MOS EE AA Ynyslas: DUKWs used as range support vehicles

Description

This is an image of the use of DUKW amphibious vehicles in the Dyfi Estuary, as part of the activities that occurred during the Military occupation of Ynyslas Rocket Range.

Ynyslas not only tested rocketry but was used as a training ground for the drivers and passengers of amphibious military vehicles called DUKW’s or Buffalo's. The Tonnfanau military camp at Towyn was the base for an RASC Amphibious Training Unit. Personnel were sent here for training in advance of the Normandy landings in 1944 and the school continued after the end of the war into the 1960s.

DUKW’s are 6 ton military trucks converted with steel carcass and a propeller allowing the vehicle a smooth transition between land and water.

The importance of DUKW’s during the Second World War was their contribution to landing operations, their design allowed for easy transportation of goods and service men between large military ships and shallow shorelines. DUKW were cleverly built and were the first military vehicle that allowed the driver to change tire pressure whilst moving in order to compensate for hard or soft surface landings.

The image above shows a line of DUKW’s in different stages of entering the Dyfi estuary - the moment of entering the water caught on camera.

These military vehicles were very versatile and their performance on land was almost as impressive as their performance off land oral histories noting to the fact that there were six wheeled-vehicles "that could climb at incredible angles"

In Margaret Herterich's oral testimony recalling her time in the Auxiliary Territorial Army (ATS) as an Experimental Gunnery Assistant, she refers to using a 'duck' to go out onto the estuary. MOS EE AA Ynyslas personnel would use the vehicles to recover test missiles and to survey missile landing zones to plot the distances travelled.

Nothing remains of the DUKW’s that were used at Ynyslas today, except this photo and vibrant oral histories pertaining to its use along the Estuary.

One report suggests that one broken-down DUKW remained in what is now Ynyslas Boat Yard long after the Ministry of Supply left Ynyslas. Locals recall, when they were children, playing on the disused DUKW, which remained in the boat yard into the late fifties and early sixties.

• http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/506537/details/AMPHIBIOUS+VEHICLE+TRAINING+GROUND%2C+YNYSLAS/ (link opens in new window)