TYRE SHORTAGES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 126, 30 May 1942, Page 5

TYRE SHORTAGES

GERMANY IN 1920

NECESSITY AND INVENTION

(By MARTIN COLLINS) The warning uttered by the No. 1 Transport Licensing Authority. Mr. E. J. Phelan, of imminent and radical changes in the field of road transport -with, among other things, a curtailment in passenger services to conserve supplies of rubber tyres, recalls the situation in which travellers to Germany found that countrv between 1919 and 1921. due to "a rubber famine. Indelibly impressed upon the mind of the writer was the ingenuity displayed by the Germans in overcoming—to some extent at any rate—the general slowing up of road transport by the impossibility of procuring tyres. Those were the days when a black market in rubber flourished like a whole forest of green bay trees, particularlv in the occupied zone, the Rhineland. Fraternising With Jerry The British Army of Occimation. Jvith G.H.Q. at Cologne (manv a New Zealand Digger will recall " a brief sojourn there as part of that armvt was able to fraternise with Jerry very much more readilv than could the French. So did the Americans, based on Coblenz. More than once American and British drivers in charge of army transport vehicles augmented their armv pav with hilarious "accidents" made most profitable Dy the black market in rubber A dispatch rider, hitherto an expert in handling his motor cvcle would report one dav to his O C of an inexplicable skid, a crashed bike which caught fire and a skinned arm which rapidly mended. Routine inquiries were pur ?ly superficial; ther > was equipment t > burn (yes. in mor* senses than one) and there would never be any difficulty in impressing a new motor bike.

hat actually happened, of course was that a lonely section of road was selected for a pre-arranged meeting i , ( ' e l rman . rubber - famished dealers. The slvid would be staged leaving nice long visible marks ori the road. The motor bike would be Piled up on the roadside. The tvres would be rapidly removed, 'and fiamework, twisted or otherwise would be given a petrol bath and set alight. The dispatch rider would then be sympatheticallv transported back to town by his "benefactors" who had happened along just after his accident," and he would be the richer by as much as £20 or so for the couple of probably worn motor cycle tyres.

Lorry drivers, too. have been *iP up their lorries, particularly those of more ancient vintage and ready for the wreckers—at least m the opinion of their drivers, o w^,®, no , t hard to drive a lorry into vitSi ' I ? ut an axe through its f organs and collect up to £80 for its set of tyres.

Substitute Article Jerry used rubber, real rubber when World War 1 broke out. Bv the time it had finished he had lon~ got accustomed to using Buna the s[sed Z in°hic ÜbStitUte artic]e - svnthesised in his own countrv which of all Bm n ° n ! tural rubber at .. J errj proved once again that necessity is the mother of invention. Motor cars had long since disappeared from private use and a tvpe ?n ™ ? bicycle had replaced them from tire!essf nCeS * bM far These machines were just like anv ordinary cycle except fof the wheelJ Wee l T had a double rim. The inner rim (I am no engineer) was SS C !i with the forks by an axle ?h spo ?in the ordinary wav Dut the spokes were somewhat shorter than the standard lengZ on cycJes fitted with tyres. The Sner nf^t^ S K CO !l to an outer rim of steel by dozens of springs small but powerful—and as thi cvSfst moun tP«l° ng •° n his steel "Shod mount these springs were supposed roaS; W ° rSt shocks of bumpy

And the roads in Cologne definitely the r v - Mainly of cobble stones, rfiip C if'' 3 V lost uncomfortable ride, but the cyclists got there iust was th? r'pp PoSSib i y this " inv ention" vi as the reason why so manv notices musnroomed overnight in Cologne's fv, .'Riding Bicycles on the Footpath is Strongly Forbidden."