Jeep: The Unstoppable Soldier | Wheels

[Music] thank you [Music] Operation Desert Storm the United States and the Coalition forces face the formidable challenge of conducting a ground war in the hot arid expanses of the Kuwaiti and Iraqi deserts and although the business of warfare has gone through Monumental changes in the past 50 years one aspect of waging a surface War remains as essential in the 90s as it did in the 40s the mobility of troops weapons and supplies [Music] the Humvee represents the modern day solution to that military component with four-wheel drive and the power and maneuverability to cover open distances quickly over hostile terrain the Humvee is one of the key Transportation devices in use today in America's military Arsenal but the critical role the Humvee plays could only have been made possible by the vehicle that preceded it a short stubby and simple conjunction of unsophisticated parts and pieces which when cobbled together created a vehicle of legendary proportions the Jeep revolutionized the tactics of combat and the future of Civilian Transportation almost overnight one-part truck one part automobile one part tractor one part Swamp Buggy the Jeep's unique abilities born from its original Mission to fulfill the broad needs of an Army on the Move make its Story one of Daring Ingenuity bold corporate opportunism and stubborn patriotism the Jeep the Unstoppable Soldier [Music] World War One despite its nickname as the war to end all wars was not to be the last time great armies from great sovereign powers would take up arms the immense numbers of dead and wounded that grimly increased with each day of that bitter conflict emphasized the Staggering toll that any War commands and regardless of the outcome all wars have served the undeniable purpose of teaching its adversaries how best to win the next one of the lasting lessons that Allied armies had learned during the first world war was that relying on the horse or mule for transporting men weapons or supplies in the battlefield was at best inefficient and at worst unworkable what had served adequately in previous Wars was now painfully inadequate in what was becoming the dawning age of mechanized Warfare the problem they had was uh not only were they slow and inefficient but when they were fighting it took uh one man to hold a horse while another man was fighting and shooting the gun so it was terribly inefficient not only that you had to bring supplies up to the horses oats hay Veterinary supplies in addition to supplies for the men so you know it got terribly inefficient for the Army to continue that way they were looking for some way to modernize and mechanize the job of reconnaissance or scouting was also a vital military task which up until then was conducted largely on foot or on Horseback some twenty thousand model T's were used by American forces for reconnaissance Duty during World War one but not entirely suited to perform all they were asked to in part because of their standard two-wheel drive they failed to supply the ultimate answer to the battlefield Mobility that the Army sorely needed motorcycles had also been tried with limited success but the uncertain geography of a wartime theater quickly revealed the motorcycle's weaknesses as early as 1910 some years before World War One the American Military had experimented with an expensive but agile field vehicles at several Army installations including the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland and Fort Riley in Kansas this 1911 hubmobile stripped to almost the bear chassis represented the state of the art in all-purpose military vehicle technology being pursued by a handful of automobile manufacturers at that time and is the imminent warning shots of World War II were echoing from Central Europe and the Pacific Rim American military leaders were convinced a battle-ready multi-purpose vehicle would soon be a necessity merman Harrington tried to to dig into the business they had a four-wheel drive truck at the time the problem they had was that it was it was a very robust design it was made for use in the in the field in the in the Farms it was very heavy and it would tend to get stuck in any kind of sand or mud sort of thing so you know they needed something that was lightweight four-wheel drive and with some power to the wheels Captain Robert Howey and master sergeant Melvin Wiley from the Fort Benning Georgia infantry School designed and built another possible answer to the Army's need for field Mobility it was called the Howie belly Flopper the belly flapper was a unique a unique vehicle a tiller steering in the rear small four-cylinder engine to drive it the way you drove it is you laid down prone in other words like you were shooting a rifle laying down and you drove it by steering it with with your your feet basically and you had a rifle or machine gun on it and it it only stood about 24 inches off the ground sort of very low silhouette the problem with it is it had no springs or shocks so you were laying down there getting your insides beat out of you is went over any kind of terrain not alone rough terrain just going over a parking lot today would be enough to give you severe rib injuries obviously it didn't get very far during the 1930s the American Bantam car company of Butler Pennsylvania was building small economical Coupes and roadsters in 1938 bantam's owner Roy Evans offered the Pennsylvania National Guard to American Bantam roadsters to use during their annual summer Maneuvers weighing only one thousand pounds the bantams favorably impressed the Guardsmen with their taught handling and spirited performance this would be the first small step in bringing Bantam and the U.S military into an eventful relationship with enormous historical impact foreign Adolf Hitler's brutal sweep through Central Europe was the major focus of American Military scrutiny during much of 1939. one of the more sardonic jokes being passed around U.S army bases claimed that Hitler had just ordered 1 000 tanks from General Motors but rather than have them delivered he just picked them up on the way through with American involvement in European hostilities now almost a foregone conclusion the Army took steps to equip itself with whatever Hardware was necessary to ensure Victory including a go anywhere light reconnaissance vehicle or lrv on June 27 1940 the Army's ordinance technical committee agreed on a list of specifications it felt would Define the basic size and capabilities of the lrv it was looking for of the 17 major specifications listed including four-wheel drive one of the most off-putting was the initial weight limit a mere 1200 pounds later raised to thirteen hundred this was roughly half the weight of the production automobiles being built by Detroit in the 1930s what the what the Ordinance Department decided they needed was a clean sheet approach so what they did is they outlined specifications for this this Jeep vehicle if you will and what they called it was a truck one quarter ton 4x4 the weight was supposed to be 1300 pounds with a 600 pound payload those were the basic descriptors of the original contract that went out for the quote of the vehicles during the 30s Americans had shown a strong appetite for large roomy powerful Automobiles and few manufacturers were devoting their energies toward the design and development of lightweight Vehicles another specification dictated by the Army was equally daunting a running pilot car would have to be delivered to Camp Holabird in Baltimore Maryland in only 49 days 135 letters of intent were sent to the automotive industry at large inviting any and all interested Builders to compete for the startup contract worth 175 000 for an initial run of 70 vehicles the unheard of specifications and stringent time limit were enough to keep all but two companies from responding to the challenge Willie's Overland in Toledo Ohio and the American Bantam car company Bantam claimed it could meet the specifications and have the pilot vehicle delivered in 49 days Willie's Overland was less sure and was granted an extension to 120 days to deliver their prototype what happened next is an involved cross-current of personal initiative and political Intrigue that would center around two men Carl Probst of Bantam and Bonnie Roos of Willie's Overland Carl Probst was an independent contractor hired by Bantam to do the design of this Jeep vehicle it wasn't called the Jeep then of this early reconnaissance car he was given the task to design it he did the basic design in five days and built the first prototype in 49 days that's the blitz buggy that was driven out to Camp Holabird for the original testing he is the Undisputed father of the Jeep if you will uh that fact has never been in in dispute although uh Barney Roos and Carl Probst cut in some heated discussions over that Barney Roos was the chief engineer at Willy's Overland Motor Company he was in charge of the basic design of all the Willy's Overland cars at the time and he was a chief engineer extraordinaire he was very Adept uh it's solving any type of problems he's also an engineer's engineer he would get his hands dirty and dig into the problems and understand what made things tick and what what needed to be improved the importance of winning the Army contract for bantam was not lost on Carl Probst Bantam was in failing Financial Health so much so that Probst was hired on spec meaning that he would only be paid if his design of the lrv was chosen by the army the pressure of meeting the government specifications and the time limit was now further exacerbated by what appeared to be a life or death scenario facing bantam behind the scenes at the Pentagon military decision makers questioned amongst themselves whether bantam which now operated with a limited production facility could meet the volume requirements the Army would be looking at should bantam's lrv design win the contract and so while Carl Probst was scouring the parts bins at Bantam to adapt existing Bantam components to his emerging design the Army was asking the Ford Motor Company to join the search for a workable light reconnaissance vehicle you've got to understand there were several factions within the various divisions of government saying Bantam couldn't supply enough Vehicles they only had 450 people total Willie's Overland had 5 000 people in total Ford Motor Company had a hundred thousand so there are various different uh sizes of Corporations you're dealing with here the government didn't feel Bantam could Supply in any quantity of the vehicles that they were acquiring so they were going behind the scenes and encouraging both Ford and Willis Overland to submit their vehicles and they would be considered for testing even though they were late back in Pennsylvania Probst was joined by Bantam employees Frank Finn Harold Crist and a small team of Associates who would assist in the acquisition of component parts and oversee assembly once the time came for actual construction of the Prototype but before they could reach that point it would be entirely up to Probst to create a successful design that had been granted little room for error Carl had an exceptionally large staff it included him himself and then no one else he basically did it on a drawing board about the size of my desk over a weekend you know once he laid out the basic Drive string you threw a body around it and he didn't have a lot of emissions controls to worry about her airbags or seat belts you know you were basically just sitting out there the only seat belt they had was a canvas webbing that went from one side of the doorpost to the other just to make sure he didn't fall out there wasn't a lot on the vehicle he did it all once Probst had drawn up blueprints for the Bantam lrv the Army would need to review them and give the go-ahead for a prototype the blueprints received quick approval from the military but unbeknownst to Probst and his colleagues they were then forwarded to Willy's Overland and Ford to help speed up the development of their designs as the Bantam prototype took shape in the summer of 1940 it was a model of engineering simplicity a sturdy frame with only two cross members on an 80 inch wheelbase Spicer axles including a rear unit based on a Studebaker Champion production differential and a 42 horsepower Continental engine which offered more power than bantam's own in-house engine comprise the platform for the new lrv the body was a hasty Fusion of raw sheet metal and junkyard cast offs including a hood fashioned from a discarded trunk lid 47 days after putting pencil to paper the Bantam team rolled their Blitz buggy into the light of day for the first time two days later on September 23 1940 after sharing the driving duties on the 230 mile trip from Pennsylvania Carl Probst and Harold Crist arrived at Camp Holabird in the Bantam Blitz buggy some 30 minutes before the Army's 49-day time limit expired the new lrv was submitted for testing before a panel of army brass and the critical eyes of representatives from the other competing manufacturers with little if any field testing behind it the Bantam prototype was subjected to a battery of rugged Relentless tests designed to uncover any structural weaknesses or design flaws the compact vehicle might be suffering from passing each test with flying colors it appeared that the blitz buggy had won the Army over until the question of the vehicle's overall weight threatened to end bantam's hopes of winning the production contract the interesting thing in this story is that when the original specifications went out the vehicle was to weigh no more than thirteen hundred and fifty pounds bantam's prototype weighed in at 1800 pounds and that was some of the reluctance of the other design the other uh car companies to submit bids no one knew how to build a car to meet those strict weight requirements even today we have a hard time meeting you know weight requirements of that magnitude they got a little once they saw what the vehicle could do the general sat around you know deciding and they said don't worry about that we'll put it down as a typo it'll slide through the system as long as uh four men can pick it up out of a ditch will consider it an acceptable weight and they got one strong Sergeant to go over and he basically lifted It Out by himself he said that's fine we'll take it so it kind of is what set the uh the stage for the weight requirement uh and they basically weighed the uh the blitz blogging and said that's the weight requirement 1850 pounds three more weeks of heavy-handed testing revealed that the Bantam design was on target if a part or system on the blitz buggy did fail during testing Army mechanics found they could be repaired easily Bantam was given the green light to build a total of 72 Blitz buggies for further Army evaluation but the exceptional performance of the Bantam prototype had not escaped the interests of Willy's Overland with bantam's blueprints in hand Barney Roos went about the task of building his prototype adopting much of the basic design methodology he found in the Bantam blueprints on November 13 1940 the completed Willy's prototype designated the Willy's quad was delivered to the Army not surprisingly the Willy Squad bore a striking resemblance to the Bantam Blitz buggy much to the indignation of Carl Probst and his team the Army claiming that these new vehicles were their property asserted that they could share their designs with whomever they pleased not wanting to jeopardize a lucrative government contract Probst and Bantam chose not to force the issue although similar to The Blitz buggy in appearance the Willy's quad benefited from several improvements which Barney Roos had included to overcome a number of the Bantam Vehicles most egregious shortcomings Barney chose the Willy's go devil engine a production unit from the Willy's automobile that boasted more power and torque than bantam's Continental engine the quad was stronger and more substantial in overall construction which ultimately LED however to a problem for ruse the same problem which had confronted Carl Probst and the blitz buggy the quad was seriously overweight problem that Willie's Overland Barney Roos had was that they were somewhere and they were 2100 pounds they were 300 pounds overweight they had to take their vehicle and go back because a new specification said it can't weigh more than 1850 pounds they went back and looked at Cotter Keys length of bolts they cut bolts down they shaved excess weight off of Parts they even went so far as to specify just one coat of paint on the vehicle because two would put it over the spec when they got done they were within they were actually under seven ounces to the weight requirement so they cut it pretty close meanwhile Ford had little leg work to do when designing and fabricating their lrv by now Bantam and Willie's Overland had shown the way all that was left for Ford to do was build a derivative of what the Army had already seen and endorsed the Ford gpw soon to be called the GP completed the triumvirate of lrvs that would be called upon to fulfill the Army's needs for a multi-purpose 4x4 based heavily on its two predecessors the GP under agreement with Willies would ultimately come equipped with the more powerful Willy's engine rather than the agricultural Forts and tractor engine originally used in the first prototypes the Army had stipulated that all three manufacturers were to adhere to design uniformity that allowed easy interchangeability of Parts but Henry Ford stubbornly determined to maintain some semblance of individuality in his products ordered that each and every part in the Ford GP bear the letter F right down to each nut and bolt no one came close in the weight Department everyone came close to meeting the payload they were all obviously a quarter ton 4x4 as they all used basically Dana axles different engines different transmissions and they had pretty much the same basic layout two seats driver steering wheel Hood they met those requirements they got a little more complex and next round negotiations they got very specific about different generators alternators and acts in the shovel had to be added driving the weight up but those were all things that the Army wanted to make them more useful out in the field by March 1941 with war now engulfing most of Europe and the Specter of Japanese aggression erupting on the other side of the Pacific the Army pushed ahead its timetable for having its supply of lrvs up to operational levels during extensive head-to-head testing at army installations where Army Personnel were now putting the lrvs through their Paces the Bantam Blitz buggy the Willy's Overland quad and the Ford GP were performing admirably but before the Army was prepared to offer the volume contract for mass production of its lrvs it would contract with each manufacturer to build a shorter run of 1500 units Bantam delivered 1175 Blitz buggies within months many of them shipped overseas under the lend lease agreement with Russia and Britain by the end of the year Bantam would deliver close to 2 700 lrvs to the Army however it would be the largest order for their revolutionary vehicle that Bantam would ever receive from the military Barney Roos continued to upgrade the Willy's quad which by now had evolved into the model designation M A and the ma was quickly winning strong favor with the military establishment the Willies was the favorite among the troops because of its engines power it could do more things get out of places quicker had less breakdowns and a lot of that we attribute to the fact that Bernie Roos had a a policy developing an engine that you had to run at 100 hours wide open throttle non-stop without anything breaking that's how it was developed you think about that you can have a little more robust design in the engine but look at what Ford did they took a basic Fordson tractor engine and put that in it was used to running on a governor so it's a constant speed low RPM that's what this engine was designed for bantam just went out and purchased an off-the-shelf engine from the Continental Motor Company so the engine is by far and away the biggest part of the Jeep vehicle and that's what the gis were so impressed impressed about it's lightweight High horsepower and you could certainly move with it with the gi's the Willies seem to be more popular uh it broke down less frequently uh they were more comfortable easier to drive they were easier to get in and out of and when you're loaded down with 80 pounds of gear getting in and out of a vehicle becomes important but also many men claim they like the Willies better because it you could cannibalize pots from a disabled Willies and use them to restore a partially destroyed uh Jeep and and save that jeep and reclaim it they like the fact that the pots were very quickly and easily removed from damaged Jeeps this was basically the reason why from my experience the Willies was the more uh favorable the more popular Jeep it was now up to the Army to award the mass production order Ford and Willy's by now the clear Front Runners had submitted bids with the expectation that one of them would be awarded the Hefty government contract but the Army wasn't completely sold on any one of the three designs set before them none of them at least in the eyes of the military were perfect and with questions persisting about bantam's ability to meet the Army's production requirements it appeared that the bid submitted by Willies and Ford would be the deciding factors on who would land the deal foreign thing was at the very end of the bidding and the volume contract there was a fourth bidder that came in most people aren't aware of that was a Checker Cab Company they had a bid actually they were the low bidder somewhere around 700 but they were completely disregarded because they had never provided a prototype in any of the testing and they for therefore they weren't qualified to bid on this they kind of threw them out as a late Comer but that gives you some indication the range it usually went from 700 to 780 dollars as the uh the bid on the vehicles uh for that volume contract ultimately corporate squabbling and the Army's desire to double Source the project would make winners of both Willies and Fort the Army issued bids to all three of the uh the respondents for 15 000 vehicles for extended testing throughout different theaters also to start developing different strategic plans as to how you would use the uh the Jeep vehicle in Wartime once they went through that testing the Army got together and said um this isn't quite what we want we like some features from each they like the the fenders and Hood from the Ford they love the engine the power they got from the engine out of the Willies and Bantam had some unique features as well that they want to incorporate so they rewrote all those specifications and called it a uh an MB that's what went out and was quoted when it came back Willie's Overland was uh was the winner in that they were awarded they were awarded the contract to build 100 000 or so units at that point in time Ford Motor Company contested it you know it went back and forth several times again because of the differing factions on who was best capable of producing these amount of vehicles I ended up both Ford and Willie's produced the vehicles Ford under license from Willy's they basically copied everything that Willie's had designed up to that point including the engine despite popular belief bantam's inability to land the volume contract from the Army did not lead to their immediate bankruptcy the war had provided Bantam with a profitable source of income from the production of cargo trailers torpedo Motors and aircraft landing gear helping the small Pennsylvania company to survive until ending production in 1956. [Music] thank you the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor abruptly launched the United States into World War II the with the standardization of the Army's newest vehicle now achieved serious production of this multi-talented Workhorse could begin the Willies MB reworked and refined by Barney Roos brought the previous model the ma to the level of Battlefield Readiness the Army had been looking for and the differences that they had identified they wanted to see in this new MB was a new type of air filter it was common with the other vehicles they had out in the field a six volt 40 amp generator 15 gallon fuel tank in place of the 10 a military type battery the handbrake was moved from the center was moved to the center from the Ford design because they like that you can get to it from either seat you know if someone was shot you know they could easily pull the hand brake from the passenger seat as well the double hoop top support from Willies they like that because otherwise the top tenant droop down right over your head as you were driving you know didn't tend to keep the water off you as well combat lighting with blackout lights modifications steering column and brakes shock absorbers and of course the ever-present Pioneer tools consisting of the ax and shovel that's what became the MB and that's what they went into production with the general purpose vehicle or gpv as it was now commonly called would find its way into the hands of thousands of enlisted men and officers in every branch of the military both on the home front and overseas and its nomenclature gpv was soon to be replaced by the name it would carry forever after we were told that it's uh they were designated as a GP gpv general purpose vehicle well as with everything else in the in the military they abbreviate and they dropped the V for the vehicle and kept the GP and for a long time it was called a GP a GP and pretty soon that was shortened to just be Jeep and as far as I know that's how it got its name just like OD and GI was government issue OD was olive drab everything was my initials in those days oh that's probably the most talked about subject when you talk about Jeeps you've got Eugene the Jeep there's the Jeep Moline tractor there's the GP contraction for from GP which by the way was a Ford designation and didn't come until after you know the vehicle had been designed into production we'll probably never know where the Jeep name came from the first time it was ever mentioned in print though was uh when red Houseman a test driver at the time took one of the reporters up the capitol steps in a jeep and he took her down through one of the parks as well down through the Ravine and up the other side and when he pulled the stop there were some reporters around they asked him what the name of that thing was and he just hung on the steering wheel and said it's a Jeep it's the first time it's ever been in print and from there after you know it just took off no one will ever know the real the real way the Jeep name came about in May of 1964 in a jeep promotional film produced by WTOL TV in Toledo red Houseman himself was asked how the Jeep name was born Jeep when you are credited as being the man who got the name Jeep started in the public press and so forth but where did you first hear the name was it used around the plant as they were building this vehicle no it was not it was used at Camp Oliver that's where it was test that's right and uh how did it come about it was used on a command guard at the time and it was a matter of differentiating between the three models on tests and uh I just asked to have ours called the chief and one was called a banner one was called a fort yeah and some of the reporters started using it that's how it all got started again with war plant production at maximum output Jeeps were being built at the rate of 300 per day between 1941 and 1945. Ford and Willies would produce a combined total of over 600 000 Jeeps Willie's Motors ended up building in the neighborhood of 357 849 military Jeeps fears are sabotage led the Dual sourcing with Ford and Ford built an additional 290 151 Jeeps the difference being Ford built those that number of jeeps at five different manufacturing plants Willy's Motors built all of those right here in this facility that you're in today every one of them came off this assembly line so you know it's they built a lot of them in many different sites Willy's built all 350 000 right here on this site it was a matter of total mobilization children collected rubber collected aluminum collected steel women went into the factories and worked they left their homes the support of the war effort was just astounding and it was overnight and this ability this what I call the productive Genius of the American is what I think was the deciding factor in the winning of the war on two friends we loaded a lot of everything obviously so the combat zone uh Vehicles were a part of the assignment and jeeps obviously were a part of the vehicles that were loaded on the ships uh a big part Jeeps were a tremendous part uh and we had as many as I recall as many as 15 pairs where ships were being loaded 24 hours a day and and these vehicles for the most part would be placed on the dick on the decks of the uh of each ship and with cables would be strapped down obviously to prevent uh losing them at Sea Willie's Overland was a low bidder on the the volume contract of around 732 dollars so they were pretty cheap in relative terms back then compared to a tank they're around thirty five thousand dollars as I recall and get a lot more people they're Expendable you know if you blow one up you just go get another one they were producing them in such quantities that the supply was not a problem literally thousands we shipped each ship uh contain the number of vehicles all types of combat vehicles from low smaller pickup trucks to Heavy Duty weapons carriers to uh and included Jeeps the Jeeps were a big part of the shipment to the combat zone as to how many there were that that I recall I I honestly I couldn't put a number except to say that it had to be thousands literally thousands and thousands of Jeeps they were small they were compact they could be placed anywhere and everywhere that the space was available on the ship and uh and they would utilize for that purpose this country it's amazing our production facilities caught up so quickly to the Germans and the Japanese and uh the Japanese Admiral Yamoto I think it was he was against the war he was against this kind of Japanese Pearl Harbor but he was outvoted and he said that you're waking up the sleeping Jane and he was right our production just was unbelievable to this day how they switched over so fast we would hoist these vehicles onto the deck when the ship was firmly loaded and the holes were sealed they would then begin to load the decks themselves uh and cable with cables tie them down and they were loading this series of vehicles including Jeeps and at one point there they had this Jeep raised up above the pier and the cable snapped and uh and this Jeep actually fell to the pier uh on its four wheels uh from a distance of perhaps 30 feet uh and of course it caused a great great amount of activity uh in as much as there was the fear of somebody being hurt but there wasn't uh the first reaction was that the car was totally destroyed but when they examined it they uh somebody put the ignition on and just drove it back to the motor pool from the moment the Jeep and the GI first met it was love at first sight even before distinguishing itself in the war zone Jeeps were the most popular means for both officer and enlisted man to shuttle around military bases despite their lack of Creature Comforts and their Stark utilitarian appearance the Jeep's willingness to serve and its dogged ability to adapt to most any job soon made it much more than the sum of its parts [Music] the Jeeps were of course the first time we ran across them uh were in basic training in Alabama and they were used basically to carry non-commissioned offices and officers from one point of the base to the other they were allowed they were hard riding but they did everything the car was initially commissioned to be a one-quarter ton reconnaissance Scout car it would go ahead of the troops got out what was their report back radio in findings just to kind of get out and see what's going on once the gis got it in the field they were they were instrumental in outfitting that to do many tasks they put stretchers on it to haul wounded back from the front they were putting barbed wire rolls on the back of it to lay down barbed wire fences cables for telephone lines you know throw a plow in the back you could dig a trench and put a pile on the front you can cover the trench over for early communication lines buses trains they even outfitted some with half tracks and you know made a early snowmobile out of it if you will from some skis on the front of it it did just about everything they asked for if you wrapped it in a tarpon you could paddle it across a river you know so River Crossings if they're too deep too forward through you could just paddle across them so you know they given the gis a a little a little inch there they took it a long way and made a lot of usefulness out of the vehicle in some cases it became the the chapel you cover the hood of it and you have your altar for the Sunday services so it had a lot of uses out in the field blessed with a powerful reliable drivetrain and Scrappy four-wheel drive the jeep was soon the subject of countless stories of its incredible toughness and versatility in both the steaming jungles of the South Pacific and the Deep Snows of the northern Frontiers first time I drove a jeep was in the Battle of the Bulge we were told to drive trucks we were told to drive everything but tanks and my first time if my memory is correct was when we were starting to evacuate some sections of the city of March where we had finally managed to blunt or stop the Westward Push by gerd Von runstad and the German forces and we were evacuating Food Supplies and ammunition to a safer location I would happen to be a mine and booby trap technician with the 84th rail splitter Infantry Division at the time that the Bulge broke out on the 16th of December my division was on the roar River on Hitler's West Wall his Siegfried line the Americans were so hopelessly outnumbered 75 000 to 500 000 Germans that all available troops in America England France southern France Italy Germany Holland were being brought to try and stem this awesome offensive by Hitler's forces we were transported in six by six troop carriers all night long wound up in the city of March and from that point all hell broke loose all sorts of confusion broke loose uh command broke down Communications broke down supply lines broke down uh morale broke down everything broke down it was hopeless confusion for at least two weeks of the six weeks of that campaign pretty much most of the vehicles broke down due to the severe 40 degree below zero temperatures and if for the most part waste deep snow which turned eventually to sheer ice from the fifth day of the Bulge until the end was blizzard-like conditions with gale force winds tanks slid off of roads and into ditches and could not operate ambulances couldn't get through the snow three-quarter ton weapons carriers Recon Vehicles troop carriers were bogged down in the snow but the jeep was able to still move with its four-wheel drive and it's a remarkable capabilities it managed to keep going and it was used for just practically everything depending upon what theater you're going into you could airlift them over typically on when they had many of them they were packed into a crate that was roughly four foot wide three foot high and about eight foot long so you can stack several of them on a ship going overseas once you got them there you could get them any way you could on train you know you load them up on a train for long distances or they actually outfitted them with parachutes dropped them from the large large planes or gliders and they'd roll out with the troops uh going to their assigned position so they got there in a lot of ways I'm told that in the Southwest Pacific uh the Jeep performed in the sand where men couldn't March and I think it was Universal the affection that the military forces Marines uh Air corps all of them had for the Jeep it was just Universal it's a story about the Navy you never parked your army jeep near a doctor Navy ship was on the hook had come down and move it while you're having your lunch or something and within an hour then maybe you'd have it back on the dock painted like our Navy Jeep here gray the gis felt that was uh one of the things that endeared them back to the states there their vehicle America is is America on Wheels they're very attached to their their vehicles um people would go so far as to pop the distributor cap on the vehicles and switch to spark plug wires I believe was one in four and the vehicle would start an idle but you couldn't drive it anywhere just so they make sure their vehicle wouldn't get away from them um they were always cannibalizing Parts you know if they'd find one it had an axle left they'd take that and build the rest of the Jeep from all the other bits and pieces and blown apart you know throughout the rest of the campaign um they were very attached to them as much as you or I would be to our cars today you know we're in the car business we love cars it's that kind of a an affair you must remember that the American male is first of all in love with his vehicle maybe second with his girlfriend or wife and maybe third with his supper or his job but first it's his vehicle he polishes his vehicle before he does anything for his wife we are a generate we are a country whose whole culture is is predicated on automobiles uh and that love for any type of four-wheel vehicle uh extended to the gis it was a cute vehicle it was uh it was the darling of of the military forces you get a big 10-wheel truck what's a big 10-wheel truck you get a treaded uh weapons carrier uh or a or a Recon vehicle big it's clanking along it's making all sorts of noise and then Along Comes This Rudy kazooty little vehicle that everyone fell in love with uh the GI it was his favorite vehicle without any doubt whatsoever well a lot of it has to relate to the gi's I mean everyone could relate to a Jeep everyone who was anyone was seen in a jeep kings queens princes generals visiting dignitaries they always wrote if you notice in the films they're in the passenger seat front it's a good reason for that many of the Jeeps if you rode in them for any length of time in the rear you get a quick case of hemorrhoids so you didn't want to do it very very long that was one of one of the stories that you hear about on the Frontiers and specifically in Europe was that a lot of the Armed sentries if you drove up in a Jeep and the officers were sitting in the back they knew they were they were the enemy because all officers in America rode in the front because of those problems we just talked about they could tell if you know they were impersonating American officers the German military machine whenever it captured Americans which was in during the Bulge with frightening frequency in fact they in one division they captured intact almost two full regiments in the first four or five days three or four days of the Bulge and the first thing they wanted was the Jeep they had uh kublwagen which was a rear a four-cylinder rear-wheel drive four passenger Volkswagen that they used almost exclusively to transport their offices to various points on the Battlefront uh and the Jeep apparently from the frequency with which they tried to steal and acquire hours uh was Superior to what they had in their army for that type of vehicle it was very common to see Germans driving uh Jeeps with their Insignia on it but however they stole that Sherman tanks and used them and put swastikas on them too so anything that could be used rifles machine guns artillery pieces but they wanted that cheap some early French Resistance Fighters as I recall were approached by people claiming to be American soldiers trying to get through a checkpoint the century didn't hesitate he merely pulled his gun up and shot all four of them dead when asked why he could be so sure they weren't Americans he said that's easy everyone knows Americans come in a jeep historians have at writers I have read had said it was the jeep that won World War II and to some degree I have to concur Ernie Pyle a war correspondent had a a special relationship with the gas out in the field and I've got a quote here I'll read that he wrote concerning the GPA it kind of sums up what the vehicle was doing good Lord I do not 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 agile as a goat all the time it carries twice what it was designed for and still keeps on going it doesn't even ride so badly after you get used to it the Jeep is a Divine instrument of wartime Locomotion Ernie Pyle [Music] America's decisive victories over Germany and Japan brought peacetime back to the United States in late 1945. Willys and Ford had more than adequately maintained the supply of military Jeeps to the American and Allied fighting forces but soon with the need for army jeeps greatly diminished Ford's eagerness to continue Jeep production would also decline Willies now faced with surviving on solely their automobile production which was barely profitable saw an opportunity to boost its bottom line in 1948 Willie's well he's pushed to get the patent on the Jeep name Ford Motor Company did not contest it at that point in time the speculation is they were just coming out of the War uh people needed cars and trucks they didn't see much of a market for a what we would call today the sport utility Market small 4x4 sport utilities um they didn't put up much of a fight at all I mean in fact they didn't contest at all and that's one of the reasons the Jeep name is trademarked today now with Chrysler Corporation is they stuck with it and kept through all the years but the Willy strategy was not geared toward the recreational applications of the Jeep but rather its agricultural potential the infinite versatility that the Jeep had shown on the battlefields of Europe and the South Pacific could perhaps be marketed toward the segment of the civilian population that derived its livelihood from farming Willie's Overland thought they had a the Jeep would become a replacement tractor for all of the servicemen coming back from the war they thought they would want a Jeep in their garage and what's more they wanted to do everything that they could when they were overseas they outfitted plows to it Threshers spray painters compressors you name it welders they had a tool that you could put on the Jeep and you know use back up to it put a backhoe on it you can go out and lay a trench covered up with the snow blade or the the Dozer blade they had outlined a complete catalog of tools that you could purchase to go with your Jeep and they envisioned a farmer owning a Jeep you could plow with it one day unhook it go to church and then pick up his groceries with it you know same day I was so enamored of the Jeep when I was discharged and came back from Europe in 1946 I served as a year of occupation uh because of a limited knowledge some knowledge of the German language I was used for As an interpreter and for tracking down war criminals and so forth but when I came home in 1946 the first thing I did was to buy a Jeep I bought my Jeep in 46 because of what I had seen it could do in snow in the Bulge and what it could do in in mud in France Holland and Germany several of the people on the board of Willie's Motors had farms in the area and so what they would do is they'd have these things developed someone by Monroe auto equipment some by other people Warren Winch Meyer snow plow they would develop these various appliances attachments if you will need to go out and plow 40 acres run a combine through the fields you know just everything they do on their Farm you know they use that on the weekends and we have pictures showing what Canada Day and his board of directors out reviewing the progress that they've made with the appliances out in the field um they foresaw that not only in in the states here but overseas in developing countries newly freed from the aggression of vending the war would need this type of vehicle at that point in time Willie's Overland was uh was quite an expansive company having factories and I believe over 50 countries licensing and building the Jeep Vehicles as they existed at the end of the war so there was a tremendous untapped potential Market worldwide for Jeep vehicles and accessories and they were looking to capitalize on that Willies saw a limited success with its plan to replace America's venerable tractor with the Jeep reluctant to abandon a style of equipment that had served Farmers for almost 50 years the farming Community stayed for the most part with their traditional agricultural Fleet and the sale of jeeps failed to show the increases Willie's Overland had expected in 1953 Willie sold its Jeep operation to Kaiser Industries for an estimated 60 million dollars Kaiser slowly repositioned the Jeep as a new kind of automobile that offered an adventurous image and the ability to go where other vehicles couldn't the product line was expanded to include more civilian-oriented convertibles and station wagons as names like Wagoneer and Gladiator truck became symbols of rugged and dependable transportation on February 5th 1970 American Motors purchased the Kaiser Jeep Corporation for 70 million dollars [Music] seven with extra room for gear and options like a hard top and automatic transmission it was during the youth driven decade of the 1970s that the Jeep spearheaded a new wave of vehicular fashion that has gradually become one of the most profitable segments of the world's Automotive Market the sport utility one more time it really started to take off when they kind of recognized their niche in that this vehicle could get you into places uh that most people couldn't go out west Rubicon Trail is a good example I it's a trail that literally takes you uh 24 hours to go 12 miles it's not something you're going to do overnight and there are very few vehicles that can do that the Jeep vehicle will get you there and get you back without any issue but that opened up the uh the recreational Market if you will the people that wanted to go up in the woods on the weekends or go out in the mountains go go fly fishing it opened that market for them and that's really when it started to take off in the late 60s when we started adding some Creature Comforts to allow them to get to their places in relative comfort as well as safety now owned by the Chrysler Corporation the jeep has been retired from its military career and has been replaced by the Humvee which carries on in a proud tradition that was forged 50 years ago on Smoky battlefields and white hot deserts around the globe hurriedly conceived and pieced together from The undignified Remains foraged from salvage yards and thrown headlong into the worst conditions that nature and warfare could contrive The Saga of the Jeep is an enduring affirmation of American ingenuity second only to Coca-Cola as the world's most identifiable trademark the Jeep's lasting Fame has been well earned I guess if you look at everything that's been written and said it comes down to one or two things knows what it is and it does it quite well it doesn't put on any appearances or errors it's meant to be a vehicle that will get you anywhere and do anything the Jeep brought supplies to us ammunition of food to us when other vehicles couldn't it went places at other vehicles now you had a six by six Troop Carrier you couldn't ask it to go up a mountain unless it had a road the Jeep could go over piles of stone it could go over Rubble it could go through swamps it did everything and it moved where other vehicles couldn't it moved where tanks couldn't move and I oh yes I would have to say that the wall would have been prolonged had we not had the Jeep and utilized it as widely as we did I think an awful lot of men would not have been evacuated or got into medical facilities as fast without that Jeep or would have had a profound difference on the outcome of the war there will always be a Jeep you know probably always exist in uh in not only the minds of the customers but the the people lived in the past as well [Music] thank you thank you

Channel: Wild About Wheels

Views: 296

Keywords: Wheels, Jeep, Humvee, Hummer, AMC, Chrysler, Stellantis

Id: 3IPzrnJv5xY

Length: 57min 12sec (3432 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 11 2022