11-204 Garand Picture of the Day

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...rawap26b-1.jpg

Description
Marines of Landing Teams 2/8 and 3/8 advance forward beyond the beach,Tarawa

Hello:
A very good book on the battle for Tarawa is "One Square Mile Of Hell" by John Wukovits.

Great Picture guys..is it my eyes or has the first marine got plain sage green P41 dungaree shirt on and cammo trousers on and the 2nd marine got the Rubber recoil boot on the stock of his M1 ?

Regards

Lloyd

It may be grimy dirt but the guy in the rear is wearing the sage also. Can't see his trousers though. Is that a slant cut op rod on the right?

does not look like a boot to me - perhaps wet?

look under his left hand is that a 1903 with a launcher

Mark, I think you are right. That is a 1903 with a launcher. Fantastic eye!!!

Under 400% mag , it is a recoil boot. Also you can see somthing attached under the gas cylinder. I can't make out the " beak " of the bayo handle tip like the 1st man has , so I'm saying it's a M7 launcher . Old and new systems in the same pic. , very cool.
Chris

The guy up front on the far right has a bayonet on his Garand.

I reckon you are right Emmagee....thats almost certainly a recoil boot and an M7 launcher....but did they have M7 launchers at Tarawa ?

and yes BOTH standard grenade launching platforms in the same picture.....brilliant.

Regards

Lloyd

Well , it's in the pic. , so I guess it was :lol:
Tarawa was the end of Nov. '43 . The M7 was standardized in Feb. 43 . Production was to begin in May of 43 , but delays caused production to start in July '43 ( but only 10 ) , none in Aug , but 1,500 in Sept.
So , yes , possible , but prob'ly not common by then . This was a look forward for item , so they prob'ly flew a few hundred in for them , but you can bet a lot of them didn't want to change canoes in midstream.
Chris