marines with garands in 1941????

[rice 123]

I have been reading Remembering Pearl Harbor, This is a book of interveiws of pearl harbor survivors . There is this one Marine Leslie Le Fan. He was attached to the marine barracks at pearl harbor. He stated at the time of the attack he had is rifle but no ammo. A sgt mannaged to get some bandoliars of ammo but it was in 1903 5 round stripper clips and he had no M1 clips so he could only load and fire one round at a time. Hold on! marines did not get M1s until 1942. He further states that he remembered the serial number 351735 and he carried it until 1944. I would normally chalk this up to a vets faulty memory, but remembering the 1903 clips and the serial numer there just seems to be something more to this then a bad memory

Information

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[RobSmith]

Pearl Harbor being such a chaotic event, could it be that rifles were handed out quickly and so Army rifles may have ended up being issued to Marines in the emergency ?

[rice 123]

In the book he says that he grabbed his rifle out of the storage rack when they left the barracks so it was his issued rifle. He also states his job was to help train Marines for sea and embassy duty So I was considering that. maybe Marines that were on embassy duty had more advanced arms

[browningautorifle]

There were definately M1s because if you read Pyle's book on the M1, he details the accidental destruction of a rifle that came from the barracks rafters there. Who had the issue would be difficult to prove now...

[Bill Hollinger]

The serial number falls right also. Odd.

On the other hand, that serial number would have made that M1 brand new at the time of Pearl Harbor

[browningautorifle]

The one Pyle illustrated is a gas trap, but I for one have an 8-41 and I don't believe for a minute ALL the pre war rifles went to England. Mine's 328219, just a bit ahead of the one in the story. There's a pic around here somewhere of marines on board ship with their brand new gas port rifles. I think it was about the same time.

[P-07ShortLee]

The Marines did have some M1's in 1941, there are some photos here that date to 1940-1941 with them in a rack the the above poster is referring to.

They were just sort of rare, and the supply problems with the 8 round clips was also a problem in the Philippines in 1941-1942.

---------- Post added at 08:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:33 PM ----------

Rice 123, not familiar with the book. Who was the author?

[rice 123]

the cover says edited by Robert S La Forte and Ronald E. Marcello

---------- Post added at 09:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:13 PM ----------

the cover says edited by Robert S La Forte and Ronald E. Marcello

[Bill Hollinger]

BAR, mine is 327580, August 1941.

[browningautorifle]

Earlier than mine...lucky sh*t! Seriously though, I do prefer numbers under 1 mil. Recently on another forum here in Canada, we discovered the whereabouts of SA 153 and SA 154. I seemed to be the only one that noticed or maybe cared. They are both Danish returns with a real mixed basket of parts. ...Are we off topic yet?