This June 18, 1941, article in the Los Angeles Times discusses how a “trapped jeep” uses a dust cloud to a escape the ‘enemy’.

This Times Record (Troy, New York) article on December 14, 1961, shares the news that the Rensselaer County Sheriff just received a new jeep (FC-150) and boat.

On July 30, 1953, newspapers across the country ran full-page or nearly-full-page ads announcing the combination of Kaiser Frazer and Willys-Overland into Kaiser-Willys. Maury spotted an actual ad, though not full-page, from the Minnesota Morning Tribune that is for sale on eBay: View all the information on eBay

Here’s an example of a full-page ad below that was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

In a June 11, 1941, article in the Austin American-Statesman, William T. Rives describes his first “blitz buggy, jeep or jitterbug, as it is variously called” ride while visiting Camp Bowie in Brownwood, Texas.

This article was syndicated through numerous newspapers. So frustrated was one Captain with the multitude of definitions for the word “Jeep” that he warned soldiers not to use it and cited examples of why it was so confusing. This article is from the Johnson City Press out of Tennessee, November 14, 1941:

This first column describes seven different uses for the term ‘jeep’. It appeared in the November 15, 1941, issue of the News Journal, out of Mansfield, Ohio:

A few days later, this blurb was part of a column called the Daily Knave, published November 18, 1941. It highlights some of the alternative uses of the term “jeep”.

This article demonstrates the hazards a jeep faced in the field. The article was published December 16, 1943, in the Kansas City Times by Kenneth L. Dixon.

This November 25, 1946, article in the Salt Lake Tribune highlighted the first big test for the Sheriff Office’s new CJ-2A. Lacking today’s causeway to Antelope Island, the trip required often navigating over or through water. I can imagine such a drive was a big unnerving, unless a route was marked by marker-sticks. Today, the southern portion of the island is owned by the State of Utah. Bison, Sheep, and Antelope roam the island, as do bikers, hikers, and tourists.

This article about an older woman named “MA” appeared in the August 08, 1944, issue of the Austin American. I just thought it was a neat story only tangentially related to jeeps.

And, in a big detour here, the author mentions the “Friend’s” ambulance unit, suggesting that most or all of the unit were Quakers. My grandmother grew up a Quaker in Hopewell, Virginia, where the Branson clan (her maiden name) were longtime Quakers, first arriving in Frederick County, Virginia, in 1776 (in NJ before that).

The family attended the Hopewell Friends Meeting House (where my grandmother and non-Quaker grandfather would marry in 1939). Abolitionists, the family’s “Branson House” was part of the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War, the family found themselves serving food to one side or the other, depending on who had control of the area. Based on the stories, both sides took what they wanted and demanded to be fed.

One family story from the War describes the day a cannon ball blasted through the house unexpectedly.

Another tale tells how a Union spy traveling with the Confederates, as a Confederate Officer, left a gold dollar under a plate after he ate. The family found the dollar when cleaning up after the soldiers had left. They only learned the officer was a spy following the war, because years later he returned and explained what he’d done during the war and that it was he who had left the golden dollar under the plate. As of the late 1980s, according to my great aunt in a letter to my sister, someone in the Branson clan was reported to still have that gold dollar.

I’d be very interested to know if the driver’s kidney issues improved once he his jeep driving days in the military were over. This article appeared in the February 21, 1946, issue of the Atlanta Constitution.