D-4 Tournapull

 Tom Trenka has done a good job of providing visitors to the Richland Creek Fall Festival with some information about his Tournapull, it’s all up there on the big board. Granted, he’s not a graphics professional but it gets the job done. You probably won’t be able to read it on your device so I’ll run down what it says below. 

This D-4 was built to fill a military contract during World War II. The Army wanted a small road scraper that was light enough to be airlifted by their C-46 and C-47 cargo planes and landed in combat zones by a CG- 4A glider. The original  plan called for the scraper to be pulled by the standard military jeep but the jeep wasn’t up to that challenge. 

Robert G. LeTourneau’s company had the contract for the Carryall Scrapers so when the Jeep idea fell apart he designed a two wheeled vehicle that consisted of a Continental Y-112 engine that turned out 44 horsepower through a Borg-Warner transmission. The four forward speeds permitted a maximum road speed of 16.1 mph. There was a single reverse gear. It was a bare bones machine. The operator sat above the wheels in an open cockpit surrounded by the machine’s controls and little else. 

The Tournapull was all about weight reduction and it managed to tip the scales at 7,500 pounds. The “gliders” they were talking about using to deploy  this equipment had aerodynamics slightly better than your average boulder and their “landings” were more like a controlled crash.  Every ounce mattered. I don’t know how many were deployed by that method but I did find a picture of a carryall being towed ashore from a landing craft by a caterpillar tractor. 

During the course of WW 2, LeTourneau produced: 1,800 Tournapulls, 10,000 Carryall Scrapers, 14,000 bulldozer blades, 1,600 sheepsfoot rollers and assorted smaller equipment. The wartime increases in demand led to opening new factories in several locations. The first was a factory in Australia in 1941,followed by one in Vicksburg, MS. in 1942 and 1945 saw one opened in Longview, Texas. There were also factories located in Stockton, Ca. Peoria, Il. and one in Toccoa, Georgia that had been established before the war. 

Ironically, the success of wartime production may have led to the company’s ultimate demise.  In 1935 LeTourneau signed a 10 year contract with Caterpillar to supply bulldozer blades, scrapers and other accessories for distribution at Cat’s dealerships. This deal gave LeTourneau instant access to a nationwide dealership network that he didn’t have. Along the way Cat’s management may have begun to see LeTourneau as a competitor or maybe they just got greedy. Whatever the reason they decided not to renew the contract in1945. This proved to be a mortal blow to LeTourneau who sold the business to Westinghouse Air Brake Co. in 1953. 

Additional source: 

www,usautoindustryworldwartwo.com/letourneau.htm