DUKW

A DUKW, in use by American troops in France.

The DUKW (popularly pronounced "duck") is a six-wheel-drive amphibious truck that was designed by General Motors Corporation during World War II for transporting goods and troops over land and water and for use approaching and crossing beaches in amphibious attacks.

DUKW amphibious truck.

Description

DUKW at the Eden Camp museum, UK.

The DUKW was designed by Rod Stephens Jr. of Sparkman & Stephens Inc. yacht designers, Dennis Puleston, a British deep water sailor resident in the US, and Frank W. Speir, a Reserve Officers' Training Corps Lieutenant out of MIT. Developed by the National Defense Research Committee and the Office of Scientific Research and Development, it was initially rejected by the armed services.

Two Universal Carriers pictured in front of a DUKW amphibious vehicle, all pertaining to the 43rd (Wessex) Division.

When a United States Coast Guard patrol craft ran aground on a sandbar near Provincetown, Massachusetts, an experimental DUKW happened to be in the area for a demonstration.


Winds up to 60 knots (110 km/h), rain, and heavy surf prevented conventional craft from rescuing the seven stranded Coast Guardsmen, but the DUKW had no trouble, and the military opposition melted. The DUKW would later prove its seaworthiness by crossing the English Channel.

Truck mounted crane and DUKW at POL dump on the beach during April 1944 training exercises at Slapton Sands, Devon, England, in preparation for the D-Day invasion that followed in June.

The DUKW prototype was built around the GMC ACKWX, a cab-over-engine (COE) version of the GMC CCKW six-wheel-drive military truck, with the addition of a watertight hull and a propeller.

Afro-American soldiers serving as DUKW crew.

The final production design was based on the CCKW. The vehicle was built by the GMC division of General Motors (called Yellow Truck and Coach at the beginning of the war).

Fleet of amphibious DUKW "ducks" being loaded with cargo after the landings in Normandy, 1944.

It was powered by a GMC Straight-6 engine of 270 in³ (4.416 L). The DUKW weighed 6.5 tons empty and operated at 50 miles per hour (80 km/h) on road and 5.5 knots (10.2 km/h; 6.3 mph) on water. It was 31 feet (9.4 m) long, 8 feet 2.875 inches (2.51 m) wide, 7 feet 1.375 inches (2.17 m) high with the folding-canvas top down and 8.8 feet (2.6 m) high with the top up.

A DUKW abandoned on the beach at IWO JIMA after being hit by Japanese artillery.

21,137 were manufactured. It was not an armored vehicle, being plated with sheet steel between 1/16 and 1/8 inches (1.6–3.2 mm) thick to minimize weight. A high capacity bilge pump system kept the DUKW afloat if the thin hull was breached by holes up to 2 inches (51 mm) in diameter.


One of every four vehicles were produced with a ring mount for machine gun, which would usually have held a .50-caliber (12.7 mm) Browning heavy machine gun.

Men of the 2nd Engineering Special Brigade lower cargo net into a DUKW at Inchon, Korea, 12th of June 1951.

The DUKW was the first vehicle to allow the driver to vary the tire pressure from inside the cab, an accomplishment of Speir's device.


The tires could be fully inflated for hard surfaces such as roads and less inflated for softer surfaces—especially beach sand. This added to the DUKW's great versatility as an amphibious vehicle. This feature is now standard on many military vehicles.

DUKW amphibious truck.

Nomenclature

DUKW amphibious truck.

The designation of DUKW is not a military pun – the name comes from the model naming terminology used by GMC; the D indicates a vehicle designed in 1942, the U meant "utility (amphibious)", the K indicated all-wheel drive and the W indicated two powered rear axles.

DUKW amphibious truck.

Service history

Polish version BAW amphibious truck.

The DUKW was supplied to the US Army, US Marine Corps and Allied forces. 2,000 were supplied to Britain under the Lend-Lease program and 535 were acquired by Australian forces. 586 were supplied to the Soviet Union, and they would build their own version post war: the BAV 485.

The DUKW was used in landings in the Mediterranean, Pacific, on the D-Day beaches of Normandy, Operation Husky, Operation Market Garden in Holland, and during Operation Plunder. Its principal use was to ferry supplies from ship to shore, but it was used for other tasks.

After World War II, reduced numbers of DUKWs were kept in service by the United States, Britain, France and Australia with many more stored pending disposal. Australia transferred many to Citizens Military Force units.

Bulldozer hauls a DUKW up onto the beach at Iwo Jima. This was only one of the yeoman services performed along the shore by the invaluable dozers. The DUKW pictured here is equipped with an A-Frame.

The US Army reactivated and deployed several hundred DUKWs at the outbreak of the Korean War with the 1st Transportation Replacement Training Group providing crew training. DUKWs were used extensively to bring supplies ashore during the Battle of Pusan Perimeter and in the amphibious landings at Inchon.

DUKW being swamped in heavy surf, date unknown.

Ex-US Army DUKWs were transferred to the French military after World War II and were used by the Troupes de marine and naval commandos. Many were used for general utility duties in overseas territories. France deployed DUKWs to French Indochina during the First Indochina War. Some French DUKWs were given new hulls in the 1970s with the last being retired in 1982.

US Army DUKW moving through a flooded town, the Netherlands, 1944.

Britain deployed DUKWs to Malaya during the Malayan Emergency of 1948–60. Many were redeployed to Borneo during the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation of 1962–66.

A DUKW headed toward an Iwo Jima landing beach, afternoon of 19 Feb 1945.

The Royal Marines still use a small number of these vehicles for training purposes at 11 Amphibious Trials and Training Unit RM (ATTURM) in Instow North Devon.

American 2 1/2 ton DUKW amphibious vehicle coming ashore during the invasion of Salerno.

Principal military users

USA -

United Kingdom – approximately 2,000

Canada – approximately 800

France -

Soviet Union – 586

Australia – 535

US Army DUKWs landing under fire on the beaches of Anzio, Italy, 22 Jan 1944.

Peacetime use

DUKW burning on the beaches of Noemfoor, New Guinea, Jul-Aug 1944.

Although DUKWs were used predominantly for the military, many were used by civilian organizations such as police departments, fire stations and rescue units.

US Army DUKW landing on a beach in southern France, 1944.

The Australian Army loaned two DUKWs and crew to Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions in 1948 for an expedition to Macquarie Island. Australian DUKWs were used on Antarctic supply voyages until 1970. From 1945 to 1965, the Australian Commonwealth Lighthouse Service supply ship Cape York carried ex-Army DUKWs for supplying lighthouses on remote islands.

Several were used by abalone fishermen of San Luis Obispo County California to take their catch right off the boats and directly to market, neatly combining the two steps of off-loading onto smaller craft, and then transferring to trucks once they reached the beach.

Whenever a natural disaster or an emergency situation occurs, DUKWs are well equipped for the land and water rescue efforts. Australian Army Reserve DUKWs were used extensively for rescue and transport during the 1955 Hunter Valley floods.

One of the last DUKWs manufactured in 1945 was loaned to a fire department during the Great Flood of 1993, and in 2005, Duck Riders of Grapevine, TX deployed the vehicle to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The DUKW was well equipped to maneuver its way through flood waters, transporting victims stranded on their rooftops to helicopter pads set up throughout New Orleans.

The Moby Duck.

Some such as the "Moby Duck" have been adapted as props by local groups such as Seattle's Seafair Pirates to be used in parades and events.

DUKW under Lambeth Bridge. Westminster Abey and the Houses of Parliament are partially visible in background in May 2009.

Developments

In the latter 1940s and throughout the 1950s, while Speir, now Project Engineer for the Army's Amphibious Warfare Program, worked on 'bigger and better' amphibious vehicles such as the 'Super Duck,' the 'Drake' and the mammoth BARC (Barge, Amphibious, Resupply, Cargo), a good many DUKWs were made surplus and put to use as amphibious rescue vehicles by fire departments and even, coming full circle, by Coast Guard stations.

In 1952 the USSR produced a derivative of the DUKW adding a rear loading ramp - the Zavod imeni Stalina factory built the BAV 485 on the structure of their ZiS-151 truck. Production continued until 1962 with over 20,000 units delivered

DUKW converted into a tour bus for the famous Boston Duck Tour. 3rd of September 2006.

Tourist attraction

DUKWs are still in use, as well as purpose-built amphibious tour buses, primarily as tourist transport in harbor and river cities, including but not limited to: Seattle; Philadelphia; Cincinnati; Pittsburgh; Chattanooga; Nashville; Boston; Branson, Missouri; Grapevine, Texas; Saugatuck, Michigan; Liverpool; London; Dublin, Ireland; Rotorua, New Zealand; Belgian coast (Blankenberge, Koksijde) ;The Netherlands; Singapore; Washington, D.C.; Stone Mountain Park, Atlanta, Georgia; and Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.

The first "duck tour" company was started in 1946 by Mel Flath in Milwaukee, WI. He moved his tour to Wisconsin Dells shortly thereafter. His company has changed ownership since, but is still in operation under the name Original Wisconsin Ducks. His family continues to operate a duck company called the Dells Army Ducks in the Wisconsin Dells Area. One well-established tour operator in the United States is Ride the Ducks. However, the vehicles used are not Army Surplus DUKWs, as used by many other companies, but are rather designed and built from the ground up by Ride The Ducks.

An accidental sinking of a DUKW in Lake Hamilton near Hot Springs, Arkansas killed thirteen passengers on May 1, 1999.

DUKWs in fiction

Two DUKWs, Gert and Daisy, are central to Ron Dawson's novel, The Last Viking: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Heist. The novel tells the story of a modern day Viking raid by a group of Birmingham gangsters who capture and loot the island of Guernsey on the tenth anniversary of D Day with disastrous consequences. The novel is probably unique in featuring two DUKWs in a post WW2 adventure.

A DUKW is also central to the 2000 AD story Disaster 1990, in which the lead character, London hardman Bill Savage liberates one from a war museum to survive a futuristic flooded Britain.

A WW II vintage DUKW amphibious truck in the covered outdoor display area at the U.S. Army Transportation Museum, Fort Eustis, Virginia.

DUKW

Type amphibious transport

Place of origin United States

Production history

Manufacturer GMC

Number built 21,147

DUKW unoads a Jeep by means of "A" frame, which lifts vehicle from the truck and places it on the ground.

Specifications

Weight 6.5 short tons (5.9 t) empty

Length 31 ft (9.4 m)

Width 8 ft 27/8 in (2.5 m)

Height 7 ft 1.375 in (2.17 m) without ring mount

Crew 1

Primary armament ring mount for machine gun fitted to 25% built

Engine GMC 6-cylinder 269 cid 94 hp

Power/weight 14 hp/tonne

Payload capacity 2.5 short tons (2.3 t) or 12 troops

Suspension wheels, 6×6

Operational range 400 mi (640 km) at 35 mph (56 km/h) on road,

50 nmi (93 km; 58 mi) on water

Speed 50 mph (80 km/h) on road,

5.5 kn (10.2 km/h; 6.3 mph) on water