The Second World War pushed millions of Europeans and Asians into a deep, muddy bog of despair and starvation.
In many regions of the world, fields were rutted and marked by bombs and trenches. It would be years before the machinery and manpower of agriculture might be back to normal.
Leaders of the allied nations knew that famine was as great an enemy of democracy as any modern army. United States president Harry Truman said, “food is one of the most vital weapons in securing a lasting and stable peace.”
Read Also
VIDEO: Green Lightning and Nytro Ag win sustainability innovation award
Nytro Ag Corp and Green Lightning recieved an innovation award at Ag in Motion 2025 for the Green Lightning Nitrogen Machine, which converts atmospheric nitrogen into a plant-usable form.
By the early 1940s, Massey-Harris engineer Tom Carroll had his No. 21 self-propelled combine field-tested and ready for full-scale production, but he had no steel, tires, engines or other materials. The machine was first produced in 1938 as the No. 20, but it took too much steel and the war’s demand for materials sidelined the design.
Joe Tucker was the new American vice-president of Canadian farm equipment giant Massey-Harris Co. Having just served a term of duty with the U.S. War Production Board, he had a good relationship with the decision makers in the U.S. government.
But it took a letter from China to link Carroll’s 1938 combine, with improvements, to the right people on the War Production Board. Tucker’s daughter had been serving as a missionary in China since the mid-1930s. In one of her letters to her father she described the decimating famine affecting the Chinese people.
The letter inspired Tucker to assess his own resources in an effort to help feed at least some of the starving people in war-torn Europe and Asia.
His company had the Carroll combine design and he knew the machine, if built, would deliver additional wheat to the war effort.
With his contacts with the War Production Board, if he could pry loose the necessary materials, he knew Massey could get 500 combines built for the 1944 harvest.
In negotiations with both Canadian and American federal governments, Tucker presented research showing that in the then typical 40 acre wheat field, a pull-type combine runs down over half the wheat in the first cut around the outer perimeter.
Comparing the No. 21 to the pull-type combine of the day, the new machine’s first cut alone put an extra 20 bushels into the tank on a 40 acre field.
Tucker said in his speech, “each time the self-propelled combine cuts a mile of the opening round, it saves approximately seven-tenths of an acre of grain, so to speak. In harvesting 120 million acres of food and feed grains, combines of some kind will travel almost four million miles opening up these fields.
“If all (fields) could be opened by self-propelled combines of any make, it would be possible to save 60 million bu. of these grains that would otherwise be tramped down by tractors and pull-type combines.
“In order to get this down into figures we can easily comprehend, one bu. of grain will furnish bread to 150 people for one day.”
Tucker was persuasive.
“We think he had already located the steel and other materials he needed,” his granddaughter, Judy Horsch of Kansas, told the Western Producer:
“He needed official permission to proceed. He knew a lot of people that could get things done like this.
“My father once told me there is some speculation my grandfather may have profited from this, but we don’t really know. I know for certain he was inspired by a deep motivation to help those people.”
Joe Tucker cut through the red tape and got the materials he needed to run 550 of the No. 21 combines down the Massey-Harris production line in
Toronto.
His agreement with the government specified that his special allocation of Massey-Harris No. 21s would only be sold to qualified custom combining contractors who would sign an agreement that each combine must harvest 200 extra miles of field perimeter per year or harvest a minimum of 2,000 acres.
Tucker made a commitment to the U.S. government that included organizing the Harvest Brigade for the 1944 and 1945 harvest seasons.
In his presentations of the mid-1940s, Tucker estimated there were about 8,000 self-propelled combines of all makes already in use in North America. All were invited by the American government to participate in the Harvest Brigade.
Custom harvesters buying the Massey No. 21 combines took delivery of the machines in southern Kansas and Oklahoma or in Texas, to ensure they worked the fields as they came north. The machines were field delivered, with some assembly required. When an owner-operator bought a new self propelled combine in 1944 and 1945, he had to sign the following pledge:
“Realizing the urgent need to feed a war-torn world, and knowing as well that starving people must look to our nation for help, I pledge whole-heartedly to do my share toward saving every possible bushel of grain. I will use my self-propelled combine to the greatest possible extent in opening up fields because I know I can save vitally needed grain.”
The special price of a Harvest Brigade Massey 21 was $2,700. A harvester might expect to cover as many as 5,000 acres between July and November at a government-sanctioned $2 to $3 per acre. After the war, the price of combines doubled.
