ABOUT FACTS NET Weapons

The DUKW
Photo Source: National Archives

The mighty duck or just the duck as it was commonly called was really a 2 1/2 ton truck that was converted into a landing vehicle in World War II. The duck had six wheels, two in the front and four in the rear. One has to wonder how effective a vehicle like this could be? Well here is the answer, at Normandy alone, the duck brought 18 million tons of supplies ashore in 90 days. Here is the strange part of the story, the duck had originally been rejected. But luck played a great part in its final acceptance. A Coast Guard patrol boat ran aground and a duck just happened to be in the area because it was scheduled to do a demonstration a few days later. The winds were howling at over 76 mph and there was a driving rain. It looked like the crew of that patrol boat were stranded because there was nothing that could fight these winds and waves to get to them. Enter the duck. The duck had no problem in rescuing the crew and its place in history was secured.

The duck was quite remarkable since it was built around a standard 2 1/2 ton truck known in the military as a duce and a half. It had all wheel drive and two powered rear axils. It was actually named DUKW which was pronounced duck. The D meant it was designed in 1942. The U meant utility and somehow indicated amphibious, that's the military for you. The K stood for all wheel drive and the W was the indication that both axils were powered. I would have thought that it would have been something like QUACK instead, which would have meant the Q stood for Quick, U stood for Utility, A stood for amphibious, C stood for Carrier and K stood for Keel. I guess its good that I don't name boats for the navy.

There were no vehicles that could run on the beaches of Iwo Jima, except for the duck of course. Because of its ingenious design, it was able to travel almost anywhere. It certainly didn't hurt that it was also an all wheel drive vehicle. This thing could go about 6.5 mph on the water and over 50 mph on the land. Not bad for a vehicle that weighed 7.5 tons and was 31 feet long and over 8 feet wide. It was so successful that over 21,000 of these truck boats were made. The power plant was a 279 cubic inch straight six cylinder engine manufactured by GMC.

DUKWs landing on beach
Photo Source: US Navy

The DUKW was born out of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's National Defense Research Committee. Their job was to come up with new weapons and machines. In 1941 it was superseded by the Office of Scientific Research and Development. As I have said before this was a great war time machine. There is something to be remembered here though. A great war time machine may not make such a great peace time machine. Inn 1999, on May 1, the DUKW Miss Majestic sank in Lake Hamilton, in Hot Springs Ar. Thirteen people died and those that saw the accident stated that it sank rapidly by the stern. When the boat was raised and examined it was found that a shaft housing was improperly positioned. One of the problems with using ex military vehicles is that the proper maintenance either is not performed in most cases or can not be performed due to the lack of military parts. In this case a civilian part had been substituted and it caused the accident. The vehicle had been inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard and passed but the substituted part wasn't noticed.

DUKWs are popular on tours in many places. I myself have taken a DUKW ride in Cape Cod, Mass. It was very interesting. The DUKW, left from a location in front of a tavern in Hyannis and drove down to the harbor area. and without even slowing down plowed right into the water and sailed around the bay before driving out on the beach and returning to where it started. What I didn't know at the time was that another duck had just overturned trapping and killing several people a few days before at a different location.

The most popular tour amphibious passenger vehicles are the World War II DUKW, the LARC from the 1960s and the British Alvis Stalwart.