Re: Re: Cute Crawler

Posted by Mark Neitenbach on September 24, 1998 at 03:29:38:

In Reply to: Re: Cute Crawler posted by Harold H on September 20, 1998 at 18:36:53:

: : Yesterday I went to an air show/fly in and saw a WW2 Army crawler that I had never seen before. It was a small crawler made by the Clark Company, the same one that made fork lifts, and was made in 1942 and was designed to be carried in gliders in Europe for air drops. According to the owner, Clark only made 13 or 15 of the crawlers. Then the Cleveland Tractor Company made 145 more to the same design. Again, according to the owner, most were left overseas. His was one of the first and was never sent overseas and he said that there are a few of the Cleveland Tractor Company versions which also were never sent overseas which still survice. He said there is one in the Air Force Museum. Is there anybody else on Tractor Talk who may have more information on this tractor or might have one?

: : Harold H

: It was less than 4 feet wide and was said to weigh about 3000 pounds. It has a fully hydraulic bulldozer blade and a 4 cylinder gasoline engine.

The Clarke Airborne Dozers weight 4170 pounds, as I recall, I have two of these tractors in Colorado. There seems to be afair number of them around. I have heard that the majority of them were built by Clevland tractor. I don't know how many were built exactly but I believe the 148 number comes from a sign at the airforce museum, which probably comes from a list of serial numbers in one of the Army technical manuals. I would guess that it was an early manual, and a lot more were built. I know of several more in my area, and there are more of them in the country, but I do not have an exact figure. They are very collectable but undercarriage parts are nearly impossible to find. I can be reached at mneitenbach@ball.com and would be happy to answer any other questions. These tractors were used by airborne combat engineers as well as the Airborne aviation engineer who where a part of the Army Air Corps to built front line fighter fields. There was also several Airborne Case SI Trators and even a Airborne LeTourneau D4 Tournapull with a Q carryall about a 2 Cy machine.

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