Dave, I love your "girl friend" analogy. That closset dust does nothing for that carbine, and it deserseves to be cleaned and oiled.
Here is a pic of a G.I. in Germany before the end of the war. Type 2 rear sight. Have no idea if it is a replacement or was made that way.
I was just thinking I wonder if there were any pictures good enough to tell if they had them. It would be really hard to tell in most movie footage I've seen. But great picture! How do you know when and where it is? Must've been a caption on it?????
Collossians 3 "If then you have been raised with Christ seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God"
ABPOS, it came with a caption. I will have to find it.
It was a G.I. named Billy, 89th. Div. the town in Germany and dated. OOPS, 89th. (Thanks Charlie)
Best Regards.....Frank
I'm in wisconsin also.
Last edited by frankderrico; 07-12-2012 at 03:07 PM.
I just have a great deal of respect for these carbines, they deserve careful maintenance after what they have been through. The "leave it as is" line of thought can be carried too far. What if it was dropped in the mud, do we just leave all of that crap on it?
Just the other day, I saw some film from Iwo Jima taken inside a landing craft and I swear there was a carbine with the Type 3 band. It was silhouetted against the sky and I don't know what else it could have been. Lots of carbines came from the factory with Type 2-3 sights. My Winchester being one of them. It was made in March 44. Plenty of time to make it to Europe and the Pacific. The Army rushed a lot of new guys over just prior to the Bulge and even more after it. Robbing pilot cadets and making them cannon fodder Lts. The fighting in the Hurtgen forest had cost us over 30K men. How many came over with fresh gear so that they could go right in?
That picture shows a I cut stock with adj rear sight.
Same picture can be found in WAR BABY COMES HOME...... page 502.
Pic # 402 reads;
With the war in Europe in it's last month, Pfc Billy M. Downs of Headquarters Company, 89th Infrantry Div., 1st U.S. Army, searches for the enemy in Werdau, Germany. According to the Director of Military Training, by this time in 1945 85% of personnel assigned to Army Servce Forces tactical and operational units were armed with the U.S. carbine.
US Army photo dated April 24, 1945.
Dave, as a general rule, individual ETO replacements heading for combat units went over unarmed. Their personal weapons were provided by the Ground Force Reinforcement Command to whose depots they were initially assigned in Europe. Members of organized units received weapons before departure - it was an item on the unit's Preparation for Overseas Movement checklist (exceptions could be made for minor shortages). Of course, small arms continued to arrive as replacements, but the pipeline was pretty well filled up by December 1944 and carbine shortages would have usually been local and temporary. The divisions sent over late in 1944 had been organized much earlier, so many of their small arms would not be brand new. The 89th, represented in Ruth's photo, was organized in mid-42, though of course we don't know when they received their arms.
As great a job as Ruth did, it is a shame he decided not to use footnotes. His caption is almost unintelligible. What exactly is a tactical Army Service Forces unit? First, the word tactical does not appear anywhere I have seen in formal references to unit classification in the WWII Army. The Army had three groupings for its field forces: Army Ground Forces (which contained Combat and Combat Support units), Army Service Forces, and Army Air Forces. Service forces by definition, don't perform tactical missions. If he meant to say 'service units organic to divisions and those in the Communications Zone' that would be closer, although, even in a division, the Service Company had no tactical role. His other term 'operational' has even less meaning. Ruth lacked an understanding of how the WWII Army was organized and how it operated, so he tried to write down what a modern Army source told him. It lost a lot in the process.
This carbine is another example of a very correct and mostly original S'G' 3.58 that had its flip sight removed and a adj sight installed. This carbine also got the straight hammer and spring upgrade as well.
before the end of the war. Type 2 rear sight. Have no idea if it is a replacement or was made that way.
PM
Originally Posted by painter777
