8 Aug 2023 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

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[browningautorifle]

Not really the combat jacket I'd use out there for that weather...those guys suffered.

[Bob Womack]

You can feel the cold from that pic. The red face.

Bob

[Woodsy]

Poor bugger! He reminds me of a bunch of GI's we had doing winter training at Waiouru Training Area in the central North Island back in the '80's. They had come straight from Hawaii and were tent camped with field rations in a couple of feet of snow. We were quite snug in our centrally heated rooms in the Sergeants Mess about 2 miles away at the main camp, bar, hot meals, etc.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

It stuns me every time I see photos of these guys wearing those fragile wire rim eyeglasses in combat. I can't even work around the yard with misplacing or breaking a modern pair of frames.

[RASelkirk]

Makes me wonder about one of my Dad's hometown (Cobleskill, NY) friends, Cole Barnard. Allegedly he was the only survivor of his platoon in the Battle of the Bulge after playing dead in a snow bank for many hours...

Russ

[fjruple]

During my military career, I would attend an annual reunion with members of the 28th ID. The attendees had fought in every war since WW1. After several drinks, the stories would start to flow, many had been in the Battle of Bulge. Many did not complain about the combat but the snow and cold. We still had several WWI vets, many in wheel chairs and they would speak about a different set of the horrors of war. In photos we can get a sense of the difficulties of combat in the environment but not a true sense of the sound and smells of combat. The WWI vet told me you knew you were close to the front by the sounds of artillery fire and the continuous smell of dead bodies. He said you can never get the smell out of your nose and clothes. Everything smell of dead bodies even the food you ate.

[Steve762]

WWII ETO Winter stories for you:
Dad was an Operations Sgt in a Combat Engineer Bn in Europe. He said the winter of 1944/45 was the coldest he ever saw.
-He had two pairs of socks. One pair on his feet and the other pair he washed in his helmet and dried on top of his head under his helmet.
-Heating cans of rations on truck engines really helped-just do not forget to make a hole in the can to let the pressure out.
-During that time Engineer troops were out working and living in the cold. Word came down from the BN or Company Commander that the unit was using way above the normal issue rate for field rations. The Company Medic had to explain to the CO that the troops are working men out in the cold and needed the additional calories.
-The unit had 1917 water cooled .30 cal MG's mounted on their trucks. Winter was approaching and the issue of anti-freeze had not arrived. Some driver had the bright idea to put wine in the water jacket of his MG. After all wine has alcohol in it so it will not freeze. Well the unit got in a fire fight and after it was over the sweet smell of caramelized wine was very strong around one truck. Dad said they had a hell of a time cleaning the sticky mess out of the gun.
-When hot food came up Dad warmed his hands wrapped around a canteen cup of hot coffee.
-Even late in life he felt the Army failed the front line ETO troops by not supplying decent cold weather boots and clothing. "We were told we had the best gear in the world-in many areas we did not"