFS. They were thousands of units from the second world waty thru 1992 when the massive closures happened. An Air Force station doesn’t coexist in the same space with a base. Stations are subordinate locations. Usually geographically separated Your truck makes sense it was a wing asset assigned at a geographicly separated unit. The control section. So it was at a station not the main base. Makes perfect sense to any one in the AF. But. Keep in mind unit markings were determined by major commands and then added to by wings then squadrons. Then added to by flights.

 

[TAKPAK]

Again, WOW. Thank you all for helping to narrow it down. From what I can gather, I'm thinking it must have been assigned to the Condon AFS, since that seems to be the logical direction the markings and information is taking. Also, the fact that the ambulance was "found" in the LaGrande/Pendleton area of Oregon makes it even more likely. That area is not that far from Condon. Not knowing how the disposal of the equipment was handled back then, and not sure how it was purchased. By auction, state sale, direct from base, all unknown. Now days, most everything goes to the auctions held at joint base McChord AFB/Ft. Lewis in Washington. I unfortunately did not meet the fellow the ambulance was purchased from, it was handled by a friend of mine. However, I did get the Oregon title from it, and it showed that he had owned it since the early '80's (I got it in 2015) and it had been sitting for sale for several years. I'm just thankful that it was virtually intact, all original, and unmolested (except for the engine) and only a few of the mechanical items on the engine had been stripped for another project, apparently.

 

[M813rc]

One small clarification, which I don't think has been mentioned in the posts above (I read them, but may have missed it) - the 53 is usually the year model of the vehicle, but actually represents the year the USAF took that vehicle into inventory. Thus you could have, for example, a vehicle built in 1951 for the Army, but transferred to the USAF in 1953, it would be marked 53Xxxxx.

Cheers

 

[TAKPAK]

Rory, in answer to your comment above, the data plate on the glove box shows that it was manufactured in 1953, so it is a '53 rig. Also, in restoring it, I have found NO evidence of it having been with any other agency. There is Strata Blue on everything. Under the seats, the frame, running gear, everywhere. And it fully appears to be the original paint job, as the only thing I've found under the "blue" layer is the primer. Other than being terribly faded, the paint is actually still in great shape. Painter is doing light sanding and priming, then two coats of urethane and she'll be all done.

Terry

 

[TAKPAK]

If you all can bear with me one more time, a couple more questions on my USAF M-43. As in the other post, I think I've got most everything figured out. The only unknowns yet are; what does the "A2" signify on the RH rear door? Second, I can pretty much figure out the crosses, hood markings etc. But would the AF ambulance have the caduceus on the sides, and would it have said Air Force Medical Services under it (such as the Army did?) Would the hood say U.S.A.F. and the number, or U.S. Air Force and the number? Anything else I'm missing? My goal is to take it back to as close to original as possible. That is where the value is, I know. Other thing I've noticed is the "front" markings and rear door vehicle ID's are all in yellow, however the station, unit, and some other information markings are in white!?

I've searched the internet for marking information, but the Air Force doesn't say a whole lot, at least not that I can find!

Thanks so very much for all your help.

 

[M813rc]

Rory, in answer to your comment above, the data plate on the glove box shows that it was manufactured in 1953, so it is a '53 rig.

Cool. My comments weren't directed to your vehicle specifically, but USAF vehicles in general.

Cheers

 

[TAKPAK]

Great and thank you. Now I just hope someone can help me with today's post, and the couple of questions I have left! If nothing else, I like to be accurate with my information!

In watching that "new" show, "Night of American Trucks" I can't help but wonder how some of our military rigs would do on that course!!??