Ride the Ducks (DUKWs)

The final 'must do' attraction for us at Branson was 'Riding the Ducks'. We had seen plenty of these amphibious vehicles on the streets of Branson & in Table Rock Lake. Although the 'Ride The Ducks' vehicles are new vehicles built from the ground up (in a factory just outside of Branson), they are still based upon the famous World War II DUKW amphibious vehicle design. To date, during the 29 years that the DUKWs have been operating over 10 million people have travelled on more than 500,000 duck boat tours!

Ducks were first built by General Motors in 1942 & were effectively a truck enclosed in a water-tight shell. DUKW is a military acronym which stands for the following: designed in 1942 (D), utility/amphibious purposes (U), front wheel drive (K), & two rear driving axles (W). The first operational use of the DUKW was in March, 1943, when the US landed Army troops on Noumea, New Caledonia. Later during the war the DUKWs showed their versatility by carrying ammunition directly from anchored ships to shore. The use of the DUKWs kept American casualties to a minimum, but a bigger purpose surfaced as some of the DUKWs were modified to carry 4.5-inch rockets. Generals Patton & Eisenhower realized the DUKW was an invaluable war tool with over 1,000 DUKWs used in the Sicilian landings of 1943 alone. Operation Overlord, the Normandy landing was the most crucial operation in history with circumstances that made the DUKWs virtually indispensable. Approximately 2,000 DUKWs brought to shore 40% of all supplies landed between June 6 & September 1, 1944.

Upon boarding our DUKW we were all provided with a bright yellow, duck-bill shaped quackers & given strict instructions by our driver that we were not to be out-quacked by any other enemy DUKWs! Loud rock music, diesel fumes, lots of wind, & out nutty (in a good way) driver made our journey along the Branson Strip to Table Rock Lake (near the Branson Belle for our entry into the water) very entertaining. There was a DUKW in front of us that drove into the lake at high-speed sending water everywhere. Our driver radioed back to base to see if this was allowed & apparently it wasn't. I thought that this was just part of the entertainment & that we would suddenly speed up just be fore we hit the water, but we just creeped in. This was somewhat rougher than I expected since as the vehicle was only partly floating the ground must have dropped away causing the side that I was sat on to lurch into the water!

After we drove(!) around the lake for a while our driver got fed up with use quacking him (this was another rule - we had to quack if we thought he was not being entirely truthful) he jumped up from the driving seat & let the boat go around in circles until one of the children on board came up to drive the DUKW. All of the kids had the option to have a go at driving on the water & Beth did a really good job of steering our DUKW towards the shore. On the way back we went via the fishery & power house at the bottom of Table Rock Dam which really helped us to appreciate just how tall the dam is.