We received an inquiry from a metal detecting group who was at a WWII site. They unearthed the Philco battery you see in the photos and were curious about it. I told them of Philco's early battery history and of the switch to military gear production during the war. I suspect this battery powered one of the wartime pieces of equipment. Does anyone have any other specific info about this that we could share with the group?
While a kid, in our garage there was a 12V Lead-Acid battery from T54 tank.
This job was probably 150 lbs or so, ad was 3 times longer than a battery taht would go into a Jeep Cherokee (those were much larger than the modern Japanese jobs).
We used it to start the car in winters when the battery inside the car would get anemic.
People who do not drink, do not smoke, do not eat red meat will one day feel really stupid lying there and dying from nothing.
Well Philco did start out in the lead acid battery manufacturing business, and I think that they were still doing so during the war. The two materials of choice for battery cases used to be vulcanized rubber, and glass, even so that one is in decent shape for being buried in the ground for who knows how long. It could have been used as an aircraft battery, or even in a submarine, it's a 12 volt unit regardless, each cell being 2 volts.
Mike;
I have no doubt that a battery for a T54 would have been a big one, most of those Soviet tanks were Diesel powered so they needed a lot of cold cranking amps to turn the engine over.
Regards
Arran
It had handles on either side, and it took two reasonably strong men to carry it.
We had that Soviet FIAT 500 clone for a car, and starting it on a cold winter morning (and we lived in Southern Russia!) took some doing.
The car's own battery (and we had serviceable ones, where you measure the electrolyte specific gravity and add distilled water if needed etc) would get farly anaemic, and so the tank battery would get hooked up.
Sometimes, as that extra help, some oild would have to be drained, put in a tea kettle (we had an old aluminum one dedicated specifically to this) and set on a gas stove to make it hot; then it would get poured right back, and then thet car would get cranked.
Imagine several morning in a row like this, after you get up and are ready to go to work.
People who do not drink, do not smoke, do not eat red meat will one day feel really stupid lying there and dying from nothing.
Seems to me that this a general purpose or radio filament 6V battery of very high amp-hour capacity and very high "cold cranking" amps. There are 3 cells with external bus bars connecting them. Apparently, they brought out more than 1 pair of terminals for each 2V cell and the bus bars parallel these cells. If used for high current applications, I suspect that the battery was placed in series with other batteries. I am not sure but I believe that many military vehicles were either 12V or 24V as many of the vehicle mounted radio equipment was designed for either 12V or 24V DC.
I can't read the lettering on the battery. If specifically for the military, there would be a "boilerplate" stating the government agency contracting for the battery, the manufacturer and the contact number, as well as the nomenclature for the part, such as Battery, Storage, 6V 180 AH or similar to that.
The case may be "pitch".
Where is this "WWII Site"? They did the environment a favor by unearthing the battery. However, they need to be careful as there may be toxic or explosive material on site.
Yes, the original name for Philco was the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company. Their second iteration. Prior to the name change to Philadelphia Storage Battery Company, they were the Helios Electric Company, manufacturing carbon arc lamps, which preceded incandescent lamps.
From Wikipedia:
Philco was founded in 1892 as Helios Electric Company.[6] From its inception until 1904, the company manufactured carbon-arc lamps. As this line of business slowly floundered over the last decade of the 19th century, the firm experienced increasingly difficult times. As the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company, in 1906 it began making batteries for electric vehicles. They later supplied home charging batteries to the infant radio industry. The Philco brand name appeared in 1919.[7]
The rest is history. After manufacturing batteries, chargers and "B" Battery eliminators, Philco started manufacturing radios of the TRF type, and eventually Superhets. The Model 20 was a watershed model that helped place Philco in first place in radio sales for many years, and initiated the "Cathedral" radio style.
More can be learned about Philco from the History tab in our own Philco Library. Click the Philco Library tab on our website home page, then click History.
The most important products made by Philco during WWII were Radar instruments and proximity fuses, but Philco manufactured other military materials such as vacuum tubes, CRTs, wave meters and even filing cabinets. The Storage Battery division was still in business in Trenton, NJ, so it is possible that Philco was producing batteries for the military, as well as for civilian use.
Edited 04/30/25 by MrFixr55 to add info. The 1943 Philco Annual Report confirms that Philco did, indeed, manufacture various storage batteries for the military during WWII
"Do Justly, love Mercy and walk humbly with your God"- Micah 6:8
"Let us begin to do good"- St. Francis
Mike;
I take it that Soviet cars did not come equipped with block heaters, hence the hot oil change? Where I lived in Alberta every parking lot, near a workplace, had a row of electrical outlets to plug your car into, because if it were January, or February, and did not plug the car, or truck in, you were not going to start it again when you wanted to go home. I remember there was a school parking lot, with a park or filed next to it, and I would take a tube portable radio over there, and use one of the outlets to plug it in and listen to it during the summer months.
My dad went up to Thule, in Greenland, whilst he was in the Canadian Air Force, and some U.S Army guys (or USAF) did not know that they had to plug in the block heater on their truck, unless the engine was running. They parked their truck, shut the engine off, and did not plug in the block heater, and left it that way for two hours or more, in the dead of winter. So the truck had to be rowed, or pushed inside one of the garages, and left to thaw overnight, their bosses were NOT happy to say the least. I'm guessing that these guys came from one of the Southern states, as someone from Michigan, or North Dakota would have known better, but who knows?
Regards
Arran.
My younger sister went to SUNY Plattsburg NY, (BS, MS, RN) in the late 1970sabout 10 min from the Northern NY / Canada border. She did not have a car up there (I am one of 6 kids to our 2 parents), but she tells me that when going on trips to Montreal Canada with friends, parking spaces had outlets to plug in your block heater, battery blanket and battery charger. Of course, college age pranksters would unplug people's cars. Not nice!
BTW, one of her thrills was working for the caterers to the Olympic Village during the 1980 Winter Olympics in nearby Lake Placid NY
"Do Justly, love Mercy and walk humbly with your God"- Micah 6:8
"Let us begin to do good"- St. Francis
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