Boyertown Auto Body Works in World War Two
Boyertown, PA
1911-1990

This page updated 7-3-2022.

The Boyertown Auto Body Works presents a unique opportunity in the study of the American industry's contribution to winning World War Two.

• The Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles is located in the same factory building that the Boyertown Body Works occupied during World War Two.

• The Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles has one of the two surviving International Harvester M-1-4 1/2 4x4 trucks that the Boyertown Body Works made into ambulances by adding the body to the truck chassis.  The Boyertown Body Works-converted ambulance is on display in the same former factory building in which it was converted into the ambulance configuration.

• The Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles has the original Army-Navy "E" flag on display in the same former factory building that the Boyertown Body Works occupied when it won the awards.  The flag had been stored for many years in the museum attic, and a docent discovered it by accident.  What a find!  In my study of Army-Navy "E" flags to date, I have only found twelve of the 4,283 that were awarded.  None of the other eleven "E" flags are on display in the same building where they were awarded. 

I know of no other instance like this where a former factory has one of its World War Two products on display with the company's "E" flag.  This is truly a unique situation.

The Museum:

The Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles as it looked in June 2019.  This is the former location of the Boyertown Auto Body Works factory at Third and Walnut Streets in Boyertown, PA.  First impressions can be misleading, as the entrance to the museum is two indistinguishable doors in the middle of the block.  Without the flags to identify the entrance, a visitor might wonder where the entrance to the museum is located.  But first impressions can be misleading, and that is definitely the case here.  Author's photo.

How cool is this?  The same location as my photo above; but this World War Two era photo is of workers posing on Walnut Street with ten M-1-4 4x4 1/2-ton ambulances.  Comparing the photos shows hardly any change in the buildings from World War Two to the present.
 

This photo shows the former factory and present museum building along Third Street in Boyertown.  Author's photo.

Author's photo.

Once inside the museum, one realizes this is a first-class vehicle museum with lots of cars and trucks to view.  It is an unassuming museum building outside, but there are lots of displays inside.  The interior square footage is well utilized and packed not only with vehicles but relevant displays.  All of this is in a former factory that built important products for the effort during World War Two, and consequently won the coveted Army-Navy "E" Award five times.  This museum has character.

Today, many new museums being built are to a large extent large chrome and glass structures. They look impressive on the outside but are hollow on the inside.  They are sterile, and feature state-of-the-art interactive displays, but not much in the way of hardware.  I like looking at hardware, and the Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles has lots of hardware.  It is true gem of a museum.  Author's photo.

Author's photo.

There is a section of the museum that shows how the original carriage shop may have looked when it was in business.  Author's photo.

Author's photo.

Author's photo.

Author's photo.

The Army-Navy "E" Flag Awards: 

Another photo of the plant at Third and Walnut Streets.  This photo was taken on May 24,1943, after the presentation of the
"E" Flag.  The company employees are marching southeast on Third Street towards the Boyertown Body Works annex plant on Warwick Street.  Here, they would all be served lunch.  Winning the "E" Flag was a big event for a small company like this.  Note there are no stars.  They would come later, as the company continued to win reoccurring awards each six months until the war ended. 

The "E" flag luncheon at the Boyertown Auto Body Works Warwick Street Annex.  My research indicates a luncheon was not the normal routine for a company after an "E" Award presentation.  Normally, the workers just went back to work.  Boyertown Auto Body Works went the extra mile in rewarding its employees with this luncheon.  In the long run, it paid off.  The employees would contribute to the company winning four more awards before the war ended. 

The Boyertown Auto Body Works "E" Flag on display in the museum.  Author's photo.

Author's photo.

The bottom of the glassed "E" flag display case has several photos and memorabilia from the awards.  Author's photo.

Author's photo.

In May or June of 1944, the company received its second star.  Once again the workers are walking through town with the "E" flag at the head of the procession.  If the workers are going to another luncheon, this would be really rare.  Normally when companies started receiving multiple stars, it was business as usual.  Normally, there were no special events with them. 

Boyertown Auto Body Works has been awarded its fourth star, not its second as the caption states.  It is so obvious that there are four stars, it appears that the person who did this wasn't paying any attention to detail.  Also, the date doesn't make any sense.  If the flag was first awarded May 1943, how can you receive the third award or second star two years earlier?  I did not notice this while at the museum.  If I had, I would have pointed it out to the person at the front entrance. 

Boyertown had no direct connection to the World War Two jeep.  The Ford-build jeep is on display to represent the Pennsylvania-built Bantam jeeps.  American Bantam Car Company in Butler, PA, north of Pittsburgh, had the winning design but not the required production capacity for the volume needed for the upcoming war effort.  Author's photo.

Boyertown Auto Body Works World War Two Production:  1,470 Mobile No.1 Machine Shops, 892 M-1-4 1/2-ton 4x4 ambulance conversions, 140 Mobile Shoe and Textile Canvas Repair Shops, 40 Mobile No. 2 Machine Shops, 30 Mobile Hospital Operating Rooms, 18 Mobile Tire Repair Shops, 3 Mobile Dental Prosthetic Labs, 2 Mobile Boxing and Waterproof Packaging Shops, 1 Mobile Radio Communications Unit, and 1 Mobile Recruiting Service Unit.

The company had $14,396,000 in major war contracts during World War Two.  All of the contracts were with the U.S. Navy as shown in Table 1.  Of interest, is that all of the contracts were for trailers.  The 892 ambulance conversions for the USMC and USN shown in Table 2 must have been subcontracted to the truck manufacturer, International Harvester.

Boyertown Auto Body Works was an important supplier of tactical field ambulances and mobile field shop trailers for the United States Marine Corps.  Boyertown was the only company supplying 1/2-ton 4x4 ambulances to the USMC during the war.  International Harvester built the chassis and then shipped them to Boyertown.  Boyertown Auto Body Works would then build and install the ambulance body on the rear of the chassis.  Boyertown built 900 during World War Two.  This is one of two Boyertown-built ambulances that still exist in the United States.  This one is on display in the same building in which the body was built and installed.  Author's photo.

Author's photo.

 Author's photo.

Author's photo.

The ambulance body is of mostly wood construction.  This saved on steel needed for other uses.  Author's photo.

The International Harvester M-1-4 1/2-ton 4x4 is a robust truck.  These served in the Pacific island-hopping campaign with the USMC and US Navy Seabees.  Author's photo.

Author's photo.

Author's photo.

The ambulance could carry four litter cases in the Boyertown Auto Body Works body.  Author's photo.

It should be noted the USMC has no medics of its own.  The U.S. Navy provides corpsmen for the Marines during their operations.  Therefore, in this photo, and the one below, Navy Corpsmen are shown.  In this photo there are two levels for two litters each.

This photo shows the top layer of litters being loaded or unloaded from the ambulance. 

Here is a Boyertown-built USMC/US Navy Mobile Machine Shop trailer.  Note the hand crank for starting the generator engine.

This is what the unit looked like when it was opened up.  Boyertown Auto Body Works built 1,470 of these.  Not only did it build the body, but it purchased and installed all of the equipment and tools. 

How cool is this?  While Devin Baumgardner was camping in the Utah desert, he found this World War Two era U.S. Navy mobile repair trailer.  Photo courtesy of Devin Baumgardner added 7-3-2022.

The U.S. Navy ID is at the top of the photo.  Photo courtesy of Devin Baumgardner added 7-3-2022.

Post-War Products:  Below are a few samples showing the variety of civilian products the company built after World War Two.

Boyertown Auto Body Works built this fire pumper on a 1955 Ford chassis.  Author's photo.

Author's photo.

Author's photo.

In 1976 the Boyertown Auto Body Works built this and fourteen other trolleys on Dodge motor home chassis.  They were built for use in the 8,000 acre Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, PA during the Bicentennial.  Author's photo.

This Mister Softee ice cream truck was built on a 1958 Ford chassis.  It was donated to the Museum by the original business owner of the vehicle who bought a Mister Softee franchise in 1959.  Starting in 1956, Boyertown Auto Body Works built thousands of the bodies for not only Mr. Softee, but other ice cream truck companies as well.  This was good business for them.  Maybe when you were a kid you bought a whippy dip from a truck with a Boyertown Auto Body Works built body.  Author's photo.