While going through the recent haul of NARA photos I gathered on my last visit, I came across this photo of an M3A1 Satan flametank coming ashore. If you look closely at the rear of the vehicle, you can clearly see that the mysterious items in question are in fact field made wading stacks. I have been talking to vets of the campaign, and I have two names and addresses of some Satan crew members. I can't wait to talk with them and get some more details.
So far what I have found out is that, yes these are wading stacks, the pipes attached to the tops of the boxes were removed as soon as the vehicles reached dry land. The spare fuel drums were used in the landing as shown here, but were removed before the vehicles went into combat. And "Yes" the majority of Satans were Gasoline powered, there were a few diesels used as Satans also. Satans were modified from exisiting M3A1's, some had been knocked out and sent back for repair, instead of making them into M3A1's they were converted to Satans. These repairs/conversions were carried out in Hawaii where there were some M3A1 Diesels used for training purposes. Only 211 M3A1's out of the total of some 4621 were built as Diesels, the remaining 4410 were Gasoline powered.
24 M3A1's were converted into Satans, all of them had the left top turret periscope moved to the centerline of the turret, though the original periscope's location was still visible and a plate was welded over it.
All 24 vehicles were used in action on Saipan and Tinian.
Below is one of several color plates that I have prepared for my upcoming article on the Satans.
