This is a favorite strip of the 112 collected in a little 1945 Simon & Schuster volume entitled Male Call, by the great cartoonist Milton Caniff (1907-1988), perhaps better known for his "Dickie Dare," "Terry and the Pirates" and "Steve Canyon" daily comic strips. The strip was the prolific Caniff's donation to the war effort, and he declined to accept any money for it.
Originally produced exclusively for G.I. newspapers and camp newletters, Male Call's protagonist is the shapely "Miss Lace," the in-the-flesh pin-up to the soldiers, sailors, Marines and fly-boys of the Air Corps, that Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable and Veronica Lake were in poster form on barracks walls. Speaking in an snappy argot equal parts jitterbug and hepkitten, and sporting a Bettie Page-esque coiffure a whole decade before that pop icon made her first scantily-clad appearance in the skin magazines of the '50s, Miss Lace was a sprightly chum to every homesick military guy or gal away from the U.S.A., and a morale booster par excellance both within the strip and in real life. Although she steadfastly refused to reveal whether "Lace" was her first or last name, the bigger mystery, and never quite explained, was how she could be in both the ETO and the Pacific at the same times.
The selected strip is of personal significance because of the presence of the DUKW ("duck"), the Army's celebrated amphibious "6X6" truck which was my father's baby... at the time of his death on 8 July 1956, he was Project Engineer for the Army's Amphibious Warfare Program, having been (along with yacht designer Rod Stephens and "Blue Water Vagabond" Dennis Puleston) instrumental in the design and development of the vehicle, and working with the 2½ ton (payload) trucks since they first saw action in Sicily ("Operation Husky") in 1943. Equipped with a GMC 270 cubic-inch 6 cylinder gas engine and a five-speed transmission with a two-speed transfer case, the 7½ tons (empty), 31 foot long DUKW is capable of a top land speed of 55 mph but only six knots afloat... and that was with both the propeller and all six tires engaged at once!
The DUKW designation is an acronym signifying D, model year 1942, U, amphibian, K, all wheel drive, W, dual rear axles, and is pronounced, as much for convenience as appropriateness, "duck."
Even after the completion of a prototype DUKW the Army took no interest until engineers used the prototype to save the lives of seven Coast Guardsmen grounded in a storm on the back shore of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. A U.S. Coast Guard patrol craft had run aground on a sandbar 1/4-mile offshore at Providencetown. Driving rain, 60-knot winds and heavy surf prevented rescue by small boats or breeches buoy. A DUKW, in the area for a scheduled demonstration a few days later, rescued the crew. This rescue proved DUKW seaworthiness, and suddenly the previously unreceptive Army was interested. Ultimately DUKW was a vital factor in landings in the Pacific, in Africa, and on the beaches of Normandy. At Normandy alone, DUKW carried 18 million tons ashore over the course of the 90 days when the enemy held all available ports.
Perhaps my father's greatest contribution to the DUKW (and its successors, the Super Duck, the Drake and the BARC¹) was the tire inflation system with a two cylinder air compressor and air storage tank which permitted the driver to inflate or deflate all six tires simultaneously or individually from within the vehicle.
DUKWs were manufactured from 1942 to 1945 by General Motors Corporation, while prototype Super Ducks and Drakes were developed in the mid-'50s at the Chrysler Tank Arsenal in Warren, Michigan, which is where my father, Frank W. Speir, was stationed and returning to active duty when he was killed in his airplane.
In short, the DUKW was as much a part of my family in the '40s and '50s as had been the three dogs my sister and I'd been raised with... a mother-and-daughter pair of Scotties, "Tam o'Shanter MacGuilicuddy o'Basketneck" and "Jeanie Weenie Doodlesocks," and my first best buddy in the world, a Maltese yclept "Wuffles Button-nose McSnort."
Male Call was one of my two favorite books when I was growing up in the '40s... the other being the Aircraft Spotters Handbook, a thick volume which served me well during the Korean War when I was one of two youngsters selected to make sure no enemy planes were trying to sneak in beneath the radar to attack New York City. I staffed the cupola of the local high school, Tuesdays and Thursdays between 1600 and 1800 hours. It was considered quite an honor, and a step up from the WW II effort of growing a "Victory Garden" or collecting tinfoil from chewing gum and cigarette packs.
1.- The full nomenclature for the BARC was: Barge, Amphibious, Resupply, Cargo, Self-Propelled, Diesel, 60 Ton, 61 feet. (In Australia the term "Lighter" was used in lieu of "Barge.")
It had a wheelbase of 28' 6", with a wheel track of 23' 6". The operating range with its 60 ton payload was 75 miles in water, 150 miles on land. The overall dimensions were 62' 6" long by 26' 7" wide with a height of 19' 5". A normal payload of 60 tons could translate to 125 troops, but in an emergency, 100 tons or 200 troops... storys from the Vung Ro Bay sector of Viet Nam in the late '60s note that 130 ton payloads were not uncommon.
Propulsion in the water was accomplished by a pair of 48-inch diameter propellers. On land, each wheel was independently driven with an automatic three-speed transmission (all wheel drive/all wheel steering) by four Detroit 6-71 Series diesel engines. If a wheel was damaged, the BARC could be driven on three wheels as long as the payload was redistributed to compensate.