How do you start a WWII jeep?

Captain Scarf

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Here's a technical question:

How do you start a WWII jeep?

Obviously there would be an ignition but did you need a key to start it?

Having a key seems a bit of a nuisance. I can't really imagine soldiers in the middle of battle looking around for their car keys. But if there was no key then how would you secure it against theft?

Also, is there anything basic that I should know? Did the jeep have manual transmission? if so, where was the gear lever located? (That sort of thing)

Thanks
 

donroc

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I drove a jeep for 18 months while stationed in Europe but forget if I needed a key.

What I do remember when I was stationed in Germany as a clerk in an Engineer Construction Battalion 1955-6 for 18 months, I drove a jeep with a 35 mph max speed "governor" because we traveled from our base to German suppliers and not for pleasure. After my discharge, driving at 50 mph felt like a hundred for the first few weeks.
 

pdr

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Key?

Friend who drove one says it had a push button start.
The old WWII one I remember in the 1950s had a key. The driver was always losing it!
 

Tom from UK

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Where is your jeep?
In the UK, I remember my parents telling me that during the war you were required to take the rotor arm out of any vehicle if it was left parked so that it was immobilised and couldn't be used by German infiltrators. I have no other source for this but they were there so I guess they knew.
 

waylander

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In the UK, I remember my parents telling me that during the war you were required to take the rotor arm out of any vehicle if it was left parked so that it was immobilised and couldn't be used by German infiltrators. I have no other source for this but they were there so I guess they knew.

I have also heard this.
 

ishtar'sgate

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What I do remember when I was stationed in Germany as a clerk in an Engineer Construction Battalion 1955-6 for 18 months, I drove a jeep with a 35 mph max speed "governor" because we traveled from our base to German suppliers and not for pleasure. After my discharge, driving at 50 mph felt like a hundred for the first few weeks.

What a great story. I'm surprised some enterprising young soldier didn't find a way to disengage the governor.

My father told me some interesting second world war stories but the one I liked best was from training camp. They had to use a piece of equipment that looked to me like a cannon on wheels, from the pictures. (I can't ask him what it was called as he passed away some years ago) For training, groups of men had to put the wheel-cannon assembly together at one end of the field, run down the field with the whole contraption then run back and dissassemble it. My fathers' bright thinking crew only pretended to put it together then ran down and back, pretended to reassemble it and were the first finished. The long grass in the field hid their cheating ways and no one ever found out. Stinkers!
 
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