This October 14, 1945, article by Earl Albert Selle (more on him below) in the Honolulu Advertiser shared a few stories about the dangers faced by jeep drivers in the Pacific Theater. Brown University has a collection of Earl Selle’s correspondence, articles, photos, and other materials. The collection also contains materials from William Henry Donald, about who Selle wrote a book called “Donald in China” in 1948 (which sounds like an interesting book, also available here). There are pics of the book on Etsy.

Earl Albert Selle, was born around 1887 in Seattle. His early life was full of adventure. During WWII he went blind, as was probably blind when he wrote the above column. But, that didn’t stop him from being adventurous. It is claimed he made news in 1961 when he wrote about becoming an aviator and flying a plan with the help of a seeing-eye-pilot. You can learn more about Earl in this obituary:

This article appeared in the June 19, 1945, issue of the Tucson Citizen out of Arizona. One bit of info mentions that a Chicago junk dealer bought “a small mountain” of smashed jeeps. Could that have been the King of Jeeps himself Hyrum Berg?

It’s not clear to me who the author of this article is, but he describes the “red tape” he and other must overcome to purchase jeep in Europe.  His story appeared in the May 30, 1946, issue of the Tipton Daily Tribune out of Tipton, Indiana.