Air Ministry Second World War Official Collection ME(RAF)5659

A Queen Mary trailer is a British

semi-trailer A semi-trailer is a trailer without a front axle. In the United States, the term is also used to refer to the combination of a truck and a semi-trailer; a tractor-trailer. A large proportion of a semi-trailer's weight is supported by a tracto ...

combination designed for the carriage and recovery of aircraft. The trailer was made by Tasker Trailers of

Andover Andover may refer to: Places Australia *Andover, Tasmania Canada * Andover Parish, New Brunswick * Perth-Andover, New Brunswick United Kingdom * Andover, Hampshire, England ** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station United States * Andove ...

, with

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst ...

Crossley Motors Crossley Motors was an English motor vehicle manufacturer based in Manchester, England. It produced approximately 19,000 cars from 1904 until 1938, 5,500 buses from 1926 until 1958, and 21,000 goods and military vehicles from 1914 to ...

tractors.

Description

Features included: * Very low floor and ground clearance, typically around . * Single axle. * Wheels outboard of load area. * Side rails to allow carriage of wings upright, resting on their leading edges. Load was 5 tons "distributed evenly". These features were a natural result of the intended load, aircraft being typically light but long. The name is presumed to derive from its length, a reference to the ocean liner RMS ''Queen Mary''.

Use

Nearly four thousand of these vehicles were used by the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

and

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is one of the five fighting arms of the Royal Navy and is responsible for the delivery of naval air power both from land and at sea. The Fleet Air Arm operates the F-35 Lightning II for maritime strike, the AW159 Wil ...

during and after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. It also saw service with the air forces of commonwealth air forces, including New Zealand. Post-war civilian operators included

Silver City Airways Silver City Airways was an airline, based in the United Kingdom, that operated mainly in Europe, between 1946 and 1962. Unlike many airlines at the time, it was independent of government-owned corporations; its parent company was Zinc Corpora ...

Notes and references

Reference to delivery on Queen Mary Trailer

RAF Museum The Royal Air Force Museum is a museum dedicated to the Royal Air Force in the United Kingdom. The museum is a non-departmental public body of the Ministry of Defence and is a registered charity. The museum is split into two separate sites: * Ro ...

, Hendon
Crossley vehicles collection

External links

towed by a

tractor at 2 M. T.

RAF Lichfield Royal Air Force Station Lichfield also known as Fradley Aerodrome, was an operational training station from 1940 until 1958. It was situated in Fradley, north east of Lichfield, Staffordshire, England. The airfield was the busiest airfield in ...

; this is similar to the well-known

Airfix Airfix is a British brand and former manufacturing company which produced injection-moulded plastic scale model kits. In the U.K., the name 'Airfix' is synonymous with plastic models of this type, often simply referred to as "an airfix kit" even ...

model in the RAF Recovery set
Photograph and brief text
a

Hawker Tempest The Hawker Tempest is a British fighter aircraft that was primarily used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Second World War. The Tempest, originally known as the ''Typhoon II'', was an improved derivative of the Hawker Typhoon, intended to a ...

on a Queen Mary trailer following a crash landing
Picture of a recovered crashed Lancaster bomber being transported on several Queen Mary trailers

{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140221123208/http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1956/1956%20-%200184.html , date=2014-02-21 Military trailers World War II vehicles of the United Kingdom