Visibly impressed, Hillyer asked, “What’s the name of this thing?”
Hausmann replied proudly, “It’s a Jeep!” using the military GP slang.
So Hillyer wrote her story using that name, and it was picked up by newspapers across the country. The Jeep name soon came to stand for the 4x4 product produced by Willys-Overland.
A Willys MA shows off its stuff in September 1941. This appears to be at the front steps to the Willys headquarters in Toledo, Ohio.
23 In later years, there was a great deal of controversy about who owned the Jeep name; after all, it had been created by army personnel. During the war, Willys-Overland used some clever advertising to convince people to forever link the Willys and Jeep names together. The company used headlines such as “WILLYS builds the JEEP,” and you really had to squint to see the words between Willys and Jeep. After the war, everyone wanted the Jeep name, including the army, Willys, Bantam, etc.
The situation went on for years, but in the end the question was settled by James F. Holden, a lawyer. He filed a lawsuit on behalf of Willys-Overland to win the exclusive right to the Jeep name. The Jeep name has since passed on to the many successive owners of the company that builds Jeeps.
24 Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA, Jeep’s current parent company) is fiercely protective of the Jeep name, and rightfully so. The name was copyrighted many years ago, so whenever it appears in print it must be capitalized, Jeep. That’s because Jeep is a noun, and never an adjective or verb. It’s not supposed be used to classify a variety of vehicles, such as “jeep-like vehicles” and cannot be used to describe a vehicle that’s not a genuine Jeep; in other words, you can’t advertise a Ford Explorer as a Ford Jeep or a Ford jeep (unless you like talking to angry lawyers). You should never say or write that you went “jeeping”; the correct way to describe an off-road adventure is to say you went four-wheeling. Got it?
These are American troops of the Patton’s Fifth Army liberating the town of Vergato, Italy.
25 The new Jeep had several nicknames: Jeep, Peep, Blitz-Buggy, and the GI’s Friend. Soldiers often bestowed their Jeeps with names. One Willys Jeep, which saw action on Guadalcanal, was dubbed Old Faithful by the Marines who used it. Old Faithful was officially retired on October 13, 1942, and enshrined in the Marines Corps Museum at Quantico, Virginia. Reportedly, the vehicle was awarded a Purple Heart for wounds received in battle (two shrapnel holes in the windshield).
26Jeeps were used not only as scout cars but were assault vehicles as well. One of the most daring examples was when a fleet of heavily armed Jeeps from British General Montgomery’s camp were ordered to raid General Rommel’s supply line.
Traveling at night and hiding during the day, they managed to sneak their way around the German main force, ending up well behind German lines. There they waited on a hilltop overlooking Rommel’s main supply route. Before long, a convoy of tanker trucks appeared, hauling fuel for Rommel’s tanks. Firing up their Jeeps, the commandos came swooping down, hell-for-leather, toward the enemy. Driving flat out, their heavy machine guns blazing and spitting bullets frantically, the Jeeps weaved in and out of the German column, wreaking a hellish destruction. Within seconds the German force was reduced to nothing more than a long line of blazing trucks and dead soldiers.
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.
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