| OCR Text |
Show They 'Beat Plowshares Into Swords' Workers In a Farm Implement Factory Are Turning Out j One of Greatest Fighting Machines of the War Xl . - Hitting the beach at Okinawa, these United States marines are unloading machine guns and equipmeiit from a Beach-Buater. Bj ELMO SCOTT WATSON Released by Westem Newspaper Union. WHEN the completed history his-tory of our struggle with Japan finally is written, considerable con-siderable attention should be given the story of how an agricultural implement parts manufacturer whose products prod-ucts are used every day in every rural section of America, Ameri-ca, developed one of the most spectacular fighter vehicles of the war. The company is Ingersoll Steel & Disc division of Borg-Warner corporation. cor-poration. The war weapon its engineers en-gineers designed and that one of its factories manufactures is the Beach-Buster Beach-Buster (LVT-3). the very latest development de-velopment in amphibian invasion tanks. The Beach-Buster made its combat com-bat debut at Okinawa. Its performance perform-ance met with favor from high navy and marine officers so much so that space in the history books of the future might as well be reserved now so its story may be told. To the Japs, the amphibian tanks that have equipped our invasion forces the LVT-1, the LVT-2, the LVT-4, and now the Beach-Buster, have proved a lethal headache. So, while the record of their wartime usefulness cannot be completed until final victory, a sidelight on their development de-velopment and manufacture is in order or-der now. It is a recital of which every American, and particularly every farmer, can be proud. As early as 1933 the problem of designing an amphibian tractor, capable ca-pable of taking relief deep into the mangrove swamps of the Florida Everglades, was assigned to Donald Roebling, a year-around resident of Clearwater, by his father. Young Roebling sprang from a line of inventors, his grandfather, Col. Washington Roebling, being the designer of the famous Brooklyn bridge. And he and his father had seen with their own eyes the devastation, devas-tation, human misery and helplessness helpless-ness that had been left in the wake of the 1933 Florida hurricane. Roebling knew that only a vehicle that operated equally well on land and water could do the job that was needed. For six years he experimented experi-mented at Clearwater with models. He designed and tested hulls and tractor treads, power plants and gear ratios. And finally, the first Roebling amphibian, the LVT-1 or Alligator, rolled from his machine shop at Clearwateis That vehicle later was demonstrated demon-strated to the navy off the Virginia coast at a time when our military forces were occupied in peacetime war maneuvers. British military officials of-ficials eyed the performance of the LVT-1 with keen interest, for they were already at war. Early in the fall of 1941, C. S. Davis, president, and Roy C. Inger-' Inger-' soli, vice president of Borg-Warner, were called by the navy to Washington. Washing-ton. They agreed to study design and suggest improvements of the Roebling amphibian tank, for even then we were close to war. The result of that agreement was typically American. Not a marine expert but an automotive engineer, Ben A. Swennes, was charged with responsibility in the job. He began experiments and design in the Borg-Warner Borg-Warner laboratories at Rockford, 111. An Ingersoll factory at Kalamazoo, Kala-mazoo, Mich., contracted to build 50 of the Alligators for the navy. And folks along historic Rock river, which winds through downtown Rockford, began to stay awake nights because of "that fellow Swen-, Swen-, nes's" strange goings-on! While Swennes was applying automotive auto-motive principles to a sea-going job and, as he himself now admits, "incorporating "in-corporating unorthodox designs that no marine engineer would waste time with," the Ingersoll company began and completed its first "am-track" "am-track" contract. Meanwhile, such agricultural necessities as heat-treated heat-treated spring teeth for harrows, cultivators, cul-tivators, weeders and rakes continued contin-ued in production. Later, Ingersoll received a contract to manufacture manufac-ture the LVT-2 on a design supplied by the navy. Hundreds of LVT-2s were manufactured-before the often-accelerated often-accelerated contract was completed, ahead of schedule. Meanwhile, Swennes had put together to-gether an amphibian tmk that today, to-day, as the Beach-Buster, is reputed to incorporate a greater amount of automotive design than any marine craft that floats. It worked. But before it was presented to the navy's bureau of ships, Swennes, watching tests in Florida, was seized with an inspiration. Returning hurriedly to Rockford he worked for 48 uninterrupted hours, emerging with the design for a ramp gate which can- be raised j and lowered at the rear of the "am- track." This single feature is credited cred-ited with saving hundreds of lives. I Using it, our invasion forces unload ' men, equipment, ammunition or j supplies while facing the enemy. An entire tankload of materiel may be I yanked out in a matter of moments. The importance of this is more fully realized when it is known that the Beach-Buster easily handles 10,000 pounds of cargo1 or 50 men fully equipped. t Danger of stalling in the face" of the enemy is avoided by the tank's hydramatic transmission which "feels" for the beach, shifting automatically auto-matically to the required gear ratio without attention from the driver as soon as the tracks on which it runs encounter any obstacle. Numerous battle reports have come back to Kalamazoo, to the men and women who make the amtracks, of the prowess of their product. "Tough landings they have made easier. Almost impossible landings, like Tarawa, Saipan and, most recently, re-cently, Iwo Jima, they have made possible," Rear Adm. C. H. Woodward Wood-ward told them last March when the navy returned, for permanent exhibit, ex-hibit, the pilot "Model B" amphibian tank that Swennes had designed at Rockford. Other facts were revealed by Admiral Ad-miral Woodward: Tarawa proved the LVT absolutely indispensable for successful amphibious attack; that at Saipan the LVTs were stars of the show, sliding over reefs, hitting the beach with guns blazing, plowing through the jungle; and, most amazing, amaz-ing, that the LVTs made a surprise 125-mile sweep in a flanking movement move-ment around the southern horn of Leyte. From Iwo Jima, Maj. Gen. Kellei E. Rockey, commanding the fifth marine division, wrote to his friend, Roland D. Doane, Ingersoll sale; manager: "Naturally the tail-gate jobs were much more useful, but all of them (LVTs) really saved our bacon ba-con in the early days of the show because they were the only vehicle that could negotiate the sand hills leading from the water's edge to the fighting zone. "So the LVTs carried the beans and bullets directly from the ships to the front line units and carried the wounded on the return trip and they did this for some five or six days before we could get our motor mo-tor transportation running." Such reports heartened the Ingersoll Inger-soll workers. But production schedules sched-ules were upped again and again. In the fall of 1944 additional employees em-ployees were sorely needed, and Ingersoll In-gersoll officials tried a novel experiment. experi-ment. Into such typical rural Michigan communities as Paw Paw, Augusta, Vicksburg, Schoolcraft, Decatur and Lawton 10 towns, all told, within a 30-mile radius of Kalamazoo moved a caravan in whose success the American people had a stake. The caravan was fashioned around a newly completed Beach-Buster. Accompanying it were navy veterans, veter-ans, including a navy nurse, just home from battle duties. The vets told their stories. And follow-up crews received job applications the next day from those who wanted to join Ingersoll. Many were farmers who had harvested their crops. The caravan idea rates as the spearhead that helped Beach-Buster employment employ-ment rise at Ingersoll's from a peacetime 300 to more than 1,800 persons. National recognition of the production produc-tion record of these workers followed fol-lowed last March 26 when Vox Pop broadcast its regular weekly program pro-gram from Kalamazoo, interviewed plant employees. It came again on May 21 when the Army-Navy "E" was awarded the Borg-Warner factory. fac-tory. Ingersoll inaugurated another novelty nov-elty with free rides on the amphibians amphibi-ans as a reward to workers for superior su-perior attendance records. The practice interfered not at all with routine as all tanks are "battle tested" test-ed" on land and one in every 50 is tested on water before they are placed in pairs on flat cars and started start-ed westward from Kalamazoo. With the help of navy engineers, constant tests are being conducted on the amtracks and refinements that are indicated by battle performance perform-ance added. The ' headquarters of Ben Swennes has been moved to Kalamazoo and the results of his research re-search are proved daily on lake, land and in swamp. Co-ordinator of all this activity is R. S. ("Bob") Ingersoll, son of Roy and grandson of the late S. A. Ingersoll, In-gersoll, founder of the company. His two uncles, Harold G. and Stephen L. Ingersoll, are directors of the Borg-Warner organization. Harold manages the Ingersoll plant at New Castle, Ind.; Stephen L. established the West Pullman works in 1929. When the emergency of World War II arose, four Ingersoll plants at Chicago, Chicago Heights, New Castle, Ind., and Kalamazoo, Mich., were in operation. Those who knew him say that had S. A. Ingersoll been alive to participate partici-pate he would have found abiding satisfaction in the promptness with which all four were converted from producing implements of peace to instruments of war. For here truly is a company that has beaten plowshares plow-shares into swords. r y W h " v . ' . - ; ' . . Vv i S ii "-!-.'-. .'.... ' . . -. '.? ... - Jap's eye view of a Beach-Buster as it roars ashore in a landing attack. |
