October 2023
For our October 2023 meeting we were very pleased to welcome Peter Dyer from Southport who gave us a most interesting presentation titled ‘DUKW’s to Water’. He told us that around the late 1990s the last of the red and cream D.U.K.W. Sefton Rescue vehicles was decommissioned. The six-wheel-drive amphibious trucks, used by the Sefton Lifeguards from 1951-1998, were originally designed by the American General Motors Corporation during World War Two to transport goods and troops over land and water. Commonly known as ‘ducks’, the name D.U.K.W. refers to a manufacturer’s code. ‘D’ indicates the model year as 1942, ‘U’ refers to the utility (amphibious) body style, ‘K’ for all-wheel drive, and ‘W’ for dual rear axles. The veteran vehicles dutifully patrolled the beaches of Southport, Ainsdale and Birkdale for five decades. Their crews of Lifeguards and Sea Rangers were guardians of the dangerous beaches and seas of the Sefton coast. The rescue service never lost a victim, never lost a crew member, and though very closes at times, never lost a D.U.K.W. Wanting to show his appreciation of the D.U.K.W. Sefton Rescue Service, Peter wrote a book in 2020 to share their incredible story using archive images and material directly drawn from the experiences of the heroic crews. Thank you Peter for a most interesting evening. After the interval Dave Crolley showed us a DVD about the breaking up of HMS INTREPID at Liverpool in 2008 which was most interesting.