The World War II Jeep Story
World War II started on December 7th, 19441 as far as United States participation is concerned. In reality, WWII actually started in 1939 for the Europeans and possible as far back as 1933 for the Chinese. The Jeep has been in production since 1940.
There are several stories about how the Jeep and the United States Army came to be partners. The story that has the most merit seems to be the one with the real heroes of the story being former Navy pilot Charles Harry Payne as well as Infantry Colonel William F. Lee. Mr. Payne was an Army promoter and consultant. He was in change of getting business for various companies. Mr. Lee was a career Army man who was employed for the Chief of Infantry. As one of his tasks, he was in charge of creating an Army vehicle to be used for infantry.
The Chief of Infantry, Major General George A. Lynch, seemed to be the most knowledgeable guy when it came to the production process of the Jeep. He was the first one to state that the Jeep is exactly what the Army infantry division needed. Major General Lynch was to be in charge of the production of the Jeep.
Harry Payne met with Colonel Lee as well as Major General Lynch regarding what was to be the building of the Jeep. Payne first arrived on June 5th, 1940 since he was there as part of a rumor investigation. That rumor which was circulating was regarding a contract to allow the building of the Jeep vehicles. However, Major General Lynch was not interested in the least in the current Jeep specifications.
It was then that Payne and Lee went back to the drawing board to create the new Jeep vehicle. After they hashed out all of the nitty gritty details, they went to the others on the Technical Committee to obtain their support.
The Office of the Quartermasters did not agree with the fact that the Army’s Infantry division needed a lightweight vehicle but they did hesitantly agree to move the proposal to the Ordinance Committee. Colonel Barnes was part of the Ordinance Committee and not only did he give the okay to help out with the undertaking but he also made the suggestion that one of the Jeep’s main requirements should be a small strip of armor plate that would be designed for the driver.
It took Lee and Payne merely a week to come up with the Jeep’s new characteristics.
That is what seems to be the real story of how the Jeep came to be. While we may never know the full story, the facts of the above story was actually pulled from real documents that were kept by Major General Lynch.
One thing we do know is that the Jeep eventually did go on to become one of the best war weapons during World War II for the allies. It would be amazing to test drive one of these war vet vehicles, but fact is the new Wrangler we tried at North Carolina dealer Sport Durst was amazing. So if the brand stood true as it does today, then we know very well how helpful the Jeep was during the war.