American Red Cross Clubmobile

As owner of KB Middleton Repair, LLC, I have been involved with the restorations of many different World War II vehicles. One project that I am particularly proud of is the replication of an American Red Cross Clubmobile, and one of the many reasons is because I am the proud father of two Caroline County raised daughters who have done their part in Afghanistan.

The Clubmobile held three female noncombatant personnel who worked just behind the front lines providing moral support to the soldiers on the front line. They were nicknamed the Donut Dollies, and their service continued through the Vietnam Conflict.

I am a lifetime member of a group called Wheels and Tracks in Pennsylvania. At one of the meetings, Frank Buck spoke about a project for the WWII American Experience Museum in Gettysburg, PA. A donor was providing a 2 ½-ton truck with a box body that was close to what was needed to create a replica of an American Red Cross Clubmobile. During World War II, eighty-two American Red Cross Clubmobiles were dispatched overseas. At the end of the war only two returned to the states, and over time those two were lost.

To make the replica, the frame and body needed to be lengthened, and the body reconstructed to be as close as possible to the original design. Since that is what we do here at my shop, we stepped up to the plate. The project started by lengthening the frame, and the body was stripped as far as needed. The body frame was reconstructed to accommodate vents, doors and windows to replicate the Clubmobile. The metal was put back on the body. I tried to keep things as period correct as possible, down to using flat head screws for the trim work.

The project took 18 months, working on it during spare time. Many of the clubmobiles were named after the states, and the replica that I and my crew helped to create is named the “Bay State.”

KB Middleton Repair, LLC has done historic restorations and repairs for museums and private collectors throughout the states over the years, but our business is primarily heavy truck and equipment repairs.