12-335 Garand Picture of the Day - Sands Of Iwo Jima

[Mark in Rochester]

"Sands Of Iwo Jima"

Actor John Wayne as Marine Sgt. platoon ldr. in scene fr. the movie "Sands of Iwo Jima."

Date taken:July 1949

Photographer:Ed Clark


Apparently, this movie has the first ever recorded use of the phrase "lock and load", said by John Wayne. "Lock and load" is a military command meaning to apply a weapon's safety catch, and then load it with ammunition. The expression was used once in this film for this meaning and once as a metaphor to get drunk, as in get loaded.




A number of actual military personnel portrayed themselves. These included retired Lt. Gen. Holland M. Smith, who was the 5th Amphibious Corps commander and who also acted as a technical advisor; Col. David M. Shoup, USMC, who received the Congressional Medal of Honor; Capt. Harold G. Schrier, USMC, who commanded the Marines on the Suribachi slopes; Lt. Col. H.P. Crowe, USMC, who was a battalion commander on Tarawa; Pfc. Rene A. Gagnon; Pfc. Ira H. Hayes; and PM 3/c John H. Bradley.


In one scene, combat veteran Sgt. Stryker (John Wayne) instructs bumbling recruit Pvt. Choynski (Hal Baylor) on the correct way to march and hold a rifle. In real life Baylor was an ex-Marine who fought in the battles of Saipan and Tinian in WW II; Wayne had never served in the military.


Following the success of the movie, John Wayne was invited to place his footprints in cement outside Grauman's Chinese Theater. As part of the event, actual black sand from Iwo Jima was flown to Hollywood and mixed into the cement in which The Duke left his footprints and "fist print".

Information

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[ABPOS]

Lock Bars. I guess it was 49. I don't even know when they went to the next type.

[Bill Hollinger]

The T105E1 were adopted in late 1944. If they were ever used on WWII period M1 rifles they would have been too late to have been put into service. Rifles were officially retrofitted with the T105E1 starting in December 1950.

On the In the first photo, note all the strike marks from seating the rounds in the enbloc.

[browningautorifle]

In the scene that Mr Wayne orders "Lock and load!", you see him try to seat his clip before loading. He stops just before loading and goes to the buttplate to seat them, then loads. You don't see that too much...

[Bill Hollinger]

Especially from an actor who didn't serve. I'll bet there were some pretty savvy technical advisers on that film. Heck, from the sounds of it some of the actors probably were technical advisers

[Mark in Rochester]

Especially from an actor who didn't serve. I'll bet there were some pretty savvy technical advisers on that film. Heck, from the sounds of it some of the actors probably were technical advisers

Bill read what is under.the third picture

[Bill Hollinger]

Yeah Mark, I read that. Cool I thought.