M26 Dragon Wagon Walk Around
(Soft cover)
SS27025

by David Doyle.

Designed by the Knuckey Truck Company with series production by
the Pacific Car and Foundry Company, the “40-ton Tank Transporter

Truck Trailer M25” – dubbed the “Dragon Wagon” by enthusiasts –
was the largest wheeled vehicle fielded by the U.S. Army during
World War II. The M25 consisted of the M26 tractor and M15
trailer. Designed to recover disabled tanks and other heavy
armored vehicles from forward areas, the M26 featured a large and

heavily armored cab to protect the crew. Field use, however,
indicated that typically this vehicle was not used in recovery
operations during the heat of battle, so the later-production
M26A1 eschewed the armored cab in favor of reduced weight and
increased reliability. As U.S. tanks evolved and became larger
and heavier, an upgraded version of the trailer, the M15A1, was
introduced to accommodate them. During the 1950s the M15A1 was
further modified to the M15A2 standard, which featured a 24-volt
lighting system. As such, these veteran trailers saw service
thorough the Vietnam War and into the 1970s. The M26 and M26A1
remained in the U.S. Army inventory well beyond the end of WWII –

even being employed by NASA to move the Saturn V rockets that
launched man to the moon in the 1960s. This Walk Around examines
the armored and soft-skin versions of this massive vehicle, and
its trailers, through hundreds of color photos and some of the
finest restored examples in existence. The reader is visually
taken over, under, and through these vehicles from front bumper
to loading ramp.
Illustrated with over 230 photographs. 80 pages.
Soft Cover in perfect binding ISBN = 978-0-89747-645-4.
Hardbound ISBN = 978-0-89747-646-1