We shall have a 1942 Willys (Slat Grill) Jeep at Armed Forces Day, these vehicles are very rare. The owner of this Jeep has very kindly supplied this information:

“My Jeep ‘was born’ in February 1942 and registered in March 1942, around 4 months into the first production run of the Jeep in the USA. She was still one of only 25,808 prototypes (over 625000 were built during the war), and although very similar in appearance, was very different from later production models.

Although her story began in the USA she was one of the first contracts of Jeeps to be supplied to Australia. In fact Australian Army WW2 records show she was one of the first 250 Jeeps ever supplied to the Oz army. She arrived in New South Wales in early July 1942, and after reassembly she was tested and passed into service on 13 July 1942. Australian military records show she was given the bonnet number of 79545. She served with the 6th Australian Division in Papua New Guinea fighting against the Japanese army – so actually fought in the Burma Campaign. She retired from the Australian Army in November 1960, where at this time vehicle registration records show she was registered privately in New South Wales. Nothing more is known about her until 1994 when she was bought by a UK dealer and imported to the UK where she was given a make-over and given 101st US Army airborne markings! When I purchased her in 2019 she was in a much altered and sad state so I set about restoring her. It was during this process I found her original WW2 Australian Army markings under many layers of paint.

She now displays all her original WW2 Oz army markings including the jumping Kangaroo of the Australian 6th Division.

With all historic military vehicles it is incredibly difficult to trace their ‘real’ divisional WW2 history; however, with this one I was lucky, although it was a long detective story in the end I was able to tell its wartime story.”

Thank you so much for telling us the story behind this piece of history, we’re lucky to be able to see it on Saturday 6th July and when you get up close and personal with this Jeep, please remember she served operationally in a brutal theatre of war and survived.