11-322 Garand Picture of the day

[Mark in Rochester]

11-139 Garand Picture of the Day

"Do you know what guys it never ceases to amaze me how sometimes the books and the stories get it so wrong......the top picture which is always credited as the 17th Engineers of the 2nd Armoured Division is actually the 41 Armoured Infantry clearing the entrance to the Chateau De Canisy....we went there in 2006 and it hasnt changed....also the theory that it was removed because of "blue on blue" incidents....which actually is a real mish mash of supposistion and no basis...the cammos were issued in numbers to troops of the 2nd Armoured/3rd Armoured/30th Infantry and 2nd Infantry because of the bocage fighting in late June to July 1944..this heavily hedged and green open country lent itself well to the issue of the army pattern cammos....and wasnt withdrawn "en masse" due to it being mistaken for German cammo in fact it was withdrawn as the speed of the breakout rendering it no longer required by the time the troops got into rolling across France and the need for cammos diminished...as eveidenced by the picture of the mix of cammos and normal wools in Barenton which is the 1st week of August 1944 (with the german POWS) you see how the terrain has changed ..plus by then the cammos had all but fell apart due to the nature of the fighting in the "Hedgerow Hell"and normal wools were back in the supply system.
USMC and Army pattern HBTs were very different and were only used by the army fromlate june to august 1944...a few soldiered on until September 1944 there is a famous picture of a 2nd Infanty GI in Brest with a cammo jacket on and this is probably the latest pic of cammos in the ETO.
The Sherman crew pic is interesting......would love to know the history behind that.

Regards

Lloyd "