The Jeeps then made it back to their own lines under cover of darkness. Rommel’s forward advance stalled as a result of being low on fuel and supplies.
Equipped with a 50-caliber machine gun, a Jeep was a highly effective assault vehicle.
27 Another example is the story of two newspaper correspondents who slogged through the jungles of Burma’s and India’s rugged Manipur Hills, thought to be completely unpassable by vehicles, in a Willys Jeep. When they finally arrived in Imphal, capital of the Indian state of Manipur, an army officer who met them said that their sense of geography must have been mixed up because “There isn’t a single road across those jungles and hills.”
“Shh,” replied one of the journalists, “Our Jeep hasn’t found out about roads yet, and we don’t want to spoil it.”
28 Beloved war correspondent Ernie Pyle wrote in the Washington Daily News, “Good Lord, I don’t think we could continue the war without the Jeep. It does everything. It goes everywhere. It’s as faithful as a dog, as strong as a mule, and as agile as a goat. It constantly carries twice what it was designed for and still keeps going.” Ernie Pyle later died when his Jeep was riddled with bullets by a hidden Japanese machine-gun pit.
29 Not surprisingly, during World War II enterprising US soldiers found many uses for the Jeep. Any GI needing warm food could place C-ration cans on the hot manifold of a Jeep engine and after a short drive, have a nice, hot dinner. If he wanted a warm shave, he could drain a little water from the Jeep radiator and lather up with it.
Some soldiers used their Jeeps to provide power to sawmills for cutting firewood or floorboards for their tents.
Jeeps carried men and supplies to the front lines and carried the wounded back to aid stations. Equipped with a 50-caliber machine gun, it was a terrifying assault vehicle. Fitted with a standard chaplain’s pack, its hood could be used as an altar at field church services. Ingenious GIs sometimes fitted Jeeps with railroad wheels to use them as locomotives to haul train loads of supplies in areas where the locomotives had been destroyed.
This is an example of the result of battle: wounded men being cared for by medics. These caring men were able to be close to the front because their Jeep vehicles provided the all-terrain mobility that was lacking in earlier conflicts.
30 The Jeep was never meant to haul big cannons; the army had purchased special heavy-duty trucks for that. But during several invasions in which the trucks were blown up, quick-thinking soldiers hooked up their Jeeps to howitzers and small artillery pieces and dragged them across the beach to where they were needed. The doughty Jeeps had more than enough power for the job, and their four-wheel drive provided the needed traction.
31 Once the war started and it was obvious that the armed forces would need hundreds of thousands of Jeeps, companies that previously hadn’t bothered to bid suddenly became interested in building vehicles for the military. Radio maker Crosley Corporation came up with a peanut-sized “Jeep” vehicle, and taxi builder Checker Motors submitted a bid to produce a standard-size vehicle much like the Willys. A few prototypes of each were built, but no big contracts were forthcoming. It’s not known how many, if any, have survived to this day.
Jeeps were shipped by the thousands to Allied forces around the globe.
32 When World War II ended, the military was forced to decide how many Jeep vehicles to ship back to America. Many were worn out or had mechanical problems and were not worth the expense of transporting. Most of these were left behind, as were thousands wrecked in combat or in noncombat road accidents. Virtually all of the vehicles sent to Russia (many of which were the Bantams) were never returned to the United States. I wonder how many are still there.
33 For its part, Willys-Overland realized that if every army Jeep was brought back to the United States and sold as surplus, it would destroy the market for the only vehicle they would have to sell in the first year or two of postwar production. So, they asked the army to give our allies as many of the old Jeep vehicles as they needed and encouraged them to scrap any heavily damaged ones. Many other Jeeps were simply abandoned and left for the locals to use.
One Jeep Corporation vice president later called this wholesale abandonment “the greatest free sample in history” because by introducing foreign locals to the Jeep, it helped establish Jeep’s highly successful postwar export business. It also created a huge market for spare parts, which benefited Willys-Overland for years. Even in the 1970s, Jeep Corporation stocked many parts for Willys MBs because of the ongoing demand.
A casualty of war, this Jeep MB appears to have been hit by shellfire during an amphibious invasion.
34 In 1949, when it was becoming obvious that war might come to the Korean Peninsula, the military brass realized they needed new Jeeps because many of the World War II units were seven or eight years old and had been roughly used and needed replacing. Besides, the military wanted a tougher, more modern vehicle for the harsh Korean weather conditions.
Willys-Overland created a Jeep vehicle that was updated with a 24-volt electrical system, a 1,200-pound payload, deep-fording capability, and installation of standardized military components including instruments, switchgear, and generators to make stocking replacement parts easier. The army designated the new vehicle the M38; Willys-Overland dubbed it the model MC. These vehicles were produced during 1950 to 1952, at which time they were replaced by a heavily modified version.
Different war, different Jeep. This press photo from the Humphrey Bogart film Battle Circus shows the man himself in a circa-1951 M38 (military designation). The Willys model number for this vehicle is MC.
Actor Alan Alda played Dr. Hawkeye Pierce on the TV show M.A.S.H., which was based on the movie Battle Circus. If you watch the opening scenes of each one, you will see that they are nearly the same.
35 The army wanted more power, more room, a better ride, and more carrying capacity. To answer those concerns, a new military Jeep appeared for 1952. Although it looked different from the M38, for some reason it was considered an improved and updated version of that vehicle, so it was given the military designation M-38A1, which translates to M38, 1st alteration (or modification). For internal company purposes, Willys called it the model MD.
Later, a civilian version was introduced as the CJ-5, which became among the most ubiquitous of all civilian Jeeps and probably the most recognizable of them all.
Superseding the M38 was the M-38A1, shown here undergoing testing at the army’s Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Aberdeen, Maryland.
36 Why the army considered the M-38A1 to be a modification of the M38 defies logic. The new Jeep had a different frame, engine, and body. Even though the basic Go-Devil block was retained, Willys engineer A. C. Sampietro devised a new “F-head” cylinder head for it.
Similar to the type used by Rolls-Royce at the time, the Willys F-head put the intake valves in an overhead valve (OHV) position but retained