Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Forty-and-eights
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
{{Distinguish|text=the [[Forty and Eight]]}} {{short description|Type of French boxcar}} {{Use American English|date=May 2022}} {{Use mdy dates|date=May 2022}} {{Infobox train | background = | name = Forty-and-Eights | image = American POWs AF Museum.jpg | imagesize = 280px | caption = "Forty and Eight" boxcar at the [[National Museum of the United States Air Force|National Museum of the Air Force]] at [[Wright-Patterson Air Force Base]] | capacity = 40 men or 8 horses or {{convert|20|t|1}} of supplies | operator = [[French Army]] and ''[[Wehrmacht]]'' | weight = {{convert|7.9|t|1}} tare | brakes = [[Railway air brake|Air]] | coupling = [[Buffers and chain coupler|Buffers and chain]] | gauge = {{RailGauge|sg}} }} '''Forty-and-Eight boxcars''' ({{langx|fr|'''Quarante et huit'''}}), commonly referred to as '''Forty-and-Eights''', were types of [[France|French]] [[boxcar]]s (''voiture'') used by the [[French Army]] and ''[[Wehrmacht]]''. British and American troops were transported to the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] in the boxcars marked with "40-8" to denote their capacity: 40 men or 8 horses. == History == [[File:The British Army in France 1939 O86.jpg|thumb|left|British soldiers in a forty-and-eight in France, 1939]] Introduced in the 1870s, the boxcars were pressed into military service by the French Army in both world wars. Between 1940 and 1944 occupying German forces used forty-and-eights to transport troops, [[prisoner of war|POWs]], horses, freight, and civilian prisoners to [[concentration camps]]. Following the [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] [[Normandy landings|landing at Normandy]] in June, 1944, the Germans were pushed eastward towards the Rhine. Trains of forty-and-eights were frequent [[Target of opportunity|targets of opportunity]] for Allied [[fighter-bomber]]s, with carloads of prisoners occasionally being victimized. As France was liberated forty-and-eights were used to transport Allied soldiers and materials to the shifting front through War's end in 1945. ==Merci Train boxcars== {{Main|Merci Train}} In 1949, France sent 49 forty-and-eights to the United States laden with donations from citizens of France in thanks for the U.S.' role in the liberation of France, one for each of the then forty-eight states and one for [[Washington, D.C.]], and [[Hawaii]] to share. Called the [[Merci Train]], it was sent in response to the [[Friendship Train]] America had created two years earlier to aid France in the dire immediate aftermath of World War II; 700 boxcars worth of donated supplies were collected across the U.S. and shipped across the Atlantic via donated transport. == External links == {{Commons category-inline}} {{Portal bar|France|Trains}} {{Authority control}} [[Category:Freight rolling stock]] [[Category:Rolling stock of France]]
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)
Pages transcluded onto the current version of this page
(
help
)
:
Template:Authority control
(
edit
)
Template:Commons category-inline
(
edit
)
Template:Distinguish
(
edit
)
Template:Infobox train
(
edit
)
Template:Langx
(
edit
)
Template:Main
(
edit
)
Template:Portal bar
(
edit
)
Template:Short description
(
edit
)
Template:Use American English
(
edit
)
Template:Use mdy dates
(
edit
)