Landships II

Only a small, obsessive-compulsive point:

It's customary to refer to the "Killen-Strait tractor," the vehicle that played a part in the early trials of tracked machines. There's a little bit more to it than that.

The company was, apparently, originally the Killen-Walsh Manufacturing Company. The name was changed to Killen-Strait when the company began producing the "Strait's Tractor" designed by designed by William Strait. Whether it was some sort of partnership arrangement and what happened to Walsh, I don't know.

As you can see in the pictures, the company is described as both Killen-Strait and Killen-Walsh, but the tractor in both cases is the "Strait's Tractor." I think I shall start referring to it as such, in order to invite Wikipedians to correct me.

Here is an engaging bit of sales literature, showing it performing a number of tasks, including towing a house.

The Tank Encyclopedia (sic) article contains a few errors. The tractor was fitted with a Delaunay-Belleville body, not Delano-Belleville, and no "American Holt tractor was used on the Little Willie tank prototype." Symes fitted the Delaunay body, but at the behest of Boothby, and it was with a view to sending it to Gallipoli. There's no suggestion that a turret was fitted or that fitting one was ever contemplated. And there's a sprinkling of typos and misunderstandings - for example, the direction of the steering tracks was indicated by a metal vane, not a metal vein . . .

I feel better now.