Thanks to all for the interesting information shared. I'm thinking that many of the Massey 81s and 82s were deployed with the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan that was established in December of 1939 to supply air crews for Commonwealth countries. These being Britian, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Other military servicemen from other Commonwealth countries were trained and served with the RAF. This program produced about 131,000 pilots and aircrew for the Allied forces in Europe and later in the Pacific. As far as I can figure approximately 9,000 Americans crossed the border and joined the RCAF and took part in the program. A number of them were later repatriated to the USAF when the US entered the war in December of 1941.
This program resulted in the use of 24 existing airfields and another 80 being built plus alternate emergency fields across Canada. I'm thinking that this number of airfields alone would have created a demand for airport tugs.
During WW2 my father, father in law and 3 uncles all served with the RCAF. Five of them servered with the the BCATP across the prairies. My regret is that I didn't ask more questions when they were still with us as I'm sure these tractors were very familiar to them.
I was wondering what make of tractors were used in Britan as tugs during the war? Also, did the RCAF use other tractor manufacturers.
I trust this helps to fill in some of the background on this topic.
Doug