DUKW...Duck .... Duh...

[Mike Cecil]

Well, I can't quite believe what I was reading, but I'll share it with you anyway:

On a major institution's website, they define DUKW as....

"Detroit United Kaiser Works Amphibious load carrier. Named after US Army's serial numbers DUKW"

(Caps etc as per website entry...)

Besides the 'bleedin' obvious' definition faults, since when are alphabetical letters 'numbers'????

Oh, dear....

Mike C

[Richard Farrant]

Hi Mike,
I copied that translation on to Google and quite a few websites came up. I wonder where it originated from. My guess is that the Canberra institution probably copied it from another website.

[Mike Cecil]

Did I mention Canberra??? Oh dear....

Wonder how such an error got started, but it does show that few people check!!

Mike C

[Scrivo18]

Off the top of my head

year of manufacture, 6 x 6 configuration, Amphidian vehicle and vehicle carrying capacity come up with the term DUKW, which the troops then called them 'Ducks'

I have it written at work on the display board for my Dukw...

Which if all goes to plan will be swimming next weekend for Australia day and DUKW will be explained as above..

Tim

[Scrivo18]

If I remember correctly the majority of them were built by the Yellow Bus company ....... Nothing to do with Kaiser at all....


Bahhh


Tim

[Mike Cecil]

You are pretty close, Scrivo....

Yellow Truck and Coach Company, a Division of GMC.


D = design year 1942
U = amphibian
K = front wheel drive
W= rear wheel drive

So, too ....
CCKW is 1941, C=standard cab; K & W as above
AFKWX is 1939, F = Forward cab, K & W as above .... X special long wheel base chassis.

(Thank you Boniface & Juedy!)

Mike C

[maple_leaf_eh]

I have a Wikipedia account. Does this mean my 5-watt opinion might some day be immortalized by a significant national institution too?

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

Wonder how such an error got started, but it does show that few people check!!

Don't get me started.... For many people their main historical reference these days is Saving Private Ryan, HBO's WW2 miniseries, etc.
While they are very well made (hats off!), they are still movies, not facts

H.

[gordon]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

You are pretty close, Scrivo....

D = design year 1942
U = amphibian ( Utility - 'A' was already used for a low profile truck )
K = front wheel drive ( driven front axle)
W= rear wheel drive ( twin rear axles on an inverted leaf spring )

Mike C

added a couple of notes to Mike's explanation

[Tony Wheeler]

Mike, have you written to AWM and chastised them suitably? I note also their Glossary does not contain CCKW at all, despite their collections search returning 56 results.

[Mike Cecil]

No Tony: they can wait till the end of this month and buy a copy of my book, 'Australian Military Abbreviations, Acronyms and Codes' when it is released by Virtualbookworm.(Hardback, 10,500 entries including a more accurate interpretation of the meaning of 'DUKW'!).

Besides: I never mentioned the name of the institution concerned.....

Mike C

[Richard Farrant]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

Besides: I never mentioned the name of the institution concerned.....

Nor did I ! There must be more than one institution in ACT

[Lynn Eades]

Hanno, That is the unbridled power of Hollywood. How much of history remains clear to the average person, who does not have a passion for the truth.
It becomes more blurred every day. At 60, I cannot separate the truth from fiction. How can a younger person sort it?
Mike, on Jeudy and Boniface, or is it Jeudy and Tartarine?
I would like to buy a copy of "Dodge Cinq Generations De Toures"
Please forgive any errors or omissions from the title, but those who might have a spare copy will know the book. It was only produced in French. I waited for the English text, but don't believe it ever happened.
They did however publish the GMC book (your ref) and the Jeep book in English.
Anyone with a spare please advise.
Thanks.

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

I never mentioned the name of the institution concerned.....

Duly noted Mike! Nor did I expressly state or otherwise imply infer or suggest that you did! Inasmuch as numerous websites having been reported to publish said DUKW translation, it must concluded in respect of the particular website mentioned independently by me, to wit: AWM website, that such mention is owed solely to its particular interest in this forum, and that any resemblance to the "major institution's website" mentioned initially is purely coincidental!

Seriously though I have no hesitation whatsoever in naming and shaming any institution, let alone a publicly funded one, which through laziness alone publishes utterly incorrect information within its professed field of expertise, and which through both illiteracy and stupidity abuses language and logic to the extent of introducing and describing alphabetic numbers! Perhaps that's because I'm of a generation when the three R's mattered and we were taught to recognize which squiggly symbols were letters and which ones were numerals, and how they worked to construct words and numbers respectively. 3ND o5 R@N7!

[Mike Cecil]

Tony,

Excellent response!! Cannot agree more ..... though I will admit to the occasional literary bungle and factual inaccuracy in my own publications, so, as an author standing squarely within a glass house, I shall try to refrain from throwing stones at institutions with directed accuracy (esp one I worked for, and still retain some regular correspondence with).

I was drawn to some dubious entries on an un-named institution's website late last year concerning certain Australian-operated AFVs, and subsequently privately relayed to the relevant authorities some suggestions for improvement, for which they expressed gratitude. The nub of the problem, however, was that the crap had been posted on their website in the first place. Correcting is one thing: a willingness to put such wildly in-accurate entries before the public in the first place is, in my opinion, the crime.

Mike C

[motto]

I'm glad that you fellows sorted it all out while I was away or I would have put forward a completely erroneous answer.
I always thought DUKW stood for, Doubly Useful Kind of Wagon.
Wouldn't be surprised at anything that came out of Cancerra though.

David

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

The nub of the problem, however, was that the crap had been posted on their website in the first place. Correcting is one thing: a willingness to put such wildly in-accurate entries before the public in the first place is, in my opinion, the crime.

Yes I think you've nailed it Mike, it's a question of due diligence, not inaccuracy per se. No one expects complete infallibility, even in the most meticulously researched work, but we have every right to object to mindless republication, because it's guaranteed to PROMOTE inaccuracies. It's called plagiarism, and it's the process by which untruths are perpetuated, and even myths created, like the mythical Detroit United Kaiser Works. In this case harmless enough, but myths and untruths are by no means harmless in the world.

The other factor in plagiarism is the organization concerned - we've come to expect it in our daily rags, but when it's committed under a banner of authority such as AWM it's all the more lamentable, irrespective of how trivial the information may be considered. Not only does it lend great weight to untruths, but when discovered it damages credibility in all their published material. Personally I don't think it's good enough, especially in a glossary of terms, which impacts on ALL Australian military documentation, not just AWM material. Whoever compiled it had a duty to confirm information found on the net, which would have been simple in the case of DUKW, or otherwise leave it out until they had. Unlike books there's no excuse with websites, they can be readily and immediately updated. That's "updated", not "corrected" after the damage has already been done, through years of public consumption and repetition. Which gets back to your point Mike: "a willingness to put such wildly in-accurate entries before the public in the first place is, in my opinion, the crime." To which I would add the word "unconfirmed". For which crime come February there can be no excuse - good luck with the book!