ClarkAir Dozer

old-9

Well-known Member
For sale on Craigslist in Michigan. These amazing machines played a BIG part in WWII. They were deployed in the Pacific,Asia and elsewhere. At a show at Berrien Springs, Michigan, I met a WWII veteran with one of these he had a photo of himself on some island in the Pacific working on an air strip. Only a few of these left as they were dumped after the war instead of bringing them back.
There are a few videos on U tube if one wants to watch. joe
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The tracks look very tight on both. They must be very low houred. The Wife and I saw a D-8 with cable operated blade when we were in Normandy a few years back. It had been landed on the beach and left after the job was done. I got the impression that it had been sold. It had a contractor's old faded signage on it.
 
What a coincidence, I saw one today for the first time in my 70+ years. They are a neat little machine. Wonder what the survival rate was for them in an air drop, this one was a very narrow tread machine and looked as though it would turn over easily. Were they all narrow tread? Joe
 
Here is an account of one mission of the 879th engineers in WWII. A long read but well worth the time.
The Clark was a maxed out load for the Waco gliders used in WWII, they ,Clarkairs' had to be as small as possible.
Also the Waco Gliders were made by FORD. Ford also turned out a LOT of B -24's, My dad was a tail gunner on one over Europe. Glad he made it home alright. joe
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Have followed these for many years and never seen documentation of parachute deployment. Most were used by Seabees or Army engineers. There were some tested for glider transport, and I believe one pix of one in a C-46/C-47 IIRC. Would also like to see airdrop information. I own a U.S. Trac which was built of leftover Clark parts at wars end. Main difference is Clark used Waukesha engine/UST uses Continental. Ray at below link is a guru on these crawlers:
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This is sitting in the woods behind my brothers house. His son bought it from a co-worker 20 years ago for $150.00.



He hauled it home in the back of a 1/2 ton pickup.



Pretty cool machine, hopefully get to working on it soon. You can tell by the seat how small the little fellow is.



Pretty rough, but not too far gone. and he got a second engine along with it.
 

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