On the road
Friday, August 29, 2014
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Hogwash September 2014
Harley-Davidson has a long and storied history with the U.S.
military. When America declared war on the Central Powers in WWI, the
government went to Harley-Davidson and Indian companies to produce motorcycles
for the war effort. By November 1, 1918 a total of 12,376 Harley-Davidson’s had
been delivered and 14,054 Indian bikes were built and delivered to the
military. In total, 20,007 motorcycles of the two manufacturers were shipped
overseas by the end of the war. Other sources say that Harley-Davidson had
supplied 18,018 motorcycles to the U.S. Army as well as 16,804 sidecars. During
the years 1917-18 when the U.S. was involved in the war, fully half of
Harley-Davidson’s output went to the military. Unfortunately, as usually
happens during wartime, after the signing of the armistice, most of the
motorcycles stayed in Europe, it just wasn’t cost effective to ship them back
to the United States.
Fast forward to World War II. Before the advent of the ubiquitous
Jeep, the design of which did not start until mid-1940, the U.S. Army envisioned
that motorcycles would be widely used in convoy escort, reconnaissance and dispatch
rider duties. Although the Jeep changed all this, the U.S. government still
purchased thousands of motorcycles from Harley-Davidson and Indian during the
war years of 1941-45. Best known of these of course was the famous 1942
Harley-Davidson WLA.
Before the U.S. became embroiled in the war several
reputable histories also state that Harley and Indian supplied motorcycles to
the British under the “Lend-Lease” act. There is evidence that Indian supplied
the British military with 5,760 machines of various types, but that
Harley-Davidson supplied just a handful during the same period. Other writers
insist that Harley supplied many more bikes than is officially recorded.
Harley-Davidson built more than 80,000 WLA’s and other
models during the war years. A model WLC was produced for the Canadian
military. The WLA was a real workhorse that was considered rugged and extremely
reliable. The WLA had a 737cc (45cu.in) engine which despite poor acceleration,
was capable of 65M.P.H. which was good considering that the bike weighed in at
600 pounds without any equipment. Plenty of torque was available however since
speed was not the number one priority and the engine was able to push the bike
through rough terrain. The WLA was not an off road machine however since there
was only 4 inches of ground clearance necessitating a skid plate attached to
the bottom of the frame.
The U.S. Army received the majority of the bikes, with the
U.S. Navy and Marine Corps also receiving their fair share. Other models
produced by Harley-Davidson during the war was the XA, a shaft drive bike
modeled after the German Wehrmacht BMW which the military wanted to use in the
sands of North Africa. But by the time the machine was put into production, the
war in North Africa was winding down, so only 1,011 of the now highly
collectable machines were built.
By February, 1942 civilian production of Harley-Davidson motorcycles
ceased and by August, 1942 production stood at 750 units per week, all intended
for the military or to a smaller extent, police departments in the U.S.
During the war years 1941-45, Harley-Davidson Motor Company
received the coveted Army-Navy “E” award for excellent service to the war
effort, specifically for the years 1943 and 1945. By the time the war ended, Harley
had supplied 88,000 of all types. Official U.S. government figures claim that
fully two-thirds of these motorcycles were “Lend-Lease” and sent to Allied
nations overseas, including Australia, India, and China but mostly to Russia,
which some historians claim received over 30,000 machines from Harley. Russia
is still the go to place for collectors of WLA bikes that still reside in
basements and barns. Other WLA’s are being discovered in far off places such as
islands in the South Pacific.
Military production ceased in early 1945 and it’s always been
rumored that the U.S. government failed to honor its commitment for the cost of
spare parts, and that outstanding contracts for 15,000 machines were cancelled.
After the war, the military unloaded most of the WLA’s that
they had in their inventory. Large numbers of WLA’s were made available to the
civilian market on both sides of the Atlantic, sometimes in brand new
condition. Huge numbers were disposed in this way after 1945. Although some
were transferred to the military in Allied nations trying to rebuild after the
war. These nations included France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Indeed,
Belgium is the second go to place for collectors of WLA’s after Russia.
One other somewhat sad note. After the war, there were
Army-Navy stores that sprung up all over the country. There were millions of surplus
items left over by the military and were then sold to civilians. Included in
this were WLA’s.
The military sold these bikes to these stores cheap but the
only stipulation was that the machines could not remain the color olive-drab.
This writer has read stories of Army-Navy store owners receiving the bikes, and
hiring say a 15 year old kid to spray the bikes before they were put up for
sale. I’ve seen pictures of ex- military riders riding WLA’s with their
families after the war. It was cheap transportation. The color of the bike was
usually a red primer. But not only was the tank and fenders sprayed this red
color, but also the engine, tires, wheels, you name it.
Today WLA’s and of course XA’s are highly collectable, there
are always the bike-in-a-barn stories. Who knows what that barn on the side of
the road is hiding?
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Monday, August 11, 2014
September 2014 Dallas Police Shield
On October 11, 1977 the Dallas Morning News had an article
about the consolidation of the Dallas city jail and the Dallas county jail.
County Commissioner Jim Jackson was against the merger and said in an interview
that “It’s the wrong thing to do it. It could get us into a box.”
Then Sheriff Carl Thomas and Dallas Police Chief Don Bird however
were already in agreement that the project should go through. There was to be a
trial period of consolidation beginning November 1, 1977. On that date Dallas
police will begin bringing directly to the county jail persons arrested for
warrants from the DSO and for all out-of-county and out-of-state warrants.
The second step comes on January 5, 1978 when the county
jail begins accepting suspects arrested by Dallas police. The only exception
will be those held for additional investigation.
The concern among some county commissioners was that there
was the possibility of a space shortage in the county jail. Sherriff’s
department officials tried to put the commissioner’s fears at ease by saying
that the agreement with the DPD could be suspended at any time.
I was trying to remember a time when as a young patrol
officer we would take prisoners to the old county jail. This was before Lew
Sterritt was built. What I seem to remember is that when we had a prisoner that
would qualify as being able to be taken to the county, we would have to ask, or
the dispatcher would occasionally during the night say “The County jail is open,
or the County Jail was closed.” I seem to also remember that it was closed most
of the time, which was okay to us I seem to remember. For some reason we didn’t
want to go THEIR jail, or something like that.
It’s hard for officers to believe, but at one time not all
patrol officers would hit the streets without a radio or as we called them a
“Handy talkie.” I remember being at the old barn that was used as Central
Divisions headquarters. As a young rookie, I never had the chance to carry one
of the radios, there was not enough to go around. I’m sure that I waited for
the trainers and more experienced officers to grab a radio, which were really
big, like a brick, and if there was one left over (which there never was) I
would grab one.
It was a dangerous situation that almost any officer now
would cringe to not have that safety net connected to his or her Sam Browne.
The Dallas City council however approved $116,000 to buy 220 4-watt radios
instead of the 1-watt radios currently being issued. The purchase would allow
almost every squad in the city to have a portable radio and the transmitting
range would be significantly improved.
In the year 1977 Chief Don Byrd had set a series of goals
for the department to meet and a few already had been accomplished. For
instance the department tried to keep the number of police traffic accidents to
20 per million miles driven. Through the first nine months of 1977 the figure
stood at 15.61 per million.
Chief Byrd wanted to also hold to 500 days the amount of
time lost to police personnel injured in accidents; so far it was 302 man-days
have been lost. Through the first nine months of 1977 the number of the (all
important) preventable accidents stood at 34.9%, just below the goal of 35%.
On November 27th there was an anti-brutality rally put on by
several minority and poverty activist groups in downtown Dallas. The rally was
put on ‘to honor the memory of police brutality victims.”
Organizers said it would also be a memorial to 12-year old
Santo Rodriguez who was shot to death in 1973 while sitting in the back seat of
a patrol car while being questioned about a burglary.
Police officials in Dallas were concerned because a few days
after the death of Rodriquez, there was a massive riot in downtown Dallas where
windows were broken out in downtown businesses and a police motorcycle was
burned. Organizers of this rally expected the march to be peaceful.
Juan Perez of the Brown Berets had said earlier that there
had been two or three marches since the 1973 slaying and that had been all
peaceful.
Perez went on to say that “The police department has taken
care of the marches and has done a good job. With the cooperation of the police
and ourselves, we will have a peaceful march.
As Perez had predicted, the march which another organizer
Joe Landin said would be “solemn” went off without a hitch.
In other news on November 10, 1977 an article reported that
the suspect in Dallas police officer Donald Tucker’s death, Doyle Glenn
Boulware was sentenced to die Wednesday in criminal district court. His
attorney however said that he planned another appeal to have the sentence set
aside. Boulware, 48, was sentenced by Judge John Mead of Criminal District
Court No. 4 to die December 19,1977 by lethal injection in Huntsville. He had
been scheduled to be executed on December 27, 1976 but that was stayed pending
an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on constitutional grounds.
Boulware was found guilty of killing Officer Tucker in 1973 after
18 years of service by shooting the officer in the head with a .357 magnum
pistol when Tucker answered a disturbance call at the home of Boulware’s
ex-wife.
The new attorney Tom McCorkle said that he would ask the
state appeals court to stay the second execution on the grounds that the new
state law requiring execution by injection is not valid because it does not
specify the substance to be contained in the injection.
Boulware had been in and out of jail all his life and had previously
served prison terms in three different penal institutions. He had been released
in 1970 after serving seven of an eighteen-year sentence for armed robbery.
This bad seed and generally a menace to society had the
advantage of a bunch of lawyers who wanted to make a name for themselves during
the turmoil following the ruling on August 29, 1977 that lethal injection would
replace the electric chair as this state’s method of execution.
Unfortunately the death sentence was later commuted to life
imprisonment for the killing of Officer Tucker.
I’m not sure whatever happened to the killer Boulware. But since
he was judged here and he skated the death penalty on technicalities to spend
the rest of his life on the public dole, hopefully he was judged in the
hereafter more harshly.
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Monday, August 4, 2014
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