D-Day and Caterpillars of Normandy

Hi, my name is Dave Beaty. I'm going to be in France next week (Oct 13) filming a PBS doc about Caterpiller's role on D-Day. We hope to capture some amazing scenes and find examples of dozers on location. There are a few remaining examples in museums. But when I saw your group here I started thinking these people would have a wealth of knowledge and would be interested in this project. So any suggestions let me know. We plan on filming the D7 at the Bayeux museum and the D4 and Vierville-sur-Mer. Is anyone aware of any "notable" Cat history that is visible or visual there? We will tell the story of the role played and the work done post invasion. I know Andrew Bettney and Paul Marriott's restored 79th Armoured Division D8 is in England, which we are interested in learning about. Thanks! Dave

Hi Dave, sounds like a great project. Members tend to check in over days rather than minutes : ) so it might take a couple for you to get feedback. When are you planning to release the documentary?

Cheers, Neil

Hi Dave,

Great project! There’s a lot of Caterpillars still out there. Here’s some images from the beach at Arromanches Les Bains, the display at the museum at Bayeaux and the museum at Omaha beach.

Thanks! We will be with a very knowledgeable local named Eric Leboeuf so I hope to film some of the areas that played an important role. One thing that would be eye opening, is to use those period photo's of Cats and then film today from the same vantage point. This film will be created for PBS in the US for a next spring broadcast across the US. Deebo, is that last one with the lime green one on the bridge something we can see?

Yes, that one on the Mulberry B floating bridge is at Arromanches Les Bains. But sometimes the Caterpillar isn’t on it.. Let us know how it goes. Plenty of Caterpillar D-Day survivors in the UK. Think Paul Marriott has a D7 that was there as well as the D8.

Today we filmed the Mulberry B floating bridge D8 and the D4 in your photos! Also with a Cat rep here in France so we hope to get some great info from them. One interesting side note a metal panel on that D4 shows this: R.G LeTourneau Model HN Power Control Unit Stockton California. Manufacturer: R.G. LeTourneau, Inc. Rear-mounted, cable-operated power unit used to raise and lower the bulldozer blade and a cable winch. The Cat rep said even though it's a Cat, they didn't always have manufacture branding and LeTourneau had it's own branding on it's power unit. The Model HN mounted above a Hyster D4 towing winch and operated the blade using a cable running over the bulldozer's framework.

I hope the Cat rep knows enough history to know Cat did not build any attachments until after WW2. So 99.9% chance the blade and all cable parts are R.G. Letourneau. Deas help me out here with the date Cat sent letters to outside contractors telling them Cat was going to make it's own attachments. So Dave PLEASE, PLEASE, only use photos that are period correct. With the AI produced clips about history it angers me to see tractors of the 1960 to 1980 period dozers in pieces about WW2. I will assume since you are checking here, your trying to do much better.

Yes Deas I came across the you tube about LaPlant Choate were the maker gave you credit.

AWESOME! Fantastic documentary that you are producing. Best wishes on it, and enjoy the sights while you are at it. We can't wait to see it when it is available to view. Let us at ACMOC know how we might be able to assist!

Interesting Dave! LeTourneau equipment was designed specifically for Cat tractors with the two companies having a special relationship. The relationship was strengthened by Howard and Buster Peterson who worked for LeTourneau. They went on to form Peterson Tractor and Equipment Co in the 1930s which sold Caterpillar tractors. I think Buster Peterson was RG LeTourneau‘s brother in law. The Caterpillar and LeTourneau factories were close together. The US Army preferred Cat for serious jobs and the LeTourneau staff did a brilliant job of convincing them cable control was better than hydraulic blades.. Any special arrangement didn’t last as Caterpillar began a project to become a full line brand in the 40s.. Keep us posted! Look out for LaPlant Choate blades too! In fact there were quite few suppliers of accessories for the early Cats. Even Baker who Allis Chalmers acquired later.

Interesting thread going here, R.G. LeTourneau developed the "Turn-A-Pull" which was teamed with the Caterpillar Tractors pulling LeTourneau LP and LS scrapers during WWII with the US Army Engineering Battalions. Dad was a heavy equipment mechanic with US Army in WWII, they landed on IE Shima with group of LST's. They had sailed from Seattle - 47 day trip. LST 840 he was on carried 7- 7M-D-7's with dozers and scrapers, along with a couple of cranes secured to the deck, cranes were equipped with shovels and booms. I can not recall, Turn-a-pull Super C's were also in the mix, Dad did not speak a lot of the war. The unit constructed runways on IE Shima and Okinawa. Looking forward to the completed documentary, keep us all posted. - cts

Hi, Deebo.

Yep. R.G. married a sister of Howard and Robert - 'Buster' - Peterson. Both Howard and Buster did work for LeTourneau and Buster turned out to be a WORTHY apprentice of R.G..

Howard bought a tractor dealership in San Leandro in 1936 and then won a Cat dealership which is what started Peterson Caterpillar. Buster joined Howard a couple of years later and they started what became Peterson Special Products with Buster doing most if not all of the design/development work there. They made a heap of 'stuff' for the U.S. armed services during the war, including some 'overgrown' rippers for tearing up coral on the Pacific islands to make airstrips - smaller versions of this 1950s 'toy'.

The 'rear-mounted' rippers on the quad D9Gs would have been the Collins rippers, as seen here:

Hi, cts.

LeTourneau's drawn scrapers were called Carryalls. Tournapull - complete WITH an "o" - was the name he gave to his self-propelled scrapers, starting with the Model A in, I think, 1937.

The start of 'the rot' between Cat and LeTourneau was Letourneau's development of the self-propelled scraper, an idea which he pitched to Caterpillar who laughed at him, whereupon R.G. took a Cat D8, ripped out the engine and put inna D17000, tore off the tracks and substituted wheels and hooked it up to one of his Carryalls. I suspect that this was about the same time that Cat dropped the "R" from its crawler nomenclature.

WW2 got in the way of Cat doing anything much about it immediately but they were sufficiently 'annoyed' that they CUT their association with LeTourneau and also with LaPlante-Choate toward the end of WW2 and started becoming a 'whole-of-line' manufacturer.

Just my 0.02.