Jeeps

Two wheel drive sporty convertible aimed at returning GIs. It couldn't compete with the better equipped Chevys, Fords and Plymouths and was a sales flop. Made from 1948-50.

 

What's not to like?

 

Jeep is post-war...

 

A few years ago I wrote a piece about Jeeps and my imminent return to the UK.

Could give you the link I suppose but thought I'd just give you the whole article instead.

I've written before about my brief love affair with the Willys Jeep but another strong memory comes to mind about the Jeep's value to various Armies, during and after WW2.

My last year overseas was spent at Opicina near Trieste and right on the Jugoslav border.

In the evenings, if we didn’t want to go into Trieste itself ,we would use one of the local bars which had a mixed clientele of civilians and British servicemen.

One night I was in the bar with a few friends and got drawn into a conversation between them and two civilians who were sharing our table, during which it became fairly obvious we were being propositioned as to our willingness to sell any Army goods.

To my annoyance, someone revealed to the civvies that I was a Tech Corporal of a Tank Squadron and, as such, was involved in the control of vehicles and spares.

The attention of the civvies immediately switched to me and I was bluntly asked if I could supply any vehicle parts and particularly Jeep parts.

I was happy to point out that I was a devout coward who valued my Army position far too much to be involved in any such shenanigans and, even more importantly for me, was just about to go home after nearly four years overseas service.

I was, however, sufficiently intrigued to want to know who these gentlemen were and in minutes they openly admitted that they were with the Jugoslav Forces and were desperately looking for Jeep parts, as the British had stopped supplying them.

When one of them said they were in the market for an actual working Jeep I openly laughed and said "Even if someone was prepared to sell you a Jeep you would never be able to get it over the border because of all the road blocks"

He laughed back at me and said " The Jeep would be driven just round the corner, stripped down to its smallest parts and literally carried over the hill to the other side where it would be re-assembled and driven away!"

I believed him then and I believe him now and this was confirmed to me a few years back, when on TV I saw something to do with a military tattoo during which competing teams raced to break down Jeeps in record times.

Did anyone else see this video ?

Ron

 

The ease of breaking down a jeep could be a problem as well. When I first reached a management grade in IT I had an Indian analyst working for me. He had been an army officer when India had an armed misunderstanding with China and told a tale of when he had to do a regular inspection of various defensive posts in the mountains. He and his driver used to do this in an Indian Army jeep. On one such trip they parked the jeep with one side on the edge of a vertical drop and went across the road to a tea house for a glass of chi. This they drank with the parked jeep in full view. When they got back to the vehicle they found that the side next to the drop was propped up on stones with both wheels missing! A pair of jeep wheels was much sought after for bullock carts.

 

Attached is a 1941 Jeep, Max Holzer is a 1927 vet and ex Luftwaffe man from the Herman Goering unit which were caught by the Russians in 1944.
A very lucky man. He was 15 when he faced the Russians. His 50 year old officer was shot immediately by a a Russian officer. Stefan.

 

Found a neat illustration of the prototype CJ-2. CJ for Civilian Jeep. They added a tailgate to the wartime MB and power takeoffs both front and rear. The PTOs didn't make it to the production model, the CJ-2A.

 

The Matchbox version was a jeep to us.

 

My two favorite vehicles

 

" War time economies are all well and good but this latest austerity bog roll is taking matters too far"

 

Although actually used to representative staff cars, the Jeep was obviously appreciated even by German Field Marshals (here: „Smiling Albert“ Kesselring, probably somewhere Anno '45 in Italy)

 

Being charged with TWOC-ing was the least of his worries!

Kind regards, always,

Jim.

 

"If you have questions or complaints, please contact our trained service personnel, they will be happy to advise you"

 

Since this is a forum with a primarily commonwealth focus:
How to recognise a British Jeep

sorry Dave, but you have already claimed Revolvers for the USA

 

Vickers K guns for the most (sometimes mistaken for stripped down Lewis) but what is the one with a belt feed?

 

Wing Commander F R Dix , Commanding Officer of No 3 Field Headquarters Emirau Island 1944

 

A US M2 Browning .50 machine gun, the aircraft model without the heavy barrel. I'm rather surprised that the 9th Air Force would have let any of those get away.

 

Doesn’t need to have been the 9th AF. Plenty of 0.5” in service with the RAF in the desert. Kittyhawks, with 6 of these guns, began to enter service with the Desert Air Force from the end of 1941 with other types such as the Baltimore IIIa and Marauder I following along from mid-1942. Not to mention the Tomahawks, that mounted 2 in the nose, and which preceded the Kittyhawks.

SAS and LRDG were fantastic scroungers of kit.

 

You might be right about that. As far as I can tell from the picture, the .50 on that jeep does not have the typical spade grips used on flexible M2s but something that looks like a Vickers K grip instead. That would be quite a job for an armorer, so SAS must have had a very good one.