Thread: Caterpillar Tractor Used During WWII

Caterpillar Tractors were capable of a greater variety of war front tasks than any other single piece of mechanism. In the foreground a bulldozer is seen cutting a road. Its huge scraper (A) could shift several hundred cubic yards of soil in an hour, break off or uproot massive trees and rip the undergrowth from tangled jungle or forest. The scraper was carried on stout metal arms (B) and can be raised by powerful rams (C), worked by small levers (D).

Power was supplied from a diesel engine (E) capable of 100 HP and more. There was no normal gearbox, the drive being through two separate clutches, one for each track which could be engaged or slipped by means of the two track levers (F). The driving sprocket is at (G), and at the other end is the idler wheel. Between these was the track tensioning spring (H) for keeping the track in adjustment.

In the left background is a small bulldozer ready for transport by air. On the right a tractor hauls a heavy gun and limber. A 45 HP tractor could haul up to 100 tons. Further back a tractor fitted up as a crane is moving heavy stones.

Inset (bottom left of picture) an armoured tractor is engaged in shallow water nosing out grounded barges and smoothing down sandbanks. One of the most serviceable of all tracked vehicles was the “alligator” which won fame in the Walcheren landings n November 1944. It resembled in appearance a WW1 tank, but this floated! Cup like treads moved it through the water. Its official title was, “Landing vehicle, tracked.”

This caterpillar is seen clearing rubble and motors from a bombed town in Normandy during 1945

This caterpillar is seen clearing rubble to make a clearing for transport to bring in supplies, Normandy, 1945