I have been collecting Plomb WF series fore several years. WF stands for "Wright Field" and were WWII government issue. They are the tools produced by Plomb for the war.
I have an original catalog, and two price lists effective Feb 15, 1942. My catalog and price lists are marked
[center
]Property of U.S.A.A.F. LIBRARYG.A.P. No. 1 WD-101OFFUTT FIELD
EAST CROOK, NEBRASKA[/center]
Your kit looks like it has(my thoughts):
1. A Plomb 9990 Master Tool Chest
2. *Either P&C or Bog ratchets, possibly marked Plomb. Plomb acquired P&C in 1941 and Bog around 1940.
3. I have seen Plomb family 1/4" ratchet sets with the socket tray centered as in your example.(and in your picture of the toolbox) In the 1942 catalog the tray is offset, connecting 6to the right side. There is an example on an old Garage Journal for sale ad:
Although your picture could be an artists rendering, the Plomb speeders were almost always bent at straight (90°) at the socket side bends and angled at the handle side bends in the 1940 catalog. I've found pictures of Plomb speeders with both sides angled though, as shown in these pics from an Ebay listing:
Note that the speeder in your picture has the same type of flare at the drive end.
Plombs 1/4" socket screwdriver attachments were straight after the socket end. Your picture shows tapered out at the bit end.
I think that any of the companies in the Plomb family could have supplied the tools for your kit.
Whether the tools in your kit are WF tools is not known, but I kind of doubt it. My guess is that the kit was included by the vehicle manufacturer or rather by the company who built the wrecker onto the chassis? I don't think that there were any 8pt WF sockets, but you would assume that there would be.
Chilly
* Bog ratchets are consistent with Plomb, as Plomb likely acquired Bog by 1940
from Alloy Artifacts
"There are at least some indications of a connection between Bog Manufacturing and the Plomb Tool Company during the 1940s and later. Bog is known to have assisted with Plomb's tool production during the war, as an example has been found of a Bog 202A ratchet marked as a Plomb WF-38. In addition, Ben Pepperdine assigned at least two patents to Plomb Tool, #2,518,173 filed in 1945 and #2,811,068 filed posthumously after Pepperdine's death in 1955.
The hints and speculation in the previous paragraphs were finally resolved by the January 2010 discovery that by 1940 Bog Manufacturing had changed its name to the Cragin Tool Company. A 1940 directory of Illinois corporations (published by the secretary of state) listed the Cragin Tool Company at 2120 North Menard Avenue, the same address used by Bog for many years, and the owners were listed as Ben and Dora Pepperdine. Readers familiar with the history of Plomb Tool will immediately recognize the name "Cragin Tool" as a 1940 acquisition by Plomb, and the recognition of Cragin Tool as the successor to Bog provides conclusive evidence that by 1940 the former Bog Manufacturing had become part of the Plomb family of companies.
Postscript
+ Attachments and other options
We can add a final footnote to Bog's later history with the October 2015 discovery that Cragin Tool was reorganized and renamed to form the Penens Corporation, a well known part of the Plomb family. (Penens had long been incorrectly reported as a separate acquisition by Plomb.) Penens continued to use the Menard Avenue factory until around 1948, when they moved to nearby Schiller Park. Penens later developed the Fleet and Challenger line of tools, and in the 1960s Penens was renamed to Fleet Tools."
