(first posted 6/6/2014) The 75th anniversary of D-Day is as good a day as any to take a look at an increasingly common but widely misunderstood classic vehicle of the Second World War: the Harley-Davidson WLA, the main motorcycle used by the U.S. armed forces and also numerous other Allied armies.
Hailed by its manufacturer and enthusiasts for being the American motorcycle industry’s main contribution to the war effort, the WLA was seldom seen in the United States for many years but has experienced a renaissance as re-imports from Europe have increased its presence in its home country. At the same time, knowledge of its real wartime story has been almost nonexistent, as there have been few attempts to learn more about its U.S. military role aside from myths and generalizations, and its usage by other Allied armies has been almost completely ignored. This article will try to fill that gap, by presenting a brief summary of what will be presented in an upcoming book from Schiffer Publishing, titled Legends of Warfare: Harley-Davidson WLA.
The WLA – whose name under Harley-Davidson’s arcane designation system stands for WL series, Army model – was a military version of Harley-Davidson’s Forty-Five, a midsize 45 cubic inch (750cc) motorcycle first introduced in 1929 (the 1929 Model DL is shown above). It was a typical American motorcycle of its era, with a side valve engine, “springer” front suspension without any hydraulic damping, and no rear suspension. It was Harley-Davidson’s budget model, smaller and slower than its “big twin” full size motorcycles with 74 cubic inch side valve engines, and retaining a side valve layout after the introduction of the overhead valve 61 cubic inch “Knucklehead” engine in 1936. It major development during the 1930s was the introduction of a recirculating oiling system in 1937, replacing the total loss system used earlier and significantly improving engine lubrication, cooling, and durability. A further improvement was the introduction in 1939 of aluminum cylinder heads in some models, which further improved cooling. By the outbreak of World War II, the WL was a thoroughly debugged design, with all major reliability issues addressed during a decade of development.
Much like the men who would eventually ride them to war, the WLA was a humble product of the Great Depression. The Forty-Five series was sold during hard economic times mostly as an inexpensive basic transportation and utility vehicle. Its longest-lived model was the Servi-Car, sold from 1932 to 1974, a three wheeled utility vehicle initially marketed as a cheap means for car dealers or repair shops to pick up and deliver cars, with a vehicle that the driver could ride one way and tow behind the car. It became popular in that role, and others calling for a smaller vehicle than a car: delivery vehicle for small items, urban parking meter attendant transport, self-propelled street vendor cart. One surviving photograph shows this future military vehicle in service as a sidewalk ice cream stand.
The WLA emerged after a 1939 request by the Army for a motorcycle better suited for military use than the standard civilian models that it had acquired during the 1920s and 1930s. The WLA prototypes, with increased ground clearance, a skid plate, and an engine with the newly introduced aluminum heads, extra-low 5.0:1 compression ratio, and an air cleaner designed for severely dusty conditions, competed against machines from Indian and the Delco division of General Motors, which entered the motorcycle competition with a copy of a BMW with horizontally opposed engine, enclosed shaft drive, and telescopic front fork with hydraulic damping. The Army recognized the advantages of the superior engine cooling, dirt- and mud-resistant final drive system, and smoother ride of the BMW/Delco design, and it had Harley-Davidson and Indian create experimental models with these features. Harley-Davidson purchased a BMW R71 and copied its major features in the Model XA, while Indian came up with the unique Model 841 with a transverse 90 degree V-twin engine.
The Army cancelled the XA (shown) and 841 projects and adopted the WLA as its standard motorcycle because in 1941 a new vehicle had entered service and taken over most motorcycle roles: the Jeep. The superior utility and off-road mobility of the ¼ ton, 4×4 Jeep made it better for almost every role previously envisioned for motorcycles. As a result, the Army drastically reduced its motorcycle acquisition plans and chose the WLA, which was an old and less than ideal design, but had the important virtues of having proven, reliable mechanicals and a factory already set up to mass produce it. From 1940 to 1945, the U.S. armed forces acquired 23,403 WLAs, making it by far the most numerous U.S. military motorcycle, outnumbering by almost 4 to 1 the fewer than 1,000 Harley-Davidson “big twins” and approximately 5,500 Indians of various models acquired during the war. For comparison, Ford and Willys-Overland produced over 640,000 Jeeps from 1941 to 1945.
The WLA differed greatly from the British motorcycles that equipped the armies of the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other Allied nations. The typical British military motorcycle was a 350cc to 500cc single cylinder machine weighing approximately 400 pounds, far smaller and lighter than the 750cc, 540 pound (empty) WLA. They had better ground clearance and off-road mobility and were faster as well, with four speed foot shift transmissions instead of the WLA’s three speed hand shift. On the other hand, the WLA had greater capacity to carry a fully equipped soldier, his gear, and supplies, and it had superior comfort that allowed the rider to arrive less fatigued and more ready for action.
The WLA also was in sharp contrast to German military motorcycles. The German armed services used motorcycles extensively throughout their force structures, and after buying numerous commercial models during its rapid rearmament during the 1930s, the Wehrmacht had BMW and Zundapp develop purpose-built military machines, capable of carrying three fully equipped soldiers in adverse off-road conditions. The resulting BMW R75 (shown) and Zundapp KS750 were each an engineering tour de force, with systems never before used on a motorcycle: four speed plus reverse transmission with high and low range gearing, giving eight forward and two reverse gears; powered sidecar wheel with a locking differential for low traction situations; and three wheel brakes with hydraulic power assistance, necessary to stop these massive machines that weighed 925 pounds with their sidecars.
Full scale production of both models began in 1941, although Germany already had an equivalent to the Jeep, the Volkswagen-based Kubelwagen, which was easier and cheaper to produce than the R75 and KS750 and far more useful. Germany produced only 18,000 of each motorcycle model and 50,450 Kubelwagens, with investment in multiple motorcycle designs of unsurpassed cost and complexity a factor in the Wehrmacht’s crippling shortage of vehicles.
The WLA had neither the speed and maneuverability of Britain’s motorcycles nor the off road capability of Germany’s, but it was completely adequate for the uses that the U.S. armed forces had for it. The Army’s use of motorcycles dated back to the First World War, when it used several in the expedition against Pancho Villa in 1916 and acquired over 20,000 Harley-Davidsons and Indians for the American Expeditionary Force. The Army issued them to messengers, military police engaged in traffic control, and for general purpose transportation. These uses continued in the 1920s and 1930s. This photograph shows a motorcycle and sidecar combination leading a Coast Artillery unit vehicle convoy through Richmond, Virginia in 1930.
The Army gave serious consideration to using motorcycles on a large scale as reconnaissance vehicles in the mechanized cavalry, and it experimented with the idea and abandoned it in a series of trials in 1940-41. Army field tests reached the unsurprising conclusion that their motorcycles were extremely vulnerable on the battlefield and performed poorly off road, being especially useless in snow. Jeeps and armored cars took the place of motorcycles as scout vehicles by the time that the U.S. entered World War II.
These Army field trials were highly photogenic, and from the war years to today, photographs of these stateside exercises have been the standard images of the WLA during the war. In reality, they were completely unrepresentative of actual use of the WLA by the U.S. military. Instead of flying across battlefields with glamorous Thompson submachine guns in the scabbards attached to their front wheels, WLAs mostly plodded along roads in the rear, with the ordinary M1 Garand rifles or M1 Carbines of infantry and support troops sitting mostly unused in their holders.
Overshadowed by the Jeep and other vehicles in a mechanized war that demanded massive firepower and massive logistical support, the WLA almost disappeared from Army and Marine Corps plans. In 1943, the Army dropped motorcycles from the official organization tables of its mechanized cavalry units, armored divisions, and infantry divisions, and the Marine Corps eliminated them from its divisions as well in 1944. Even most military police units ceased to have them as part of their authorized equipment from 1943 onward. Many units continued to find motorcycles useful and retained them until the end of the war, though, mostly in the roles that dated back to World War I.
Military police were especially significant users of the WLA. Motorcycles were highly useful to military police, who needed their ability to move through traffic jams and had less need to carry heavy loads of weapons and ammunition. Records and photographs indicate that military police units routinely had far more than the number of motorcycles authorized on paper. This photo taken in front of the Colosseum in Rome in 1944 shows a military police company, which was officially authorized six motorcycles in 1942 and was supposed to have replaced them with Jeeps after 1943.
Dispatch riders also continued to use motorcycles in significant numbers, long after their official elimination, for the same reasons as military police. This frequently published photo shows Private Robert Vance, a dispatch rider in the 2nd Armored Division, in July 1944, during the breakout from Normandy at Saint-Lo. Rarely mentioned along with the photograph is that Vance had shortly earlier been caught in an artillery barrage and trapped in a ditch for 45 minutes before he could complete his mission. He was most likely not making a dramatic Marlboro Man-like pose; he was probably genuinely tired and not particularly happy about a cameraman bothering him for a photo.
The sole exceptions in the U.S. armed forces in using more motorcycles as the war progressed were the airborne divisions. With Jeeps and other vehicles impossible to air-drop in large numbers, two wheeled vehicles of various types, delivered by glider, were widely used in airborne units. They first used bicycles, along with a few motorcycles in each division’s military police platoon, then added over 200 Cushman motor scooters and Simplex Servicycle motorized bicycles in 1944, finally adding 12 motorcycles to the division scout platoon in 1945. This photo shows 101st Airborne Division troops disembarking from a glider during a training exercise in England in May 1944, just prior to D-Day.
Some WLAs ended up in more interesting situations than most. Colonel (then Lieutenant Colonel) William O. Darby, founder of the modern U.S. Army Rangers during the Second World War, rode this WLA in Algeria during Operation Torch in November 1942, during his 1st Ranger Battalion’s first action. Another WLA was the ride of a private named James Carroll when he unwittingly became a local and national hero in Belgium, invited annually to return as an honored guest of Belgian royalty and other dignitaries and ordinary people.
The U.S. military’s use of the WLA was only a fraction of its wartime story, though. Harley-Davidson produced a total of 57,565 WLAs during the war, of which 34,162 – almost 60 percent – were exported under Lend-Lease and other military assistance programs. Australia received 4,200 WLAs; the Free French (shown, preparing to embark for Normandy in July 1944), 589; Brazil, 430; and Nationalist China, 1,000. Moreover, Canada received 18,020 of a similar model designated the WLC, with the C standing for Canada, with a foot shift/hand clutch and other modifications requested by the Canadian Army. The U.K. received some WLCs along with over 8,000 Indians, a small part of the over 425,000 military motorcycles that it acquired during the war. South Africa also ordered its own model, a version of the iron cylinder head WL that the WLA had been based on, purchasing 2,350 directly from Harley-Davidson.
The largest user of the WLA by far was the Soviet Union, which received 27,100, more than the U.S. armed services. The Soviet Union received them as part of the vast stream of military equipment and supplies sent by the United States under Lend-Lease, which included 14,203 aircraft, 6,196 tanks, 4,158 other armored vehicles, 43,728 Jeeps, 3,510 amphibious Jeeps, 363,080 trucks, 11,075 railroad cars, 380,000 field telephones, 4 million tons of metals, and 5 million tons of food. These WLAs equipped entire motorcycle battalions in the Red Army, whose tank forces used a motorcycle battalion as the main reconnaissance unit in each tank and mechanized infantry corps. There were at least 50 of these motorcycle battalions, each with approximately 600 men.
Before the war, the Red Army had developed its own military motorcycle, the M72, a direct copy of the BMW R71 that had also been the basis for the Harley-Davidson XA. It was a sidecar equipped machine intended to carry three scouts across the battlefield. The German invasion forced the main motorcycle factory in Moscow to relocate to the Ural Mountains (it became the Ural motorcycle company of today), and wartime M72 production was only 9,799. The WLA with a Soviet-made sidecar and passenger seat took its place as the Red Army’s main motorcycle, supplemented by 5,100 Indians and some British motorcycles, primarily BSAs and Velocettes. The Red Army held the WLA in high regard, finding it highly reliable in harsh wartime conditions, comfortable for three fully equipped soldiers to ride across long distances, and tolerant of the lowest octane, lowest quality gasoline thanks to its low 5.0:1 compression ratio.
The motorcycle battalions evolved by late 1943 into powerful combined arms units, riding mostly American-made vehicles. At first lightly armed with only infantry weapons – submachine guns, rifles, machine guns, and mortars – in November 1943 they reorganized and reequipped following a new format, with a tank company of 10 medium tanks; two motorcycle companies with 74 men and 21 motorcycles each, armed entirely with automatic weapons; a rifle company with 10 armored personnel carriers; an antitank artillery battery; and a mortar platoon. All of the vehicles, other than the medium tanks, were exactly the same vehicles used in the U.S. Army’s mechanized cavalry in 1940-43: the WLA, Jeeps, M3 halftracks and M3A1 scout cars as armored personnel carriers and artillery tow vehicles, and 57mm antitank guns mounted on M3 halftracks, shown in the background of this photo of a motorcycle battalion advancing in Romania in August 1944.
These motorcycle battalions led the Red Army’s armored spearheads in each breakthrough during the major offensives of 1944-45, racing ahead of the main tank units with the mobility, firepower and armor to scout deep behind enemy lines and seize critical objectives. They did it all the way to Berlin, where motorcycle battalions led each arm of the pincer movement that surrounded the city and the drive into the city itself.
After the war ended, the Red Army set aside its WLAs, replacing them with the BMW-based M72 that it had intended to adopt in 1941. Here, in a ceremony commemorating the end of the war, soldiers of a Red Army motorcycle battalion stand apart from the WLAs that had carried them across Europe. Many of these military surplus vehicles ended up in civilian use.
The U.S. military kept small numbers of WLAs after the war, for use by military police. Here, military policemen of the 82nd Airborne Division are patrolling the American occupation sector of Berlin in May 1945, less than a month after the fall of the city to the Red Army.
Most of the WLAs that the U.S. Army acquired and sent to Europe during the war ended up in vast dumps of discarded U.S. military equipment, however, where enormous quantities of often worn out but sometimes new vehicles, aircraft, and other equipment were destroyed in place, instead of being shipped back to the U.S. This photo shows WLAs in one small part of a huge vehicle dump at Mourmelon-le-Grand, France, near Reims, in February 1946. Some WLAs and also discarded Canadian Army WLCs ended up in the rebuilt armies of countries in postwar Europe, Greece being an especially large user. Many were rescued from destruction by civilians in France, Belgium, Holland, and other countries, in desperate need of vehicles after six years of wartime deprivation. These discarded military motorcycles helped to get many people in Europe mobile again after the war.
The large numbers of WLAs saved in Europe led to the unusual situation that the WLA became a Harley-Davidson model probably more common in Europe than in the United States. Some WLAs stayed on stateside duty, and the Army sold many domestically as military surplus even before the war ended (8,100 in 1944). Most went overseas and stayed there, though. Those in the U.S. may have had a lower survival rate as well, being cheap military surplus in a market filled with new civilian vehicles, and liable to be chopped and customized. As a result, restoring and collecting the WLA has been a heavily European hobby. The widely used nickname “Liberator” apparently originated in Belgium among enthusiasts remembering the WLAs used by American forces that liberated them from Nazi occupation, not from a U.S. military name or any other American source.
WLAs are currently arriving in the United States from Russia and other former Soviet and Warsaw Pact countries in Eastern Europe, where many of the over 27,000 WLAs sent to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease have remained in civilian use or in storage. This cache of WLAs, each equipped with the rear passenger seat added by the Red Army, was found in Russia in the early 1990s. These former Red Army WLAs are becoming the main source of restored or restoration project bikes in the U.S., most of which end up with U.S. military markings painted on them and reproduction U.S. military parts, including dummy Thompson submachine guns that were practically never used by U.S. military motorcyclists except in prewar field trials.
The WLA is a motorcycle with a definite mystique because of its wartime role. Restored examples are always a popular sight at motorcycle and military equipment shows, and they have appeared in numerous movies, such as Captain America and The Adventures of Tintin in 2011, in both films with rather extraordinary flying capabilities that were not in the original U.S. military specification. The real story of the WLA was far more complicated than generally understood up to now, however, and it was not only an American story, but rather a highly international story involving soldiers from every continent. Now if you see a shiny WLA at a show decked out with U.S. markings and accessories, topped off with a fake Tommy gun, whose owner proudly tells you about how he “restored” it from a machine found in Russia, you will know the real story of the WLA at war and in the peace that followed.
Thanx for this nice article .
A Teacher of mine in the early 1960’s was a Dispatch rider in Germany during The Occupation and rode it into a dirt berm before a demolished bridge one dark night , crippling him for life .
Harley-Davidson never missed a trick during the war time years and used the unwanted XA boxer engines to power small Gensets by the tens of thousands , I wonder where they all went ? .
-Nate
An ex girl friends father in Sydney has a wartime genset powered by a flat twin Douglas engine far lighter and easier to airdrop manhandle etc than a cast iron lump from HD.
Wow, Robert – your able coverage of these almost makes me want to go out and get one. Almost. Thanks for this excellent dive into Harley history.
I believe the soviets ran some extensive tests of all kinds of motorcycles during the late 20’s-early 30’s. They found the American V-twins were the only ones to survive the harsh roads over long distances.
I am not familiar with that phase of Soviet motorcycle history, so I can’t say whether those tests went that way, but the machines that the Soviet motorcycle industry produced during the 1930s indicate that you are correct. Early Soviet motorcycles were mostly large-displacement V-twins, following the American pattern, not the smaller displacement (500cc and below) singles and twins of various configurations that were common in Europe by the 1920s.
I’m guessing I read it in the excellent book “Iron Redskin” or possibly one of Allan Girdler’s books.
I believe the So jets were much more enamored with the German’s BMW motorcycles, as they blatantly copied BMW’s design for their Ural and Dnepr military bikes. China then continued the blatant patent infringement with their military version of the same BMW bikes. They are so close to the original that WWII reinactors commonly use the Chinese (& Russian, if they have more money) bikes and sidecars for their activities. The Soviets and Chinese even kept the separate bicycle style seat ro the rear passenger with a metal loop to hold on to, just like the BMWs.
Thanks for this in-depth look at the WLA. I remember an article a read quite some time back that really young kids in the US picked these up for dirt cheap right after the war, and thus helped fuel the beginnings of the motorcycle boom. There were some great pictures too. Could it have been LIFE? Wish I could put my hands on it. Groups of kids, riding 45s;.
Can’t say for sure, since there are plenty of myths about that time and it all happened decades before I was born, but the odds are that surplus WLAs were a big part of early postwar motorcycling. Motorcycle production was so low in the 1930s — Harley-Davidson sales dipped to a low of only 3,703 in 1933 (all models, including exports), and climbed back to only 10,352 by 1939 (60 percent of 1929 sales), and Indian sales were substantially lower than those figures — that 8,000+ surplus WLAs for sale in 1944-45 would have had a big impact on the market.
Fantastic pictures! I especially enjoyed the shot of the column passing through Richmond in 1930. I recognize the intersection, on Monument Avenue in front of the Branch House, a locally famous mansion, just adjacent to the Jefferson Davis Monument. It’s the same now as it was then.
A former GF’s father had told me that he’d had a surplus WLC in the late 40’s but had to sell it when he got married.
Great article. To my taste this is a lot more compelling than anything made by the company in the last 60 years…
Until the mid 80s the 45 was the most commonly seen Harley Davidson in the UK.There was a dealer in Greenwich(the one in London not the US one) who had huge stocks of spares for them.
I never understood the Harley Davidson letter names,the WL was replaced by the K model then the XL Sportster all very confusing!
Thanks for another great read Robert
Between the war and the circle track HD was a real winner. You might be interested in a couple articles on Harleys and circle track here on CC from a couple years ago.
Interesting to note that Harley and BMWs were both copied. BMW by Harley and Ural and Harley by the Japanese by license. Lots of Japanese troops on wannabe Harleys IIRC. Btw, I’m not sure that the jeep did a better job carrying troops over rough terrain than the Ural with a powered sidecar. 4 soldiers versus 3 but heavier and more expensive. I assume the BMW they copied did the same thing. They are pretty tough. I don’t know that Harley ever had a powered side car unless they did it with the BMW copy Harley.
I think the flat track version was the WLDR. The Indian Scout was faster but the Harley was more reliable. When men were men and women were glad for it.
This is very close to the model that gave birth to the WLA. The WLD Special sports model of 1939 introduced the aluminum cylinder heads, which are visible on the bike in the photo, and they immediately went into the WLA prototypes. The WLA was essentially this bike with extra ground clearance and an ultra-low compression ratio, for easy starting and low octane gas tolerance. Harley-Davidson having been a very small operation back then, the same basic design and the same engineers were involved in both the competition and military bikes.
Regarding your comment about Indians being faster, you may be interested to hear that an individual whose WWII veteran father I profile in my book said that his father’s cavalry unit was issued both HDs and Indians, and he preferred the Indian, because (1) he was left-handed, and the left hand throttle of the Indian was more natural for him, and (2) the Indian was faster.
On the other hand, regarding HDs being more reliable, the Red Army strongly preferred the WLA over the Indian 741, because they found that the Indian was less reliable and less tolerant of low octane gas. So they drew the same conclusion, from wartime experience.
The Indian’s big failing is that they followed the original Army specifications to the letter – 500cc’s or 30.5 cu. in. Harley’s engineers didn’t feel that was big enough for the intended use, and offered the WLA for initial field trials. It, of course, outperformed the Indian completely, and the army changed the specifications to match.
The majority of Indian military sales went to the French army in 1939-40, which meant they spent most of the war doing German rear guard duty.
You definitely know your WWII motorcycle history, Syke! You are correct about Indian, Harley-Davidson and the Army’s request for smaller 500cc engines, later rescinded. It is an issue that I describe in the book, but didn’t have space to go into here. The book draft is 140 pages long, which allowed me to go into all sorts of obscure details.
Indian military sales were actually quite substantial and mostly to the UK and British Commonwealth countries, though. France placed the largest order by far, for 18,000 machines, but few reached France because a U-boat sank the ship with the first large shipment and the fall of France occurred when only a fraction of the order had been completed. After the fall of France the U.K. took over the contract, and the U.K. gave them in large numbers to non-U.K. armies such as New Zealand and the Free Poles, or issued them to the Home Guard and other second-line units.
People of Polish ancestry should note that Poles who fought Nazi Germany from exile after 1939 ended up using both the WLA and Indian 741 in different armies – Free Poles in the West used the Indian 741, while Poles in the army created by the Soviet Union used the WLA.
The Rikuo made under license from Harley-Davidson, an exact copy of an early 1930s 74 flathead, was indeed the main Imperial Japanese Army motorcycle. Interestingly, I found a number of photos of US Marines putting captured Rikuos into service on Pacific islands. Talk about things going full circle! Ironically, Rikuo literally means “Road King” in Japanese, and Harley-Davidson has used the name since 1994.
The Jeep being superior to the WLA wasn’t just from traction; it was from having four wheels. I have seen some of the field trial reports from 1940, and the difficulty (perhaps terror!) of riding a motorcycle in snow was a major issue. Any snow at all made a rider so preoccupied with not sliding and tipping over that he had no ability to look up and have any situational awareness of the enemy, and a few inches made a WLA completely immobile. A sidecar would have helped a lot, but the US Army was focused mostly on solo machines, and even then a sidecar equipped WLA would have been less effective cross country (only the BMW R75 and Zundapp KS75 used sidecar wheel drive during WWII; Urals didn’t until after WWII, and there was no attempt to create a WLA or XA with it).
Excellent piece. Thank you.
When I was in college, I worked with a heavy equipment operator who was a WWII vet. He told me that he was an Army courier and was issued a new Harley-Davidson motorcycle for use in France but that where he was the rain was so bad and the roads and fields so muddy he road a mule to make his deliveries. He said he never got the chance to ride the Harley.
Here is what your co-worker was talking about. This photo was taken near Nancy, France in October 1944, when Patton’s advance had ground to a halt due to lack of gasoline, bad weather, and stiffening German resistance.
Glowing write up but it wasnt much of a motocycle Too slow too heavy and too cumbersome was how despatch riders describe them, The Aussie army got Harleys Kiwis got Indians which were a much better motorcycle as far as American two wheeled efforts went but neither were even a patch on British bikes of the era.
Has anyone else ever ridden one? A mate of mine had one 1943 rebored to 860 balanced ported longer forks full suicide clutch tank shift awfull bloody thing even with the motor tweaked it was slow lousy handling gutless and thats on nice roads not battlefield mud, The Japanese saved HDs ass with their licence built models and the improvements they made on the original designs it might have been better if they hadnt bothered and saved Indian instead. cross frame Vtwin iNDIAN
That could be the Moto Guzzis inspiration.The Moto Guzzi V twin has been around for nearly 50 years could this bike have saved Indian?I don’t know but unlike Harley Davidson they didn’t just make V twins there were singles,vertical twins and an inline 4.Indian was a lot more adventurous than Harley when it came to trying new designs.
HD stuck with their tried and proven Vtwin Indian tried inovation and went down in a screaming heap, From memory I think Paul wrote up Moto guzzie a while back could be wrong, A cousin of mine rides a HD in the UK a 68/69 XR hes a Ducatti nutter but took that HD from NZ with him.
My brothers a long time Sportster fan and owner.It’s the only one I really like though I’m interested in the Hummer DKW copy and the flathead K models especially the racing bikes.
I think that the wartime impressions that you are describing were soldiers in each army liking the machines that they were issued and familiar with, and disparaging the others – not surprising, since most motorcyclists get very attached to their bikes, as you know. The US Army chose the WLA over the Indian 741, and it worked well in the very limited roles that the US armed forces had for it (the US military acquired less than 30,000 motorcycles during WWII, while the U.K. acquired over 425,000 and even the much smaller Canadian Army had over 20,000). New Zealanders no doubt preferred their Indians, but no one else chose the Indian over the WLA. British motorcycles from BSA, Norton, Triumph, Velocette, Matchless, etc. certainly were far nicer to ride than either, and good for dispatch rider use, but their small size made them a lot less useful.
It should be noted that the Red Army, which received all of the above, strongly preferred the WLA. They found the Indian to be unreliable and did not like it. British motorcycles they found to be too small to carry more than one soldier, and uncomfortable and unreliable to ride over long distances – both baseline requirements for their military situation. They found the WLA to be the best machine available for them, although not as good as their own BMW-based M72.
Indian actually could have produced the transverse V-twin 841 for civilian sale after the war – the development work was done and they had the production tooling, and they did sell a few military surplus machines on the civilian market. It would have been an excellent idea. However, they instead invested their wartime profits in developing smaller, British-style 500cc parallel twins and retooling the factory to produce them, and that move was a total disaster that failed in the marketplace and bankrupted the company. The bikes were so thoroughly rejected by American motorcyclists that they are barely remembered at all, amid considerable nostalgia over the old fashioned V-twin Chiefs and Scouts.
I am not sure what you were referring to when you mentioned Japanese improvements on HD designs. The Japanese Rikuo was a straight copy of an obsolete early 1930s sidevalve with total loss oiling, which made the WLA look ultra-modern in comparison. Rikuo produced it unchanged well into the 1950s. It was completely the opposite of what people associate with Japanese industry today, essentially a throwback to when Japan was a relatively backward country in the 1930s and had hardly any non-military motor industry to speak of.
The Indian 841 should have been the postwar Indian – it was certainly developed enough, and owners who have them have told me that they ride just fine for a motorcycle of that period or even a few years newer. Unfortunately, once the contracts were cancelled, neither Indian nor Harley were reimbursed for their development costs on the XA or 841. Harley was in somewhat better shape and managed to eat the loss. For Indian, who had been on much shakier financial ground (due to a lot of bad business decisions going back to WWI), this was a bad turn of events, led to the end of the DuPont interest and management, and led to the attempted rebirth of the company as a manufacturer of 500cc vertical twin motorcycles.
Which killed the company dead.
Too young for the war, I bought my WLA from the origional civilian owner in 1947. It had been repainted and all extra weight removed. Modifcations he had done was a “sucide” clutch, 4 inch risers, new handle bars, controls and Pillion Seat. I rode it for a living delivering parts in the city of Los Angeles for 6 months. I wore the motor out beating it to death. The throttle knew two positions. Start and wide open. Top speed at a dry lake time trials was 88 MPH. Not bad for a stock army motor. Stripped of lights and anything that was unnecessary including boots, jacket and such I rode threw lying flat out with legs on the Pillion Seat. I still have the memographed time sheet proving it! Later I replaced the motor with another brand new surplus WLA only changing the heads and cams. What a difference a little compression makes! The Speedometer reading 105 going down a slight grade once. Knocked out the 2nd gear slider and gear more than several times speed shifting. Blew the clutch throw out bearing also several times. Did hill climbs, short dirt track local racing too. After a year and a half of loving it and still alive after many close calls on it’s sides, I sold it for 200, the same price I paid for it. It and I were a one piece matching machine. I would love to have kept it but girls were kind’a too much. When they were sitting on the Pillion I loved the feel of them hanging on to my back real close and tight. If you know what I mean. I bought a 34 ford with the 200 and it hasn’t been the same since.
At the time a very close buddy, we were almost always together riding and working on Whizzers, Bob Laidlaw, bought a surplus 30.50. I want to say it was a HD. Poopless, he sold it and got a shaft drive side mounted “V” Indian maybe? It was also surplus. Then he got a job washing parts in a local Harley Dealer. Do a Google on Laidlaw Harley Davidson. That’s him today. From washing parts! I really enjoyed the almost 2 years a WLA was in my life. I’m 84 now and still in love, dreaming. If I could just recapture that WW2 WLA “Harley 45” time. Ken
Ken, Thanks for sharing that; best comment story in some time. Got any photos? other stories? Want to write something up for us?
I second Paul’s praise and his requests. I would love to hear and see more about your experiences.
Is there any way to get in contact with your old friend Bob Laidlaw? I did Google his dealership and read the brief story about him on their website, and it looks like it would be interesting to hear from him as well. You didn’t indicate whether you have stayed in touch with him after all of these years.
Reading that I reckon the 1% style my mates one had been built like was a mistake it really didnt feel safe at speed he reckoned it would do 95mph or so but it kept snapping rear conrods if ridden hard maybe shoulda left it stock.
Very well researched and enjoyable article.
Robert was that you on What’s in the Barn?
It could not have been me – aside for a quiz show 25 years ago, I have never been on TV. I like What’s In the Barn a lot!
I just happened to catch one yesterday and there was a Robert Kim from California selling his father-in-law’s Crocker engine, no.8. Good luck on your ebook, great excerpt!
Quite a coincidence on the name! It’s a common name – a very common first name with a very common Korean last name – so there are probably thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of Robert Kim’s out there. There have been several noteworthy ones already, such as an actor who was in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and became Hollywood and Broadway’s leading glamor shot photographer (www.robertkim.com).
This other Robert Kim sold a Crocker engine? That definitely would not be me! Unless I were in a financial crisis and needed the money, I would have kept it and worked on building a motorcycle around it!
Very interesting article Robert, thanks. Good luck with the book.
Very nice article!
I live in the Netherlands and own a civilian model WL for since 25 years. This bike was sold new to the Belgian police in 1950 and taken out of service by 1963. There are quite a few WL’s around here with this origin. I have owned British bikes from the 50’s as well and there is no comparision as far as reliability is concerned. The WL is an ancient design (well actually a design classic…) , but it always fires and rides, no mattter how long it has been standing. Untill well in the seventies Harley stood for reliability in this part of the world, thanks to the WL. Many services, dokters, vets etc, used war surplus WL’s untill the late fifties.
As indicated in Roberts article, people here always refer to the WL as Harley liberator.
Great piece of research. That shot of the bike flying over the dune is a keeper.
Hi Robert,
I enjoyed your book, was one of the first to buy it I guess.
As you can see on the pic below, I have restored my type VII as a Red Army WLA…
Although not entirely correct (russians never really marked their vehicles except for division/ regiment numbers).
I apologize for being picky, but the motorcycle in the Captain America movie was not a WLA, but a modern Harley that was dressed up to resemble a 45. Look closely at the engine (I admit, you can only see it briefly). It is either an Evo or TwinCam, and most likely a TwinCam as the Evos have been out of production for quite a while now.
What an amazing article, one I missed at the first showing.
As a kid, I heard my older family members, many of whom were in the military, argue the pro/cons of the WLC and the Norton 350 and 500. The Harley was respected for its toughness and comfort but the Nortons were much preferred as they much more likely to get to a difficult place than the Harley.
We take communications for granted in today’s world, but in 1944 Europe, a unit could easily have all its communications severed. Dispatch riders were vital for this reason and for sending orders deemed to secret for wireless transmission.
These bikes started the Harley scene in the UK. Fred Warr’s in London, still a Harley dealer, started selling Army suplus after the WW2. He founded the Harley Davidson Riders Club of Great Britain which apparently became the template for HOG.
My mates into old Harleys. He’s got a WLC (civilian not Canadian) which I’ve followed, on my FXR, to many a rally. Goes well and will maintain 60 mph on the motorway. He’s keen that people keep these bikes original and curses those who convert them to foot change. As part of his campaign he allowed me to learn to ride it, on a quiet Sunday on a deserted industrial estate.
It’s not a suicide clutch, as many people mistakenly refer to it, but a friction clutch, so it stays where you put it. The front brake is strictly for holding you in place for hill starts, don’t expect it to offer any retardation, so rear wheel braking only. No shock absorber on the very well designed springer front end (Brough copied it) and balloon tyres can get you pogoing sometimes. Hill starts with a foot clutch can be challenging. When he told me the Americans had used this bike in the World War, I had to ask him which one?
I just about got the hang of it, but maximum anticipation is required to use it on todays roads. I’m hoping now he’ll let me have a go on his hand-change Duo-Glide, but that’s another story.
There is something special about the WLA. I have been riding mine since 1966. Who knows how many miles we have done? When we were a lot younger we did 500 miles in a day. It may not be particularly outstanding about going fast, handling or stopping, but in over 65 years it has never let us down. With a 32 tooth sprocket on the engine, it will comfortably cruise around 60 mph.
It actually reminds me of our Model A Ford – has the same kind of feel about it.
It is still a workhorse – I mainly use it now with a large sidebox to take waste to the local tip.