How Jeeps Won World War II for the Allies - Case Study Example

How Jeeps won World War II for the Allies “If a vehicle ever deserved a medal, the World War II GI Jeep would certainly be first in line (Allen, 2002, Pg. 32)”. Abstract The technology used by the Allies in World War II helped them in many ways and one of the advantages gained with the use of technology was mobility. While the Germans had already used speed to conquer vast areas of Europe, the mobility and element of surprise gained by the Allies through the use of the Jeep made it possible for them to fight back and wage their own Blitzkrieg. The Jeep served the Allies in all fronts and across every imaginable terrain to find acceptance with the GI and allow war commanders to appreciate the benefits of superior mobility gained with the Jeep. Introduction While there are many reasons given for how the Allies won the Second World War, the use of the Jeep is not often given as a part of these reason. It is substantially easy to underestimate the importance of the role that the Jeep played in World War Two and its effect of helping the Allies secure a victory on both fronts. By examining the evidence presented from history, it can be shown that the Jeep played a pivotal role in leading the Allies to Victory over the Axis Powers in several theatres of war. The Jeep offered the troops the primary advantage of mobility and allowed them to bring men and equipment to places where other vehicles could not go. It was easy to maintain, easy to repair and easy to transport as it was shipped to every front of the war and saw more action than any other mechanized vehicles produced by the allies during the war. All fronts did not have all types of tanks or aircraft yet the Jeep was present everywhere from the plains of Europe to the jungles of Burma to the Sahara dessert. Moreover, everywhere it went it performed admirably. To better understand how it helped win the war, a history of the Jeep itself must be understood. Historical Background The history of the Jeep begins in 1941 with the first mass produced Jeep coming off an assembly line in Ohio. While the American army had understood the need for a highly mobile all-terrain vehicle for reconnaissance and combat support missions since the First World War, the urgency for developing this battle horse came only when the Axis powers starting winning major victories in Europe. The American Army asked manufacturers to present them with a prototype vehicle in two months time. Facing this tight deadline, the Bantam Car Company and Willys Overland were the only two automobile manufacturers who responded positively. However, Willys Overland had to withdraw since they could not meet the two month time limit and Bantam barely managed to present a prototype. However, their prototype passed all testing requirements of the Army. The Army did realize that Bantam was a small company at best which had a weak manufacturing supply line and was also in financial trouble. Additionally, Ford and Willys Overland also managed to bring together their prototypes of which Willys Overland’s prototype appears to be the best. In these circumstances, the Army gave the contract to Willys Overland but the requirement for the cars was so vast that other automobile producers had to be supplied the design documents of Willys Overland’s model so that the cars could be produced in the numbers required. This was certainly a farsighted step since by the time the war ended, more than 700,000 such vehicles had been produced as the combined output of Willys-Overland and Ford. How the vehicle came to be known as a ‘Jeep’ remains shrouded in mystery as well as legend. For example, Fetherston (1992) reports that the Jeep was named the Jeep due to the popularity of a comic strip character named Eugene the Jeep. The comic strip was Popeye in which Eugene was a sort of a feline that could go anywhere by walking through walls and climb on to the ceiling. While this legend is accepted to be the reason for naming the automobile as Jeep by Bontly (2007), other reports from Fetherston (1992) suggest that the name Jeep is essentially a slurred version of the letters G.P. which denote General Purpose as the title given to the vehicle by the U.S. Army officially. While the reason for why it was named the Jeep may be lost to history, the impact it had on the mobility of the troops was tremendous. Before the advent of the Jeep, soldiers had to march. Some of the most famous marches are even remembered by history as Wellington’s men force marched more than 50 miles in less than two days to reach Waterloo. Chairman Mao’s army had to march nearly 3,700 miles in just over a year in an event remembered as the Long March. By putting mechanized wheels under the soldiers, the Jeep took away the idea of marching quickly to get to some point as mobility became as simple as getting to the nearest Jeep. Changing the Tactics of War Blitzkrieg is the popular name given to the operational military system which the Germans used to gain a tremendous advantage early on in the Second World War. As discussed by Jackson (2004), Blitzkrieg is based on sudden air bombing and that is followed by a rapid charge of highly mobile ground based forces which are supposed to make a head at the weakest point in the enemy lines. The basic premise of this tactic is speed and the element of surprise in order to catch the enemy napping (Horne, 1969). In these tactics of war, speed and mobility became weapons for the Germans as much as tanks and armored personnel carriers. A report filed in a 1939 issue of Time shows how mobility is important when the modern war is considered. The historical report reads: “The battlefront got lost, and with it the illusion that there had ever been a battlefront. For this was no war of occupation, but a war of quick penetration and obliteration—Blitzkrieg, lightning war. Swift columns of tanks and armored trucks had plunged through Poland while bombs raining from the sky heralded their coming. They had sawed off communications, destroyed animal, scattered civilians, spread terror (Time, 1939, p. 2).” In this war the mobility offered by mechanized transport was used to the fullest advantage since the Germans were able to send their tanks and other mobile war platforms far ahead of their slow or the artillery following them from a distance (Jackson, 2004). As described by Ellis (1990) there were several cases where German tanks went on more than thirty miles ahead of their support groups in order to capture territory. The role of the infantry in this case was reduced to hold positions and move on when the forward command wanted them to. In essence, the frontlines of battle would be moved at the will of the party which was more mobile than the other. What the Germans gained with their tactics, the allies were able to reproduce with their technology and industrial investments in the mobile war platform that came to be known as the Jeep. Grinspan (2007) says that: GIs fell in love with the jeep. They used it as a reconnaissance car, ammo carrier, medical transport, and command center. Its presence meant a reliable link between frontline troops and supplies, medics, and information. In the words of America’s highest-ranking general, George C. Marshall, the jeep was “the greatest advantage in equipment the United States has enjoyed (Grinspan, 2007, Pg. 1).” The use of the Jeep was not limited to one theatre of war as the Jeep was also freely distributed to the Soviet Army where they the Jeep over mountainous terrain and worked through snow to get the job done. The Soviets called them Villis as a slurred version of Willys and the soldiers loved the utility they found out of the vehicle. The popularity of the vehicle was such that even the Germans wanted to produce their own version of the car. They did make an attempt to militarize the Volkswagen Beetle yet they did not have the foresight to put a four-wheel drive base in it which meant that it spent most of the time trying to get out mud (Grinspan, 2007). The uses of the Jeep and the heroics performed with the Jeep have countless examples. As discussed by Allen (2002) every GI had one or more Jeep stories and many credited this vehicle with saving their lives. The idea of the Blitzkrieg may have been developed by the Germans yet it was the American implementation of the Jeep which really allowed mobility to come into play when dealing with opposing armies. As described by (Grinspan, 2007), in 1942, more than a dozen Jeeps were taken by British SAS commandos who took them all the way across the desert in Egypt to strike at a German air base. When they got to their target, they simply used the heavy machine guns mounted on their Jeeps and destroyed more than two dozen aircraft. They even managed to race home before the Germans even realized they were under attack from the desert. The Jeep brought about a revolution to the war not in the sense that it brought attention to the idea of mobility since that had already been accomplished by Hitler’s forces through their display of the Blitzkrieg. The revolution of the Jeep was to allow small operating units to use the vehicle as a part of an assault group simply because it had greater mobility than the tanks which were chasing it over the battlefields. Through superior mobility and the ability to play several different roles in the war, the Jeep became a symbol for a war of mobility much more than the tank or the airplane ever could (Taylor, 1999). Thus the dual role of the Jeep as a support vehicle as well as one which could be used to attack enemy positions with speed and impunity led the Jeep to become the darling of the GI as well as the Soviet soldiers who were using them to defend Russia and then attack Germany (Grinspan, 2007). Across the world, Jeeps have been used during the Second World War in every conceivable role. Allen (2002) lists some unofficial uses of the vehicle such as operating an oil press and warming a can of beans for some hungry soldiers. As a basic vehicle to move individuals, equipment and supplies from one point to another, the Jeep is surpassed by no other transport related vehicle used in war (Arkansas Military Heritage Museum, 2008). To illustrate this, Allen (2002) reproduces some rare pictures of the Jeep in use and gives some very good examples of unique types of Jeeps that were used in specialized roles as command bases, field hospitals and even a special prototype Jeep which could be converted into a boat. Upgrades and modifications to the basic Jeep unit meant that the Jeep could be used in newer roles as the war demanded. For example, metal outriggers were used to cover deep snow, snorkeling kits to ford rivers and all these gave the GI the advantage when it came to crossing terrain which was difficult and unmanageable by other vehicles (Green, 2005). In fact, it is one of the few vehicles to be immortalized with music as Glenn Miller and his Air Force Band sang a song about it under the title, Jeep Jockey Jump (Ganzel, 2008). In fact, some of the upgrades were outright fantastical as the records show that the allies had wished to create a jeep which could be used as a boat on the rivers which they came across. Such a jeep was actually designed but never used since the technology and the materials available at the time did not make such a vehicle a feasible one. However, it does go to show that the Jeep itself was considered an essential vehicle and had the allied soldiers been able to take it on the river, they would have (Allen, 2002). After the war, the Jeep remained popular amongst soldiers who had come back to their homes and the Jeep even served as an agricultural implement on the American farms. However, while it did not gain popularity as farming equipment, it certainly showed that there was a market for civilian use of four-wheel drive vehicles which essentially created and launched the SUV market (Ganzel, 2008). While the civilian version of the Jeep was not the most popular SUV of all, it remains an American icon and a reflection of how the Jeep served the purposes of the Allies in World War II (Ackerson, 2006). Conclusions World War II was a modern war in every sense including the use of atomic weapons. However, the basics of war had not been changed since mobility and surprise still remained important tactics on all fronts. The allies got this mobility from the efficient use of the Jeep without which the advantage would have been lost. Therefore, while there are many reasons why the Allies won World War II, it seems that the presence of the Jeep acted as a catalyst for many of these reasons and this makes that little general purpose vehicle a hero for the world at large and for America in particular. Word Count: 2,198 Works Cited Ackerson, R. (2006). Jeep CJ. Veloce Publishing. Allen, J. (2002). Jeep. Motorbooks International. AMHM (Arkansas Military Heritage Museum). (2008). The Sun Never Sets on the Mighty Jeep: The Jeep During World War II. Retrieved March 24, 2008 from arkmilitaryheritage.com Website: http://www.arkmilitaryheritage.com/exhibits/jeep.htm Bontly, G. (2007). Jeep History. Retrieved March 25, 2008 from WeBeJeepin.com Website: http://www.webejeepin.com/Jeep_History/Jeep-History.htm Ellis, J. (1990). Brute Force, Penguin. Fetherston, D. (1992). Jeep: Warhorse, Workhorse, and Boulevard Cruiser. Motorbooks International. Ganzel, B. (2008). A Jeep is a Jeep, right? Retrieved March 24, 2008 from LivingHistoryFarm.org Website: http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/machines_07.html Green, M. (2005). Humvee at War. Zenith Grinspan, J. (2007). The Jeep, the Humvee, and How War Has Changed. Retrieved March 24, 2008 from AmericanHeritage.com Website: http://www.americanheritage.com/events/articles/web/20070801-jeep-humvee-wwII-iraq.shtml Horne, A. (1969). To lose a battle, Brown & Company. Jackson, J. (2004). The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940. Oxford University Press. Taylor, J. (1999). Jeep CJ to Grand Cherokee. Motor Racing Publications Time. (1939). Blitzkrieger, Retrieved March 26, 2008 from Time.com Website: http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,761969,00.html Read More