Photos
Storyline
Featured review
Unsung.
I don't suppose many people interested in World War II have given much thought to the DUKW, the two-and-a-half ton US Army truck (known as the Deuce and a Half) that was converted by a marine engineer into an amphibious vehicle. No, it's only combat vehicles like tanks that have cachet.
It doesn't sound very interesting, does it. An unarmed wheeled vehicle with a propeller attached at the rear, ugly, ponderous, totally without glamour. I know I never did because, after all, they don't often appear in newsreels or feature films. Instead, we see some kind of landing craft with a ramp in front, or a tracked craft, like a tank, sloshing through the surf. The only such boat I was familiar with was an LCVP (land craft, vehicle and personnel) and that was only because I rode in one in San Diego.
The US military was against the development of the DUKW. To the traditional binary mind, something is EITHER a boat OR a truck, just as everything must be EITHER good OR bad. The trick was turned in Provincetown, Massachusetts, when a US Coast Guard patrol boat with seven crew members was grounded on an offshore sand bar during a gale. It happened that several of the experimental DUKWs were in the area and they reached the boat with no problems, even in the rough sea.
Evidently they proved invaluable during the war, in the Mediterranean, on D Day, and in the Pacific Theater, but I suppose they just weren't beautiful enough to attract much attention from the combat photographers. A dark hulking thing waddling up from the beach on wheels isn't nearly as dramatic as a Higgins boat jolting against the shore with its ramp splashing down and a dozen infantrymen barging out of it. We see that scene over and over. The shot that's always missing is that of a soldier jumping out and falling down, scrambling to his feet and falling down again, before finally beginning his charge.
It doesn't sound very interesting, does it. An unarmed wheeled vehicle with a propeller attached at the rear, ugly, ponderous, totally without glamour. I know I never did because, after all, they don't often appear in newsreels or feature films. Instead, we see some kind of landing craft with a ramp in front, or a tracked craft, like a tank, sloshing through the surf. The only such boat I was familiar with was an LCVP (land craft, vehicle and personnel) and that was only because I rode in one in San Diego.
The US military was against the development of the DUKW. To the traditional binary mind, something is EITHER a boat OR a truck, just as everything must be EITHER good OR bad. The trick was turned in Provincetown, Massachusetts, when a US Coast Guard patrol boat with seven crew members was grounded on an offshore sand bar during a gale. It happened that several of the experimental DUKWs were in the area and they reached the boat with no problems, even in the rough sea.
Evidently they proved invaluable during the war, in the Mediterranean, on D Day, and in the Pacific Theater, but I suppose they just weren't beautiful enough to attract much attention from the combat photographers. A dark hulking thing waddling up from the beach on wheels isn't nearly as dramatic as a Higgins boat jolting against the shore with its ramp splashing down and a dozen infantrymen barging out of it. We see that scene over and over. The shot that's always missing is that of a soldier jumping out and falling down, scrambling to his feet and falling down again, before finally beginning his charge.
helpful•00
- rmax304823
- May 15, 2015
Details
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content