Written By: CSM James Clifford, USA-Ret
In 1925, the Army made a significant decision to begin manufacturing its own firefighting apparatus at the Holabird Quartermaster Depot in Baltimore, Maryland. From the development of motorized transportation until 1925, the Army purchased a variety of fire engines manufactured by a combination of national companies like Ahrens-Fox, Seagrave, American-LaFrance, and local businesses. Two factors created the conditions leading the Army to the 1925 decision: the unreliable availability of spare parts, and the excess inventory of truck chassis remaining from World War I.
World War I accelerated America’s transition from horses to motorized transportation. The U.S. Army Transportation Museum website (http://www.transchool.eustis.army.mil/Museum/LIBTrucks.htm) lists forty-six truck manufacturers that contributed to the development of Army trucks during the war, resulting in the production of 118,000 trucks for the military. Of these, only 51,554 were shipped overseas. The most famous of these trucks was the “Liberty” Truck. The Liberty Class B, also known as the Standard B, was a three ton, 4×2 workhorse propelled by a 425 cubic inch, four-cylinder, fifty-two horsepower engine. Its manual transmission had four forward and one reverse gear. With a governor restricted engine, it made fourteen miles per hour on flat, paved roads, but it could reportedly hit up to seventy miles per hour in neutral going downhill. The truck was extremely reliable and liked by most operators.
By 1925, due to the Army drawdown, there were thousands of Liberty trucks sitting idle at Holabird. Turning these into fire engines saved money and introduced standardization to fire stations throughout the Army. The addition of running boards, fenders, pumps, hose bodies, and miscellaneous firefighting tools transformed a Standard B Liberty Truck into the Class BF Fire Pumper.
Unfortunately, information about Army fire trucks is sparse. Consolidated records, if there ever were any, have been lost. Years of research conducted by former Army firefighters and historians Ted Heinbuch and Jimmie Van has uncovered documents scattered in multiple archives and collections. They also received information from owners and fire departments about individual pieces still in existence.
What they have discovered is chronicled on their website, Fire Trucks at War (http://www.firetrucks-atwar.com/). The total number of Class BF Fire Pumpers produced at Holabird is not known, but they have documented at least fifty manufactured there between 1925 and 1931. In 1931, Holabird workers began producing an upgraded version of the Class BF. Known as the Class BF 510, this truck sported contoured fenders, pneumatic tires, and dual rear wheels. The six-cylinder engine produced 105 horsepower and the truck had the capacity to carry more firefighting equipment including fifty feet of one-inch hose and a 150 gallon water tank.
The 510 was followed by the last version based on the Liberty Truck chassis. The Class BF 750 had a much increased capacity, including a 150 gallon water tank, 800 feet of 2 ½ inch and 150 feet of one-inch hose, and a 750 gallon per minute water pump. At least two hundred total 510s and 750s were manufactured between 1931 and 1941. Like the Liberty Truck itself, the BF, BF 510, and BF 750 had open cabs and lacked windshields. In addition to the pumpers described above, the workers at Holabird produced a specialized vehicle known as the Class 100 Crash Truck.
In an interview given in 1931, COL Edgar Stayer, Quartermaster Corps, described the purpose of crash trucks as thus: “The crash truck will be assigned to flying fields and used in conjunction with the field’s ambulance, both being on the field and fully manned when flying is going on.” The first crash trucks were built in 1932 on a 1½ ton truck with a seventy-three horsepower engine. They had a small pump and a 100 gallon water tank. Cans of foam were carried on top of the trucks and a mixing device was attached to the running boards.
The first two of these trucks were produced with the designations W-503 and W-504 and went to Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, and Randolph Army Airfield, Texas, respectively. They had windshields installed on the open cabs. Fifty Holabird Class 100 Crash Trucks have been documented.
Later crash trucks were bigger, faster, carried the latest in rescue equipment, and had the capacity to put more foam on petroleum fires.
These improved versions, mounted on Chevrolet 4×4 military chassis, were designated Class 110 rigs. At least 200 of these rigs saw service throughout the Army. All of the vehicles manufactured at Holabird, the BF, BF 510, BF 750, and Class 100 Crash Truck, carried identification plates and markings that clearly indicate their origin at Holabird. Some of these markings are stamped into the frames and engines of the vehicles. These markings are used today to determine when the old pieces were manufactured and where they served.
The manufacture of fire trucks at Holabird ended by 1942. This seventeen-year period is unique as the Army used its own resources to produce a series of specialized equipment. This effort was not duplicated by the Navy and Marine Corps as these services continued to procure fire trucks from commercial sources. World War II Army expansion and establishment of installations worldwide outstripped Holabird’s ability to keep up with the need for firefighting apparatus. Just before the 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, firefighting responsibility shifted from the Quartermaster Corps to the Corps of Engineers. The Engineers quickly marshaled the American fire truck industry to produce over 8,500 fire trucks of all types for the military. This aspect of the war effort was as important as the manufacture of any other tool of war, but it brought to an end a short, little known, but critically important era of U.S. Army history.
