Digging Up the Past
Peterson During World War II
Pearl Harbor Day came just as Peterson was gearing up to move into its second brand new headquarters facility on A Street in Hayward. As the war escalated, Peterson did everything it could to help the war effort and stay afloat. “Since 85% of Cat’s equipment went to the war effort, we couldn’t get any more tractors so we converted to building special equipment for the war,” recalls founder Howard Peterson. “We built a couple giant rubber-tired compact rollers for the Army Corp of Engineers they used to build airports and landing strips out on the islands of the South Pacific.”
The Army Corp of Engineers and the Navy also ordered carloads of spare parts for their equipment overseas. “We would make up recommended parts lists for their fleets and pack the parts into giant wooden crates,” recalls Bud Evans – retired VP of Product Support (1982). “We’d take them down to the docks for shipment and never knew where the stuff landed but we sure did ship out a lot of parts during that time.” Peterson also shipped many LeTourneau rubber-tired pull scrapers that eventually ended up in the islands where the SeaBees pulled them behind CAT D7s and D8s.
Peterson’s Brentwood service manager, Leo Pilati, recalled one local tragedy that just missed him. “During the war I worked as a mechanic for Peterson out on a job at Port Chicago near Concord. One day, I worked all night until 4 a.m. on a crane powered by a Caterpillar engine. The next day, the whole ammunitions dump there blew up. Several people were killed and the crane and ship I was working on just disappeared, blown to bits. It was a terrible accident.” On the home front, Peterson joined the nationwide effort to conserve resources and help out in any way possible. Company contributions included donating a station wagon to the Red Cross in Hayward, U.S.O. support, war bonds and scrap metal drives.
Once the war was over, Howard invested in a shipment of army surplus machines with another dealer in Oakland, to feed the post-war construction frenzy. To obtain the equipment, he had to go get it. In the South Pacific. “There were 160 pieces in all,” recalls Howard. “All of them were either brand new or just barely used. The government gave us $2,000 a piece.” Howard and his partner contracted a ship for $1,000 a day to go retrieve the fleet. “When the ship docked, we split them up by taking every other tractor as it was lifted off - one for him, one for me, one for him, one for me … we each got 80 machines.” Since the general trade was hungry for equipment, they could name their price, and get it, for their war surplus booty.
Related Stories:
Caterpillar During WWII |
Peterson giant custom rubber-tired compact rollers
shipped to the South Pacific
Howard Peterson (L) donated a station wagon
to the Red Cross for use in the war effort
Howard Peterson (L) attends fund-raising
function with government officials |
