On This Day in Wembury
19 November 1941 — Spare Wheel Lost En Route to Wembury Point
On this day the Western Morning News carried a small notice appealing for the return of a spare wheel from a 3-ton Chevrolet lorry. The wheel, size 7.50, had been lost while the vehicle travelled from Dousland to Wembury Point via Mutley Plain on 4 November. Replies were asked for under reference “W 21” to the newspaper’s Plymouth office.
The destination is significant: Wembury Point was then home to the newly established HMS Cambridge gunnery school, a military installation critical to wartime training. Chevrolet 3-ton lorries were standard issue for troop and supply transport. In the blackout and on rough, heavily used roads, spares mounted under or behind vehicles often worked loose. Given wartime shortages of rubber and metal, every wheel and tyre was precious — which explains why even a lost spare was reported in the press, in hopes of recovery.
The notice is a reminder of the constant military traffic through Wembury during the Second World War, and of the strict need to conserve equipment when imports were threatened by U-boat blockades.
Source: Western Morning News, 19 November 1941.
