16-260 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

France July, 1944 France

Information

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[Bill Hollinger]

Wow, there is some rare camouflage!

[browningautorifle]

Even if they'd known at the time I doubt they'd have lugged it along. Yup, not many of those survived.

[AZPhil]

So what US Army unit got to wear the camo uniforms?

Semper Fi
Phil

[Mark in Rochester]

So what US Army unit got to wear the camo uniforms?

Semper Fi
Phil

The following information was provided by Ed Walton of Lost Battalions, a supplier of uniforms and equipment to reenactors:



Generally speaking, the combat arms branches were opposed to camouflage due to their feelings about the use of camo in the Pacific in 1943, but the engineers believed in camo and were pushing the idea for Europe. As a result, it was decided that there would be three test battalions in Normandy wearing the camo in July. One battalion of the 30th ID - which earned them the nickname of "Roosevelt's SS", the organic combat engineer battalion of the 2nd Armored, and one battalion of the 2nd ID. I've not found any reference to the specific battalions by number for the infantry divisions, nor the regimetns. So you have a coverage of less than 1/14th table strength in each of the three divisions wearing these uniforms so that's a very small pool of people and all in front line positions with very high turnover. For instance, the second ID had 15,000 battle casualties from 6/44 to 5/45 against a table strength of 14,000. The British published books about US uniforms claim the camo was quickly withdrawn due to battle casualties from friendly fire as a result of mistaken identity for Waffen-SS dot camo. While researching this, I found that there were in fact friendly fire incidents between the 29th Division and the 2nd Division right after the 2nd ID came ashore, but it was caused by the dark green OD7 HBT fatigues being worn by the 2nd ID. The 29th had not seen that color before and it apparently looked to them like German reed green. I never found any specific historical incidents of friendly fire against the test battalions. I discussed this many years ago with Jonathan Gawne, editor of the defunct US edition of "Militaria Magazine," publisher of the old lamented "G.I. Journal" and author of "Spearheading D-Day" and many other books, who is probably the foremost authority on US uniforms. Jon told me he had researched the AARs in the National Archives specifically to find out about these alleged friendly fire incidents involving camouflage and he found nothing. Not one incident. Then he researched for the orders pulling the uniforms and found nothing. This British theory about US uniforms is further disproved by the fact that photos show these uniforms still being used by personnel in those units in late September 1944. The decision had already been made before the fact that camo would not be used in Europe and this "test" was merely a sop to the camo agitators in the Engineer Corps. The uniforms were issued to a relatively miniscule number of people and the uniforms were allowed to live out their combat lifespans of a few weeks and never replaced. It's notable that in the photos in September, such as the 2nd ID at Brest, there is usually only one or two men in each shot still surviving who has camo as compared to early July photos where everyone in the photo is wearing camo. The average lifespan of a combat infantryman with his unit in Europe was reckoned to be about 15 days. At that point, he was either dead or sent back wounded. Of course, we all know of guys who bought it immediately and others who survived straight through from June to May unscathed. However, you get the point. These uniforms didn't last long because the guys wearing them didn't last long.