World War 2 Begins - Freedom Magazine Presents The History of Clearwater Florida Part IX

The Roebling Alligator

A major contribution to the war effort came from a prominent Clearwater citizen. As described in Michael Sanders’ Clearwater, A Pictorial History, after the 1926 hurricane left hundreds stranded and some dead in the Everglades, Donald Roebling of Harbor Oaks—whose grandfather, Washington A. Roebling, built the Brooklyn Bridge—began work on the “Roebling Alligator.”

Designed as an amphibious rescue vehicle, the onset of war saw the Roebling Alligator converted to an amphibious tank that could travel easily over both water and land. With a land speed in excess of 25 miles per hour, Alligators took many visiting dignitaries and local Boy Scouts and Sea Scouts through nearby waters and mangrove swamps.

This amphibious tank, manufactured in Lakeland, would later be credited with helping to win the war in the Pacific. The U.S. Navy awarded Roebling a Certificate of Achievement for “exceptional accomplishment on behalf of the United States Navy and of meritorious contribution to the National War effort.”

In 1948, President Harry S Truman gave Roebling the Medal of Merit “for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service to the United States.... Mr. Roebling conceived, developed, and perfected an amphibian vehicle capable of traversing both land and water, presented it to the government of the United States and released it for manufacture without compensation.”