Motorcycle Beach Patrols of WWI

[panhead_jim]

During WWI, the Coast Guard was in charge of monitoring the coast for possible enemy invasions. Up until that time, the Life Saving Service had performed it's beach patrols on foot. To increase the speed and distance of these patrols, the Coast Guard decided to purchase Indian motorcycles for it's stations on the eastern Florida coast and Texas. Turns out that 1917 Indians are not the best choice for beach riding...

Motorcycle Beach Patrols of WWI

[Tom Lovejoy]

As an ex Coastie and an Indian fan, thanks - got a kick out of that.

[sirhrmechanic]

Very much enjoy your blog posts and insight... on a selfish level... do you have anything in your collection or archive on the pre-ww1 use of Harley motorcycles by any of the branches of service? I have a hard time believing that (other than ordering a couple up to chase Pancho Villa) the Army, Navy or Marine Corps didn't have SOME bikes back in the pre-1910 days, if only for testing.

I've written the army Transportation museum down in Virginia and the historian there said she had no records at that site. I've written Aberdeen and gotten nothing back. Posted a couple of inquires here and gotten some good thoughts, but nothing definitive.

Anything you have ever dug up? If they were testing airplanes in 1908 at Ft. Belvoir.... you would think that someone would have been trying out bikes in the same timeframe. Or even using them for courier duty or similar.

Thanks for continuing to post great stuff!

Cheers,

Sirhr

[Skirted]

Indeed! Thanks for the run of historical posts panhead_jim. For someone like me who is new to antique motorcycles and no exposure to information like this, these old articles are especially fascinating and very educational.

[panhead_jim]

Very much enjoy your blog posts and insight... on a selfish level... do you have anything in your collection or archive on the pre-ww1 use of Harley motorcycles by any of the branches of service? I have a hard time believing that (other than ordering a couple up to chase Pancho Villa) the Army, Navy or Marine Corps didn't have SOME bikes back in the pre-1910 days, if only for testing.

I've written the army Transportation museum down in Virginia and the historian there said she had no records at that site. I've written Aberdeen and gotten nothing back. Posted a couple of inquires here and gotten some good thoughts, but nothing definitive.

Anything you have ever dug up? If they were testing airplanes in 1908 at Ft. Belvoir.... you would think that someone would have been trying out bikes in the same timeframe. Or even using them for courier duty or similar.

Thanks for continuing to post great stuff!

Cheers,

Sirhr

I'm working on the Pershing Expedition now and have a few images older than that. I'll post them this evening. Generally speaking, it seems that foreign militaries were quicker to adopt the motorcycle than the US.

[panhead_jim]

Very much enjoy your blog posts and insight... on a selfish level... do you have anything in your collection or archive on the pre-ww1 use of Harley motorcycles by any of the branches of service? I have a hard time believing that (other than ordering a couple up to chase Pancho Villa) the Army, Navy or Marine Corps didn't have SOME bikes back in the pre-1910 days, if only for testing.

I've written the army Transportation museum down in Virginia and the historian there said she had no records at that site. I've written Aberdeen and gotten nothing back. Posted a couple of inquires here and gotten some good thoughts, but nothing definitive.

Anything you have ever dug up? If they were testing airplanes in 1908 at Ft. Belvoir.... you would think that someone would have been trying out bikes in the same timeframe. Or even using them for courier duty or similar.

Thanks for continuing to post great stuff!

Cheers,

Sirhr

Here's what I've found: Early Examples of Military Motorcycles

[sirhrmechanic]

That Canadian Maxim rig is very intriguing! Wonder how hard it would be to build a sidecar frame to fit my '10 Single replica.

Given that I already have an Imperial (pre-WW1 brass-fixture) Maxim....

maxim 5.jpg

Wheels turning... wheels turning.

Thanks! These are great.

Cheersi

Sirhr

[panhead_jim]

That would be a cool set up. As long as you had a passenger on the Maxim, no one would ever cut you off with their car...

[sirhrmechanic]

Any chance you have a picture of the sidecar frame from that era? Looking now and coming up blank...

Cheers,

Sirhr

[panhead_jim]

Any chance you have a picture of the sidecar frame from that era? Looking now and coming up blank...

Cheers,

Sirhr

I haven't seen anything like that, but I will keep an eye out for it.

-Jim

[ricmoran]

Was trying to get copies of images from when the 25th ID started using bikes as I have worked with the Tropic Lightning museum curator several times in the past.

The curator advised that there may have been bikes used, very few were used here in Hawaii. For Army museums who may have been detailed to beach locations which they were, any historicalo images from about 47 or so on have been lost unless images or copies of images remain at each posts museum.

What caused ease of search problems for central archives for th eUS Army is that the Army had thousands of images lost in a fire post WWII in their museum archives.

Bottom line is, if you can locate any particular branch of military museum headquarters I am certain the curator would aid in getting as much info that is available from that particular branch of service archives.

Since photographers were an integral part of historical archiving as division historians used cameras for stories written for troop reading.

Each location where there was enough troop density, these posts had monthly newspapers as well as year books that show what was going on as it realtes to the missions the men in uniform pulled.

If anything is available I would believe the curators would help regardless of branch. Maybe a good story for AMCA magazine?

Here is a link to one of the web pages where military museums by state are listed: http://www.military.com/Resources/Re...seum_guide.htm