Jeep vehicles helped the Allies win World War II

Before there were Frazer automobiles in 1946, there were “Frazer jeeps,” military vehicles manufactured by Willys-Overland in Toledo, Ohio, that “fought in” World War II. 

Joseph W. Frazer, who was in charge of production at Willys-Overland in the years leading up to the United States’ involvement in the global conflict, answered the call from the Army Quartermaster Corps in 1940.

 

The Army needed a manufacturer of “general purpose” military vehicles for the war effort. The government issued specifications for “a light, motorized, four-wheel drive, go-anywhere vehicle to support infantry and cavalry troops.” 

Essentially, these vehicles needed to be “faithful as a dog, strong as a mule, as agile as a goat and …capable of carrying twice what it was designed for…and still keep going” – in the words of legendary war correspondent Ernie Pyle.

 

Only two companies responded to the bid request – American Bantam of Butler, Pa., and Willys-Overland Motors of Toledo, Ohio. 

American Bantam Car Company (formerly American Austin Car Company) had been resurrected from bankruptcy in 1935) by Roy Evans, a former salesman for Austin. The Army awarded the contract to Evans, who was to build 70 vehicles for testing. They were called “Blitz Buggies” and later “BRCs” (Bantam Reconnaissance Cars). 

By July of 1941, “it was clear that American Bantam couldn’t cope with contractual obligations,” so the Army asked Willys-Overland to also engage in producing the vehicles. 

Frazer called them “jeeps,” taken from the company’s version of a “G.P.” – short for “General Purpose” military utility vehicle. 

When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the United States was dragged into World War II, and the Army immediately needed more equipment and men. 

To move jeeps to the troops as fast as possible, the U.S. military increased its order to Willys-Overland and then gave Ford contracts to build thousands of vehicles that mirrored the Willys-Overland jeep model. 

Over the next few years, both companies were producing jeeps at a rate of “one every 90 seconds” during the war. 

Lt. Col. Darrin Haas of the Tennessee National Guard, writing for Citizen-Soldier Magazine, said that during the war years, Willys-Overland built 359,874 jeeps while Ford produced 285,660. 

Bantam contributed 2,676 of its vehicles for the war effort, with most serving British and Russian forces. “The Army threw the little company a bone with a contract to build the trailers that hauled equipment behind jeeps,” Haas reported.

 

“Soldiers raved about the jeeps and their versatility on the battlefield. Jeeps delivered troops and supplies and also served as a weapons platform,” Haas said. “Chaplains celebrated communion on the flat hood and officers used it to brief battle plans or stand atop it to address their troops. The engine manifold was often used to heat C-ration cans, and if a little water was drained from the radiator, it could be used for hot water to shave.” 

Haas added: “Jeeps were also modified to plow snow; operate in the desert; function as an ambulance, tractor or firetruck; lay telephone cable; and operate as a generator. Indeed, if given the right wheels, the jeep could be reconfigured as a small railroad engine. Jeeps were small enough to be loaded on aircraft and even fit in gliders for the D-Day invasion. They were customized to provide any need.” 

Army Gen. George C. Marshall said: “Jeep was America’s greatest contribution to modern warfare.”

 

Army Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, said, in effect, that “we could not have won World War II without the jeep.”

 

Dr. Manuel “Mickey” Conley of Fayetteville, N.C., who served as an Army lieutenant colonel, once added: “Versatile, reliable and virtually indestructible, this magic motor vehicle bounced to glory as one of World War II’s most enduring legends.” 

One jeep that was assigned to the Marine Corps in the South Pacific received a Purple Heart (the military decoration awarded to those wounded or killed while serving with the U.S. military). The vehicle was fondly known as “Old Faithful.” 

Built by Willys-Overland, “Old Faithful” was the first Marine Corps jeep to land on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands on Aug. 7, 1942, near Lunga Point. 

In October 1942, “Old Faithful,” received two shrapnel wounds (holes in its windshield) while being shelled by a Japanese battleship.

 

Volume 27 of the Army Ordnance in 1944 reported that the jeep also was one of the first vehicles involved in the invasion of the island of Bougainville, where it served as the command car for military brass, logging more than 11,000 miles through jungle terrain as a command car.

 “Old Faithful” was retired after 18 months of active service by an official Marine Corps’ order on Dec. 22, 1943. The citation stated that “this jeep’s motor, which has never been overhauled, purrs as smoothly today as it did” upon arrival in the Pacific. 

Back in the United States, “Old Faithful” was re-purposed to make special appearances to support the War Bonds effort. 

The “oldest surviving original jeep” from the World War II era is named “Gramps.” It was built in 1940 by American Bantam Car Company of Butler, Pa.

 

In 2020, the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, Pa., an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, held a big 80th birthday bash for “Gramps.” Give it an asterisk, however. 

“Gramps” wasn’t really a jeep. It was a “Blitz Buggy,” built by Bantam and delivered on Nov. 29, 1940. 

What “resonates eternal” about “jeep, the vehicle,” are the words attributed to Army Pvt. Jesse Wolf, who wrote this poem while fighting in Belgium during World War II:

 

When the war was at its hottest

And the going got too steep,

One pal that I could count on

Was the mighty little Jeep.

 

Through beachhead hell, through fire,

Our metal mounts would leap;

With strictly GI courage,

I won’t forget the Jeep.

 

And now the war is over.

The one thing I will keep

For farm and field and hunting –

That’s my buddy, Willy Jeep.

 

 

Jeep stories just keep on coming… 

Jeep is an acronym, according to veterans who served in World War II. It was a term for the new spunky, go-anywhere, do-anything military vehicle. 

Soldiers said the vehicle’s stripped-down simplicity was so austere, its name – jeep – stood for “just enough essential parts.” 

Indeed, the small four-wheel drive buggy was also described as a “sardine can on wheels.” 

There has always been a lot of “curiosity” about how the word “jeep” came to be…and then when and how “jeep” became “Jeep.” 

As a publicity stunt, U.S. Sen. James M. Mead, D-New York, was put behind the wheel to demonstrate the buggy’s impressive off-road capabilities. U.S. Rep. J. Parnell Thomas, R-New Jersey, rode shotgun.

 

With photographers’ flash bulbs popping, Sen. Mead drove the vehicle up the granite steps outside the U.S. Capitol. 

Reporter Katharine Hillyer asked Willys-Overland’s chief test driver Irving “Red” Hausmann: “What is that thing?” Hausmann replied: “It’s a jeep.” 

The photo appearing in The Washington Daily News on Feb. 21, 1941, bore the caption: “Jeep Creeps Up Capitol Steps.” This was the event that set the word “jeep” in the minds of a nation. 

Hausmann recalled that he had heard soldiers at the Army’s Camp Holabird motor transport training center in Baltimore, Md., refer to the protype as a “jeep.” That’s probably true. 

“Jeep is an old Army ‘grease monkey term’ used by shop mechanics in referring to any new motor vehicle received for a test,” said Army Maj. E. P. Hogan, who wrote a history of the development of the jeep for the Army’s Quartermaster Review in 1941. 

Hogan opted to call the vehicle a “bug.” Others preferred “peep.” 

Willys-Overland Motors fell in love with the name “Jeep” and filed for a trademark in 1943, but the filing was contested. 

“Not surprisingly, that drew the ire of management at the American Bantam Company who, having arguably laid much of the groundwork in 1940-41 that led to the Willys jeep, felt Bantam deserved recognition for its pioneering efforts,” said Alex Kefford, an automotive writer based in Bicester, Oxfordshire, England. 

“Equally maligned, however, was another player, one whose claim to the ‘Jeep’ name is often overlooked by history,” he said. 

That company was Minneapolis-Moline (M-M), a tractor and farm implement machinery producer based in Hopkins, Minn.

 

In 1940, M-M began developing four-wheel drive versions of its tractors for the Army. 

Sgt. James T. O’Brien of the Minnesota National Guard was responsible for testing M-M’s UTX “prime mover” reconnaissance vehicles at Camp Ripley. 

He sent a communique to the company stating: “One evening in a gathering of enlisted men, it was suggested that a short descriptive name be found for these vehicles, such names as “alligators” and “swamp rabbits.” 

“I brought forth the name ‘Jeep’ as a result of reading ‘Popeye the Sailor Man’ (comics), in which ‘Eugene the Jeep’ appears as a character,” O’Brien wrote. Like “Eugene the Jeep,” the M-M vehicles “would go where you would least expect them to go.”

 

“This name was unanimously accepted, and ‘Jeep’ was painted on the vehicles.” 

Just FYI: Popeye started out as a civilian mariner, but as of 1937, Popeye was firmly in the Coast Guard. He joined the Navy in 1941, donning “the distinctive white crackerjack uniform.”