The American Automobile Industry in World War Two
An American Auto Industry Heritage Tribute by David D Jackson

Overview      Lansing Michigan in World War Two   The U.S. Auto Industry at the Normandy Invasion, June 6, 1944    The U.S. Auto Industry and the B-29 Bomber   U.S. Auto Industry Army-Navy "E" Award Winners   The Complete listing of All Army-Navy "E" Award Winners   Sherman Tanks of the American Auto Industry   Tank Destroyers of the American Auto Industry    M26 Pershing Tanks of the American Auto Industry   M36 Tank Destroyers of the American Auto Industry   Serial Numbers for WWII Tanks built by the American Auto Industry   Surviving LCVP Landing Craft    WWII Landing Craft Hull Numbers   Airborne Extra-Light Jeep Photos  The American Auto Industry vs. the German V-1 in WWII   American Auto Industry-Built Anti-Aircraft Guns in WWII   VT Proximity Manufacturers of WWII   World War One Era Motor Vehicles   National Museum of Military Vehicles  
Revisions   Links

 Automobile and Body Manufacturers:  American Bantam Car Company   Briggs Manufacturing Company   Checker Car Company   Chrysler Corporation   Crosley Corporation   Ford Motor Car Company   General Motors Corporation   Graham-Paige Motors Corporation   Hudson
Motor Car Company   Murray Corporation of America   Nash-Kelvinator   Packard Motor Car Company      Studebaker    Willys-Overland Motors

General Motors Divisions:  AC Spark Plug   Aeroproducts   Allison   Brown-Lipe-Chapin   Buick   Cadillac   Chevrolet   Cleveland Diesel   Delco Appliance   Delco Products   Delco Radio   Delco-Remy   Detroit Diesel   Detroit Transmission   Electro-Motive   Fisher Body   Frigidaire   GM Proving Grounds   GM of Canada   GMC   GMI   Guide Lamp   Harrison Radiator   Hyatt Bearings   Inland   Moraine Products   New Departure   Oldsmobile   Packard Electric   Pontiac   Saginaw Malleable Iron   Saginaw Steering Gear   Southern California Division   Rochester Products   Ternstedt Manufacturing Division   United Motors Service   Vauxhall Motors

 Indiana Companies:  Bailey Products Corporation   Chrysler Kokomo Plant   Continental Steel Corporation  Converto Manufacturing    Cummins Engine Company   Diamond Chain and Manufacturing Company   Delta Electric Company   Durham Manufacturing Company   Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation   Haynes Stellite Company   Hercules Body Company   Horton Manufacturing Company   Howe Fire Apparatus   J.D. Adams Company   Kokomo Spring Company   Magnavox  
Muncie Gear Works   Pierce Governor Company   Portland Forge and Foundry   Reliance Manufacturing Company   Republic Aviation Corporation - Indiana Division   Ross Gear and Tool Company   S.F. Bowser & Co.   Sherrill Research Corporation   Tokheim Oil Tank and Pump Company   Warner Gear   Wayne Pump Company   Wayne Works

Commercial Truck and Fire Apparatus Manufacturers:  American LaFrance   Autocar  
Biederman Motors Corporation   Brockway Motor Company   Detroit General   Diamond T   Duplex Truck Company   Federal Motor Truck   Four Wheel Drive Auto Company(FWD)   International Harvester   John Bean   Mack Truck   Marmon-Herrington Company   Michigan Power Shovel Company   Oshkosh Motor Truck Corporation   Pacific Car and Foundry   "Quick-Way" Truck Shovel Company   Reo Motor Car Company  Seagrave Fire Apparatus   Sterling Motor Truck Company    Ward LaFrance Truck Corporation   White Motor Company

Aviation Companies:  Abrams Instrument Corporation   Hughes Aircraft Company   Kellett Aviation Corporation   Laister-Kauffman Aircraft Corporation   Naval Aircraft Factory   P-V Engineering Forum, Inc.    Rudolf Wurlitzer Company-DeKalb Division  Schweizer Aircraft Corporation   Sikorsky Division of United Aircraft Corporation   St. Louis Aircraft Corporation   Timm Aircraft Corporation

Other World War Two Manufacturers: 
Air King Products   Allis-Chalmers   American Car and Foundry   American Locomotive   American Stove Company   Annapolis Yacht Yard  
Andover Motors Company   B.F. Goodrich   Baker War Industries   Baldwin Locomotive Works   Blood Brothers Machine Company   Boyertown Auto Body Works   Briggs & Stratton   Caterpillar   Cheney Bigelow Wire Works   Centrifugal Fusing   Chris-Craft   Clark Equipment Company   Cleaver-Brooks Company   Cleveland Tractor Company   Continental Motors   Cushman Motor Works   Crocker-Wheeler   Dail Steel Products   Detroit Wax Paper Company   Detrola   Engineering & Research Corporation   Farrand Optical Company   Federal Telephone and Radio Corp.   Firestone Tire and Rubber Company   Fruehauf Trailer Company   Fuller Manufacturing   Galvin Manufacturing   Gemmer Manufacturing Company   General Railway Signal Company   Gibson Guitar   Gibson Refrigerator Company   Goodyear   Hall-Scott   Hanson Clutch and Machinery Company   Harley-Davidson   Harris-Seybold-Potter   Herreshoff Manufacturing Company   Higgins Industries    Highway Trailer   Hill Diesel Company   Holland Hitch Company   Homelite Company   Horace E. Dodge Boat and Plane Corporation   Huffman Manufacturing   Indian Motorcycle   Ingersoll Steel and Disk   John Deere   Johnson Automatics Manufacturing Company   Kimberly-Clark   Kohler Company   Kold-Hold Company   Landers, Frary & Clark  Lima Locomotive Works   Lundberg Screw Products   MacKenzie Muffler Company   Massey-Harris   Matthews Company   McCord Radiator & Mfg. Company   Metal Mouldings Corporation   Miller Printing Machinery Company   Morse Instrument Company   Motor Products Corporation   Motor Wheel Corporation   National Cash Resgister Company   Novo Engine Company   O'Keefe & Merritt Company   Olofsson Tool and Die Company   Oneida Ltd   Otis Elevator   Owens Yacht   Pressed Steel Car Company   Queen City Manufacturing Company   R.G. LeTourneau   R.L. Drake Company   St. Clair Rubber Company   Samson United Corporation   Shakespeare Company   Sight Feed Generator Company   Simplex Manufacturing Company   Steel Products Engineering Company   St. Louis Car Company   Twin Disc Company   Victor Adding Machine Company   Vilter Manufacturing Company   Wells-Gardner   W.L. Maxson Corporation   W.W. Boes Company   Westfield Manufacturing Company   York-Hoover Body Company   Youngstown Steel Door Company  
   

Other Lansing Companies that contributed to winning World War Two
Duplex Truck Company in World War Two
Lansing, MI
1918-1955
1906-1909 as Dolson Auto Company in Charlotte, MI
1909-1918 as Duplex Power Car Company in Charlotte, MI
1918-1955 as Duplex Truck in Lansing, MI
1955-1975 as the Duplex Division of Warner-Swasey in Lansing, MI
1975-1985 - Fire apparatus as Nolan Company in Midvale, OH

This page added 4-5-2022.

The Duplex Truck Company was unknown to me until I began researching companies in my hometown of Lansing, MI and how they were able to help win World War Two.  The Duplex Truck Company history is very interesting because when it relocated to Lansing after being reorganized in 1918, it built a new factory on the southwest corner of South Washington Avenue and West Mt. Hope Avenue.  The company purchased 15 acres of what in 1918 was a Greenfield site in Lansing and planned to build an 800 by 60 foot factory and install $50,000 of equipment from its former Charlotte, MI factory.  Over 100 years later this factory, now a lot larger, is still there and has multiple tenants.  The story of Duplex in Lansing is more than just a story of the trucks it built, but how the factory on Mt. Hope Avenue has been intertwined with my life.


This World War Two-era photo of the former Duplex plant shows that has sections that parallel both Washington Ave. to the left in the photo and Mt. Hope Ave. to the right.  An article from the Lansing State Journal dated 9-14-1917 states that the 400 foot main building was nearly complete.  The article goes on to state that the foundation would begin to be laid for a 240 foot building to the south.  From the Sanborn map below, we can assume that the pink colored building which parallels Mt. Hope was the 400 foot main building, and the pink colored building that parallels Washington Ave. was originally 240 feet long.

The article further states that work was being expedited due to the demand for the Duplex truck and that the factory would be in operation within five months, which would be in December 2017, or early January 2018 at the latest.  It would employ 500 workers. The Charlotte plant was still open and building trucks while the new plant in Lansing was being built.


This 1951 Sanborn fire map shows the facility when the Motor Wheel Corporation was the owner.  As can be seen, there is a lot more to the facility than the originally planned 800 by 60 foot factory.  Since the plant opened in late 1917, there have been several other occupants of the complex.


The V-shaped buildings in pink are apparently the original buildings built by Duplex in 1917.  Sometimes the best laid plans go astray, as apparently the demand for Duplex trucks was not what the owners were anticipating nor hoped for this size factory.  It was announced on 11-23-1923 in the Lansing State Journal that Duplex sold this plant to the Reo Motor Car Company.  Duplex leased a smaller plant that better matched the demand for its trucks.  This was on Hazel Street in Lansing.


This is the former Duplex plant in 2011.  This is the section along Mt. Hope Ave.  Author's photo.

Reo purchased it from Duplex and utilized the facility until 1936, when it consolidated all of its production at its main plant.  The best I can tell, it remained empty until the Plant Defense Corporation purchased the facility from Reo in 1940.  Nash-Kelvinator used the plant for the production of 158,134 Hamilton-Standard propellers during World War Two.

It was not until I started researching the Duplex Truck Company that I determined it built the original plant at this location in 1917.  Previous to this, I had assumed that it had built it in the mid-1930s, then sold it to Reo.  It didn't make sense that Duplex would build such a large factory for the small number of trucks it was building.  It just turned out everything happened in the same sequence 20 years earlier.

I grew up a mile away and walked by this plant for three years going to junior high school, and then drove by it for five and a half years when I went to college.  When my mother took my sister and I to the A&P grocery store next to my junior high school, we had to drive by the plant.  My guard unit was half a mile southwest down South Washington Avenue from the factory.

However, it wasn't until 2010 that I became aware of this building's historical significance or my family's involvement with the plant.  While visiting my uncle in May 2010 in California, he mentioned that my grandfather had worked in the plant during World War Two as foreman in the propeller balancing department.  This came as a complete surprise to me, as I had no idea of this plant's contribution to the war effort, nor the fact that my grandfather had ever worked in the plant.  The location of the plant allowed him to walk to work and save valuable rationed gasoline during the war.

After World War Two, Motor Wheel purchased the plant and stayed in it until the late 1950s.  In 1959 Motor Wheel leased 80,000 square feet of floor space to the Clark Discount Department Store.  I remember when it opened as we went shopping there on occasion.  I actually remember purchasing some solder at the store I needed for a radio project I was building.  Clark lasted for a short time.  Since then, there have been numerous occupants of the building.  Due to its huge size, it has been sub-divided into smaller sections for companies that do not need 650,000 square feet.  One of the current occupants is the Quality Dairy, which recently moved there from its longtime location across the street from the former main Reo plant.


Don Barlup is the owner of this four-wheel drive 1917 Duplex dump truck, which may be the oldest still in existence.  Photo courtesy of Jeff Lakaszcyck.


Most likely this truck was built at the original Duplex factory in Charlotte, MI.  Photo courtesy of Jeff Lakaszcyck.


Photo courtesy of Warren Richardson. 


Photo courtesy of Warren Richardson. 


Photo courtesy of Warren Richardson. 

A 1951 Duplex Company history notes that Duplex was the first company to manufacture passenger busses on chassis designed specifically for that use.  Thirty-five buses were sold to Washington, D.C. and were the first busses the city had.  The history did not provide a date in the history when this transpired.


In 1928, Duplex sold eighteen of these 5-7-ton trucks to a Detroit, MI trucking company.

Table 1 shows the number of commercial trucks the company produced from 1936 through 1950.  The table may or may not include American military and foreign truck sales.

Table 1 - Duplex Truck Production - 1935 through 1950
Year Amount
1935 19
1936 30
1937 39
1938 85
1939 19
1940 10
1941 24
1942 9
1945 32
1946 164
1947 162
1948 142
1949 58
1950 7
Total 800


This 1936 photo shows five Duplex trucks serving with the U.S. Army carrying anti-aircraft searchlights.  These are the only known trucks Duplex built for the American military.  The U.S. Army was not the only military purchasing trucks like this.  Trucks like these were being sold to Japan.  Photo courtesy of Jeff Lakaszcyck.

According to an article in the Lansing State Journal dated January 1, 1931, Duplex had recently started selling searchlight and transport trucks for military applications to foreign governments.  Japan is described as a "liberal patron" of the Duplex company and its military department was using hundreds of Duplex trucks.

Another article in the Lansing State Journal dated February 16, 1932, indicated that Japan's then recent invasion of Manchuria did not yet appear to affect Duplex's truck sales to Japan.  The article also states that fleets of Duplex trucks had been supplied to their military for ten years.  One Japanese military unit was described as being equipped with Duplex searchlight trucks. 

A September 3, 1937, State Journal article noted that Japanese army and marine divisions had been a good customer of Duplex Truck Company for more than a decade.  It also noted that Japan was also purchasing Reo trucks.

There is no later information found in State Journal articles on how long sales of Duplex trucks continued to Japan.  The United States did not establish an oil and steel embargo until August 1, 1941, so Duplex could have been selling to the Japanese military until then.  There was also no other mention of what other foreign countries were purchasing Duplex trucks for military use.

It appears that the Japanese military was Duplex's best customer in the 1930s.  There is only one other reference to any other government entity noted in the State Journal articles purchasing a Duplex truck.  This was Lansing, MI purchasing a garbage truck from the company for $2,500.


Photo courtesy of Jeff Lakaszcyck.


Photo courtesy of Jeff Lakaszcyck.

Duplex Truck Company World War Two Production:  The company did not have any military contracts for trucks during the war.  As Table 2 shows, the company was contracted by both the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy for $5,909,000 worth of generator sets.  The table shows that the Army purchased 92% of the generator set volumes.  The table shows that the Army purchased PE127B and PU30 power units.  These are the only two types of power units identified in the contract descriptions.

Table 2 - Duplex Truck Company's Major World War Two Contracts
The information below comes from the "Alphabetical Listing of Major War Supply Contracts, June 1940 through September 1945."  This was published by the Civilian Production Administration, Industrial Statistics Division.
Product - Customer Contract Amount Contract Awarded Completion Date
Generator Sets - Army $135,000 3-1942 12-1942
Generator Sets - Army $130,000 3-1942 7-1942
Power Plant Parts - Army $50,000 7-1942 1-1943
Power Plant Parts - Army $156,000 2-1943 6-1944
Power Plant Parts - Army $110,000 2-1943 12-1943
Power Plant Parts - Army $80,000 4-1943 5-1944
Power Unit Parts - Army $95,000 4-1943 12-1943
Power Plant Parts - Army $225,000 4-1943 12-1943
Power Units - Army $75,000 8-1943 12-1943
Power Equipment - Army $352,000 12-1943 5-1944
Power Units PE127B - Army $132,000 12-1943 3-1944
Diesel Generator Sets - Navy $307,000 12-1943 12-1944
Diesel Power Units - Army $1,978,000 2-1944 9-1945
Diesel Generator Sets - Navy $142,000 3-1944 11-1944
Electric Generator Sets - Army $65,000 3-1944 10-1944
Power Units - Army $249,000 4-1944 2-1945
Power Units PU 30 - Army $279,000 7-1944 11-1944
Diesel Power Units - Army $1,427,000 10-1944 11-1945
Total $5,909,000    


The Army Signal Corps purchased $132,000 worth of PE-127-Bs from Duplex in late 1943 and early 1944.


The Army Signal Corps purchased $279,000 worth of PU-30/Fs from Duplex in 1944.


After World War Two, Duplex marketed generator sets for the civilian market with J.I. Case engines.


This is the former Duplex Truck plant at 830 East Hazel Street in Lansing, MI.  This is looking west from the area near Pennsylvania Avenue.  The 1951 Sanborn map below indicates the buildings shown in this and the following photo are the size of the plant during the World War Two era.  Currently, there are more buildings in the complex now owned by the Lansing Board of Water and Light, which uses this as its maintenance shop.  In the background are the smokestacks from the Board of Water and Light's Moores Park Power plant located in my old neighborhood.  The smokestacks can be seen from many locations in Lansing.  They have been there for as long as I can remember.  Author's photo.


Duplex was in an industrial area which in the era was the southeast part of town.  During World War Two John Bean was across the street and Dail Steel Products was not far to the north of Duplex.  Other factories were west of Duplex on the other side of Cedar Street.  Originally, Duplex leased this facility until it was able to purchase it in February 1938.  Author's photo.


Like many century old buildings still in use, the original brick and windows have been covered by sheet metal.  Author's photo.


This photo looks east down Hazel Street from Hosmer Street.  The original yellow brick can be plainly seen below the red sheet metal.  It was in this building that Duplex built trucks and generator sets.  Author's photo.


This Sanborn map shows the Duplex Truck Company in 1951.  The August 2, 1940 edition of the Lansing State Journal noted that Duplex had started construction on a $25,000 72 x 160 foot expansion on the south side of the property for storage and manufacturing if needed.  On June 13, 1941, another $25,000 expansion was made for anticipated war contracts.  From the Sanborn Map above, one of the additions might be the building in blue.  However, a second building is not shown in this map.  In 1951 there was 100,000 square feet of space in this factory for both truck and generator set production.  This was located on six acres. 


The Google Satellite image of the facility today. 


This 1953 Sanford map shows Duplex and the other buildings in the area.  While there are several other buildings on either side of the railroad tracks they are not within the fenced area designated as the Duplex property. 


This wider view of the Google Satellite image shows the complex today.  The railroad tracks have been removed. 

Duplex Truck Company after World War Two:  Table 1 shows the company, like all others in the United States after World War Two, had several good years of sales due to the pent up demand for trucks.  Then in 1950 it only sold 7 trucks.  However, these figures could be misleading in that the 1951 company history notes that it was producing special motor trucks and undercarriages for special use by other companies.  These included Gradall Company, Howe Fire Apparatus Company, and Hanson Clutch and Machinery Company.  The history noted Duplex was producing ten units per week with 100 workers on one shift.  The company was also producing generator sets for Bell Telephone, Western Electric, and the Civil Aeronautics Commission. 


The Air Force purchased a quantity of the Duplex-Howe fire trucks after World War Two.  Photo courtesy of Warren Richardson. 

In 1955 Duplex merged with the Warner and Swasey Company of Cleveland, OH and became the Duplex Division of Warner and Swasey.


Over the course of its 67 year the company had provided many trucks for state and municipal snow removal.  This Duplex Division of Warner and Swasey Company's D-3900 was the final version the company produced for this application before going out of business.  Photo courtesy of Warren Richardson. 


The company's technology and styling had come a long way from this circa 1938 Michigan State Highway Department snowplow.  Photo courtesy of Jeff Lakaszcyck.
 

 

 

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