History of the War in the Peninsula, and in the South of France from ... 1807 to ... 1814

These DUKWs had come in with the invasion of the south of France. These were the first E Company had seen. The DUKW was outstanding in every respect, but because it was a hybrid, neither the War nor the Navy Department ever really got behind it. Only 21,000 were built in the course of the war. The men of E Company wished it had been 210,000, or even 2,100,000. A DUKW could carry twenty fully equipped riflemen in considerable comfort. It could make 5 knots in a moderate sea, 50 miles per hour on land riding on oversized rubber tires. It was a smooth-riding vehicle, without the bounce of the deuce-and-a-half G.I. truck or the springless jarring of the jeep. Webster said the DUKW "rides softly up and down, like a sailboat in a gentle swell." They crossed the Rhine on the Ernie Pyle Bridge, a pontoon structure built by the engineers, and headed toward Munich. They went through Heidelberg, and Webster was entranced. "When we saw all the undamaged buildings and the beautiful river promenade, where complacent civilians strolled in the sun, I was ready to stay in Heidelberg forever ...»