Sir – Thank you for Malcolm Graham’s article in Oxfordshire Limited Edition about the Volunteer Training Corps in the First World War.  However, a photograph caption on page 111 wrongly says “…Motor Volunteers parade with their cars…”. It clearly shows three motorcycles: one solo and two with sidecars.

VTC volunteers seem to have used their own motorcycles. The regular army, however, standardised by issuing thousands of despatch riders with either a single-cylinder Triumph from Coventry, or a twin-cylinder machine made by Douglas in Bristol.

Motorcycles were not reliable by 1914. The British Army used more cyclists than motorcyclists, creating a corps of nine battalions of bicycle infantry. One of my uncles was conscripted into the corps but died of pneumonia in training.

Military sidecars were used in the Second World War. A coupling by which the engine could drive the sidecar wheel had been invented in 1929, giving armed forces a small all-terrain vehicle that could also carry a machine gun. This was bettered by the four-wheeled Volkswagen Kübelwagen from 1940 and Willys Jeep from 1941, but Russia and China kept building military sidecar outfits well after the Second World War.

Military forces continue to use solo motorcycles, but they require all vehicles to use the same fuel. It not only makes life simpler and precludes mistakes in fuelling, but also removes volatile petrol from the battlefield.Diesel motorcycle development lags far behind that of diesel cars.

There is no civilian diesel motorcycle fit to adapt for military use. Oxfordshire can be proud that it was the Royal Military College of Science in Shrivenham that developed a suitable engine. 100 mpg fuel economy gives it an impressive 600-mile range. The engine is made in California and fits into a Japanese Kawasaki, but many NATO countries use it and its genius is British.

Hugh Jaeger, Oxfordshire representative, British Motorcyclists Federation