9-18-19 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Bill Hollinger]

Grenade launcher far right.

The wife and I were watching a WWII documentary the other day and saw a US soldier shoulder fire a rifle grenade! It just about knocked him to the ground! I think he instantly realized he probably shouldn’t have done that by the look on his face.

[Flying10uk]

The wife and I were watching a WWII documentary the other day and saw a US soldier shoulder fire a rifle grenade! It just about knocked him to the ground! I think he instantly realized he probably shouldn’t have done that by the look on his face.

It must have produced a spectacular bruise to his shoulder.

One of the stories that my late grandmother use tell occasionally was the time, around the time of WW1, when her brother decided to "borrow" his farther's 12 bore double barrel shotgun without asking. (This was in the days long before guns and firearms in the UK had to be kept locked up in a gun safe, by law.) The lad would have only been around 10 years old at the time and understood how to load the shotgun because he had seen it done by others. Unfortunately, he didn't realise that the shotgun was supposed to be held tightly into the shoulder before firing and that the 12 bore wasn't really suitable for those of a slight stature. According to Gran the "kick" from the shotgun's 2 barrels nearly knocked him over backwards but his real problem was his right shoulder which apart from being very painful and bruised had turned blue. He managed to return his father's shotgun without being noticed and without suspicion. His real problem was accounting for his shoulder injury to his mother and trying to think of a plausible explanation for his shoulder having turned blue and being heavily bruised, without admitting to having "borrowed" his father's shotgun. In the end it was decided that there was no explanation that their mother would believe and she was told the full story. I believe that she agreed not to tell her husband.