Willys MB

[shotgun]

I bought a 1944 MB last weekend so my M38 would have a friend. I was looking the old girl over and I saw what looks like bullet holes in the rear.
How many of the old jeeps we are rebuilding saw combat. My Dad told stories of jeep being pushed off ships into the ocean. Could be a old wise tell. Were some jeep bought home or left over seas? I guess we will never know where they have been but if we keep rebuilding them everyone will remember World War II and Korean. Thanks for this site and all the Buddy's out there.
Mark

[billybob]

There's a fellow here in mid mo who was in the army in ww-2. After the war he started buying a lot of the stuff that was left on the islands or where ever he could get it. He bought it as salvage - by the pound. He had anything from paint, jeeps, trucks, tires - you name it he had it. He still has a few trucks from Vietnam era and several 151s that are cut. I think he's about 90 years old now. He's made so much money he won't hardly sell anything anymore.

[oilleaker1]

Yes there are quite a few threads with pictures of bullet holes. Even my '71 Deuce has a bullet hole in the hood and 50 Cal shells and links down in the right side cab vent-------it had a gun ring on it. If it or yours saw active duty in a war zone is usually not recorded unless you have all the original unit markings and numbers that prove it served with that unit. I've always wondered about a bullet hole in one of my original combat rims. Could have been a deer hunter or target practice. Documentation is fairly rare. At least you can start lots of rumers about your Jeep being the first one off the beach at D-Day!!!!!! John

[wesk]

For the most part bullet holes are just eye candy seller like to exploit. Detroit auto manufacturers met with the US Government at the beginning of WWII and made it quite clear that their efforts to support the war effort would be the best they can do so long as they have the assurances that all the vehicles that could have civilian applications after the war be left overseas.

May seem shocking now but building and marketing civilian trucks and cars in 1946 was a tough proposition.

In Europe thousands of brand new vehicles were sold to the newly liberated governments for $1 on $100 of value right as they were unloaded from the transports in French and Dutch ports starting in the fall of 1944. In the Pacific theater it was the same except thousands vehicles were dumped in Japan, Korea and Okinawa where the future relations were uncertain.

The government alluded to it being cheaper than hauling them back but the real purpose was to keep Detroit happy and profitable.

So the odds of owning a US released MB or GPW with a Japanese or German bullet hole are extremely thin. The majority of bullet holes in these 1941 thru 1968 M series trucks were made by hunters, clowns and our military who often used them at firing ranges.