DUKW question

Modeling Subjects Armor
1

I found a pdf of a manual entitled “The DUKW: Its Operation and Uses” issued by Headquarters United States Army Forces, Pacific Ocean Areas on 15 October 1944.

My research thus far has turned up this great document but nothing pertaining to Marine Corps applications of the DUKW. I know that the Army’s amphibious doctrine was almost a word for word copy of the Navy/Marine Corps’ amphibious doctrine in WWII. So for all those that are more knowledgable on the subject than I…would it be safe to assume that this manual was either copied or used directly as a manual for the Marine Corps’ DUKWs?

2

I would not agree with that at all. Army amphibious doctrine was developed completely separate of the Marine’s doctrine, and primarily in the MTO/ETO. They considered the PTO as “bush league” and when commanders who were combat experienced in the PTO were shown the Overlord assault landing plans, their combat experienced amphibious landing feedback was brushed off and ignored. Mind you, by the time of Overlord, the Army had conducted 4 landings: North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, and Anzio, and all of those had been on a larger scale than anything in the PTO.

3

I had a print source say that FM 31-5 was almost a word for word copy of FTP 167. A footnote of the source below stated that FM 31-5 added sections dealing with disembarkation of cavalry and pack animals as well as withdrawal and re-embarkation of the landing force though. I have not researched, however, how the Army’s amphibious doctrine evolved throughout the war so I don’t mean to claim that it didn’t evolve, however based on evidence below and other sources I have, it’s clear that it at least did originate from Navy/Marine Corps Doctrine or at the very least that’s how the initial Army divisions were trained.

Web source evidence follows

“The positive results of his [Holland Smith] personal drive and outspoken advocacy for perfecting the conduct of amphibious operations led to his appointment as the commander of the First Joint Training Force in June 1941. This command, located at the new Marine Corps Base at New River, North Carolina, included the 1st Marine Division and the Army’s 1st Division. A similar organization was created later that year on the West Coast under Major General Clayton Vogel with the 2nd Marine Division and the Army’s 3rd Division. These units were directed to “plan, conduct, coordinate, and supervise all amphibious training in a series of exercises.” […]The newness of the regiments of the Army’s 1st Division required preliminary training prior to the exercise. During this preparation the Army requested copies of FTP 167 from the Navy and quickly adopted it with only slight modifications as Field Manual 31-5, Landing Operations on Hostile Shores on 2 June 1941 (page 77).”

“[Holland Smith boasted that] the first three U.S. Infantry divisions ever to become amphibious units, the 1st, 3rd and 9th, were trained by the Marine Corps; these were likewise the total of assault infantry divisions which executed our North African landings. Furthermore, in addition to these crucial three divisions, Marines trained the 7th, 77th, 81st, and 96th Infantry Divisions (page 80).”

Taken from “The Development of Amphibious Doctrine, a thesis presented to the Faculty of the U.S. Army Command and General Staf College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree, Master of Military Art and Science, Military History.” by David C. Emmel, Major, USMC. 6 November 2010. www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA524286 (the link will download the PDF)

Furthermore, here is FM 31-5: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/FM/FM31-5/index.html

FTP 167 (which was adopted from the Marine Corps’ Tentative Landing Operations Manual of 1934/35): http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ref/Amphibious/index.html

4

Hope you didn’t take that post the wrong way, I just wanted to provide evidence for my statement in the initial post…back to the question though…as you know the DUKW is for the '45 GB and will be a Marine DUKW at Iwo Jima…would it be safe in assuming that the manual in the initial post would have been used by of significantly different than one the Marine Corps would have used? The manual is for Army DUKWs specifically in the Pacific theater of operations

5

Not at all Josiah. By 1945, I would venture that there would be some changes. How many, I cant say. But like I said, the differences between branches and theaters were pronounced. From what I have read, pre war (June 1941) doctrine, was found very wanting in North Africa, and lessons learned were applied in each subsequent campaign and landing.

Regarding DUKWs and their operations by either service… way outside my area of familiarity, aside from what I have read in various books. Just curious, but what specific information are you looking for regarding DUKW usage by either service?

6

You do know that the US Army developed the DUKW and not the Marines? The US Army had a larger amphibious force than the Marines in World War 2. During WW2, the Marine Corps was still just a part of the US Navy (like the US Army Air Corps/US Army Air Force was a part of the Army).

Here’s some information from the US Army Transportation Museum regarding the DUKWs. You might find it useful. http://www.transportation.army.mil/museum/transportation%20museum/dukw.htm

There is a fallacy that the Army played a small part in the PTO. The Army had a larger force than the Marines in the PTO. If you scroll down to page 15 “Landing Forces” of the excerpt from a book, you find some information regarding the size of US Army vs. USMC forces in WW2 PTO.
https://books.google.com/books?id=AYLB8XGI7hIC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=ww2+us+army+amphibious+tractor+battalions&source=bl&ots=A6Zh76oWeV&sig=iMWGK3UN7aifquo-n9C2oErz8r4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5BaLVMOWNomegwS-mYKYAw&ved=0CFAQ6AEwCDgU#v=onepage&q=ww2%20us%20army%20amphibious%20tractor%20battalions&f=false

7

Carlos, my interests in the manual mainly lie in the chapters XVII “Unloading Cargo from DUKWs” and XX “Operations with 105mm Howitzer”

Rob, thank you for your response and for the links. I know the DUKW was developed by the Army and that is why my assumption is that when the Marines used them they would use the Army’s manual (found here: cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/…/397) for the same purposes. I take it from your post that you would make this assumption as well?

I fully understand that there is that myth of the Army’s role in the Pacific and I was not arguing in support of the myth…or even trying to debate about either’s role in the PTO. Nevertheless thank you for that source, I do believe anybody taking the time to read this thread will learn quite a bit which is always a good thing [Y]

8

An educated guess says that if you are depicting a DUKW performing ship to shore operations, it would be safe to say that the procedures would be the same. That would be because the Navy portion of the procedures would be the same regardless of which service the DUKWs belonged to. If you are depicting some sort of land amphibious operation such as a river crossing, then the possibility is there for the procedures to vary by service. One final thought on this, just because a manual says that things are to be done in one manner, in actual operations, users in the field will often develop their own procedures for reasons of their own that will deviate from procedures in the manual.

9

Thanks!

10

In the immortal words of Gunny Highway: “Improvise, adapt, and overcome”.

11

Stik hits upon an important issue here.

USMC organizations were (and still are) significantly different from similar Army operations.

One significant difference being that MC artillery was not a Branch, but integrated into the combat formations of infantry units. So, a given Regimental Combat Team might have three, even four platoons of arty Transport for the RLT would be pulled from various Transportation companies in a similar way. Those transport companies were based on the International Harvester M-5-6, a 6x6 2.5 yon truck similar to the CCKW in the way a Hawker Hurricane is similar to a Spitfire. So, even with the same manual, the same equipment was not necessarily available.

Then, there is the ‘method’ of making a landing. MC doctrine, going back to the first (circa mid 30s) Landing Part Manuals was to bring arty in in Wave 2 or no later than Wave 3. The AK’s would be combat loaded to achieve just that, too. So, the guns would come out of the holds ready for off loading onto Mike boats. This would allow bringing gun crew and some ready service ammo as well.

Mike boat is no speedster, but, it’s faster than a DUKW (and in more sea states), loading arty on DUKW would mean starting them before Wave 1 in hopes that they’d catch up to Wave 2. Once ashore, they’d need some sort of gin pole derrick–each–to offload a gun. Which would then have no ready service ammo, commo, or crew, all while on a contested beach needing fires about 5 minutes ago

At least of PTO, which was a Navy (as in DepNav) run sort of theater. Over in SWPTO which was very much a War Dept. operation, where MC units were used to flesh out Army divisions & regiments, they likely wound up paired to Army QMC transportation units. Those units would have followed the Army manual, naturally.

12

Having read the manual The DUKW its Operation and Uses I think some of you are looking for something that isn’t there. This manual is fairly complete instructions on how to maintain the DUKW and how to use it in various sea conditions. There is little or no information regarding how it was expected to be used tactically. So the same manual could serve the purposes of both the army and the marines.

Reading elsewhere the intended primary use of a DUKW was to load supplies shipside and drive across the beach to deliver them at some point beyond the beach. Any naval landing craft, be it LCVP, LCM, LCU, or LST was going to deliver those supplies no further than the high water mark on the beach. So unless you had a preloaded vehicle you were going to have to offload the landing craft and then load an empty vehicle that was returning from somewhere inland. The DUKW eliminated the transfer of cargo on the beach step.

It should be kept in mind that the DUKW was open and had no armor protection and therefore was unsuitable for use in the primary assault phase of a landing.

I believe that it was realized after the Korean war if not before that the use for such a vehicle was rather limited. I was for a period of time in the mid 1960s the planning officer for Naval Beach Group 2. To the best of my knowledge the marines had phased out the use of DUKWs for combat situations by that time. We were however sending one with each beach master party that was embarked in an amphibious squadron. Now a beach party had no small boats assigned to it so the DUKW served as a universal land vehicle and as the ability for members of the shore party to go out to the ships for resupply etc.

In the mid 1960s there still were DUKWs in storage at Quantico Va. When one of the ones we had came up with unrepairable problems we requisitioned another that would be delivered to Little Creek from Quantico. So perhaps the Navy were the last users of DUKWs for military purposes.

13

Yeah, after '55 pr so, many things changed. If imperfectly. BLTs and RLTs are largely replaces with MAU (or MAU(SOC)); An AOE or AOR is probably more important than an AKA in most MAU flotillas anymore.

There were still LARC at Dam Neck & Quantico, even if they had no allocated use. Only other place I know of those is in an Army Reserve Bridging Unit in Waco, Texas. They are not sure why they have LARC (or LARC II) since they no longer stockpile the inflatables for causeway bridging (the AMMI barges get towed with either Mike boats or the river tugs).

14

A lot was going on in the mid-60s but the marines were still sending traditional BLTs to the Med and Caribbean. And intending them to be landed on the beaches with LCVPs and LCM6s. But the end was in sight. The Navy was developing the 20 knot plus amphibious ships. The WWII AKAs and APAs were reaching the end of their service life and I think were all gone by 1970. There were experiments with LCVPs with gas turbine engines. The experimentation that led to the LCAC was going on. The marines saw the advantages of sending assault troops in by helicopter. No more seasick troops facing the enemy head on at the high water mark when the bow ramp dropped. There still were WWII LSTs at Little Creek but as the Vietnam war ramped up they were being prepped to be sent to the pacific. We did however take one of them and graft on to it the bow ramp for the Newport class LSTs to get the bugs out before it was installed on the new ships.