How WWII ‘Duck’ vehicle evolved into a tourist boat
Cargo hauler found new life
Melvin Flath encountered a Frankenstein’s monster of a vehicle —- a boat and truck hybrid snatched up from a postwar surplus sale — and had an idea.
The vehicle was a 2.5 ton military cargo hauler sealed tight with a makeshift hull to move troops and supplies ashore during War War II. But Flath envisioned a new life for the DUKW, hauling sightseers eager to experience the twisting waterways and sandstone formations along the Wisconsin River.
The first vehicle, owned by Flath’s business partner Robert Unger, set out in 1946, lumbering through Wisconsin’s serene Dells region teeming with deer and turkey.
Troops in Normandy, Italy and the Pacific had already untangled the initialism, calling the vehicles “Ducks.” The name stuck for Unger and Flath.
The Original Wisconsin Ducks now operates 92 authentic but modernized DUKW vehicles, general manager Dan Gavinski said Saturday.
The business model grew nationwide, arriving in Branson, Mo., 40 years ago.
On Thursday, a replica of one of the vehicles capsized and submerged into Table Rock Lake, killing at least 17 people, including a 1-year-old. Nine of the victims were from a single family.
The history of DUKW is charted over seven decades, an unlikely success story of military ingenuity that survived a skeptical bureaucracy to fuel Allied invasions and evolved into a ubiquitous vehicle for waterway tours.
It was not officially called a “Duck,” however. Troops dropped the “W” in the name to make it sound like the bird that drifts from land to water. General Motors manufactured the vehicle, confusing production codes and all.
The model year of 1942 carried the letter D; a letter U for amphibious utility truck; K for front-wheeldrive; and W for dual rear driving axles, the Smithsonian wrote in 2002.
Its development partially solved the ancient problem of amphibious combat — how to get troops, ammunition and supplies off ships and onto the shore in great numbers. Some boats, like the Higgins landing craft, could only approach the beach and were not designed to carry heavy equipment.
DUKWs carried as much as 5,000 pounds of equipment, including artillery pieces desperately needed to pound enemy positions as friendly troops scurry on the beach under fire. One vehicle could carry up to 25 troops at once.
But top war planners showed little interest in its design phase, even ahead of a planned demonstration of the prototype’s abilities off Cape Cod in December 1942.
Until a massive, nearhurricane storm hit.
The skies darkened and churned the water that Dec. 1, days before the exercise. A Coast Guard vessel smashed against a sandbar. The violent waves kept rescue boats away.
One of the designers of the vehicle, Roderick Stephens, tore across the sand in the DUKW and plunged into the water to help pluck seven Guardsmen from the boat as it broke apart, the Smithsonian wrote. That incident and the successful demonstration won the vehicle some approval.
But its biggest endorsement came just eight months after the Cape Cod demonstration. Gen. George Patton used 1,000 DUKW vehicles for the crucial mission of resupply for the invasion of Sicily in July 1943.
The vehicle was a vital tool in that campaign, an Army history revealed. The DUKW adopted a new engineering feat to transition from water to land and back. Its tires could deflate at will, allowing drivers to churn through the challenging terrain that had vexed U.S. war planners.
DUKWs saw some service in the Korean War and were later phased out of service. Some were bought by police departments and fire departments for water rescue work.
Others became sightseeing vehicles. Tour companies as far as Dublin tout their DUKW connections to the war.
It is unclear how the deadly incident in Branson may affect the Duck boat industry. Last week’s tragedy is not the first involving the vehicles: More than 40 people have died in incidents involving Ducks since 1999.