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Kids & Family

WWII Jeep Finds New Home at Northfield VFW

After more than 60 years in the Hong family, a 1942 Willys Army Jeep finds a new home with VFW Post 4393.

In 1946, Howard Hong left Northfield for war-ravaged Europe.

The young philosophy professor, who would later become internationally known as a scholar and translator of the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard, had spent the war working at prisoner of war camps in Missouri and Iowa. When the war ended, he was called to service as senior field officer for the Refugee Division of the World Council of Churches. Between 1946 and 1948, he helped to resettle more than 250,000 war refugees. 

During that time, Hong also became the owner of an iconic 1942 Willys Army Jeep, a veteran of the Normandy invasion, which he purchased at a U.S. Army auction in Paris.

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Back home in Minnesota, the Jeep became the Hong family vehicle. In the summer, it carried the Hongs on their family trips north to Hovland, MN, where it was also used for three successive summers (1947-1949) as a utility vehicle by St. Olaf students helping to build a new Lutheran church.

Hong's wife, Edna, even wrote a story about the Jeep that appeared in one of Augsburg Publishing’s popular Christmas annuals.

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“The Jeep Family’s Christmas’ wasn’t our actual family,” wrote daughter Mary Hong Loe in Raised in a House Built of Books: Reading as a Way of Life, “but the old army jeep was certainly the vehicle we crammed into for several years despite the Minnesota winters.”

“It was a fantastic vehicle,” Howard Hong's son, Erik Hong, told Northfield Patch. Erik Hong said he considers the four-wheel drive Jeep “Northfield’s first SUV.” 

He bought the Jeep from his father in the 1950s and drove it throughout high school, then sold it back to his father to raise money for college expenses. After that, Howard Hong held onto the Jeep, eventually repainting it, replacing the gas tank, and restoring it to its original condition.

After his father passed away in 2010, Erik Hong once again took possession of the old Jeep. He considered donating the Jeep to a national military museum, but in the end decided he wanted the Jeep to stay in Northfield.

“It’s a piece of Americana,” he said, “but it’s also a piece of Northfield’s history.”


Driving history in Northfield

Erik Hong contacted Craig Redalen, of Northfield's , and arranged to donate the Jeep to the post.

Redalen had rented an apartment from the Hongs after his service at Fort Knox, KY, and remembers helping Howard Hong grade the road in front of the house with a township road-grader hooked up to the old Jeep.

“He was my landlord,” Redalen told Patch. “But we became close friends.”

After taking possession of the Jeep, Redalen brought the old vehicle to Mark and Mike Witt, of , who have generously donated their time to get the Jeep back into shape with some new tires and a starter.

The Jeep will now become a part of the VFW's Color Guard Association, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that will use it in parades, military funerals and other veterans events.

The public’s first opportunity to see the Jeep will be Monday at the annual Memorial Day ceremony at the Northfield Area Veterans Memorial in .  

In 1976, the year of the Bicentennial, Howard and Edna Hong, with their daughter Mary, published an essay with the title “Remembering Is a Forward Movement.”

This Memorial Day, thanks to the Hongs, VFW Post 4393 and the Witt Brothers, the memory of Northfield’s military servicemen and women will continue to move forward in four-wheel drive.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Memorial Day Ceremony
WHEN: 9 a.m. Monday
WHERE: Riverside Lions Park

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