Helen Brauer’s boy David had two restored army vehicles in Tenterfield’s Anzac Day parade this year, both Blitzes. One was an ambulance he rescued from Frank Caldwell’s paddock at Mole Station, and the other a troop carrier from Croppa Creek near Moree.
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David said the ambulance had all its bits, but was in poor condition.
“It was pretty much complete so I didn’t have to source any parts,” he said.
Restoring vehicles since he was a 15-year-old student at Tenterfield High School, David took possession of the ambulance six years ago and has been working on it since, proudly returning it to Tenterfield to take part in the march for the first time.
He’s only its second owner (post-army), and original owner Frank well remembers paying £155 for it in around 1948 when the army was selling off vehicles after WW2.
At that time the Blitz was still configured as an ambulance, in storage at the Wallangarra army base. Frank removed the back and used the truck as a farm vehicle for many years, and his tobacco share farmers also used it to transport tobacco until the motor packed up.
It sat in a paddock for six or eight years before David claimed it, restoring it back to all its former glory.
So after 70-odd years, Frank was once more behind the wheel of his old Blitz, seeing it again for the first time when it rolled up for the march.
“It was a very moving moment,” he said.
“There are a lot of memories.”
The troop carrier was more a challenge – requiring a full ground-up restoration, according to David – but the two Blitzes made an imposing brace of army tradition going up Rouse St in the brilliant sunshine on Anzac Day.
