Inland Carbine

[Tony-in-NH]

Recently I picked up this normal run of the mill Inland 12/42 carbine. I kind of struck my fancy(LOL). I tore it done and all parts are there.

Information

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[NRA]

An early one

[wtmr]

its certainly one of a kind

[NRA]

its certainly one of a kind

now it is, why does bubba need to deface such gems?

[JimF4M1s (Deceased)]

Or maybe some, young in years but old with experience, Marine who made it back from Iwo Jima with his carbine and carved that as a woah I made it. Who knows?
Either way, early Inland. You can find early stocks if it bothers you.

Tony, do you have a picture of the butt plate? How is the oiler marked? And is the sling marked?

Jim

[Tony-in-NH]

Or maybe some, young in years but old with experience, Marine who made it back from Iwo Jima with his carbine and carved that as a woah I made it. Who knows?
Either way, early Inland. You can find early stocks if it bothers you.

Tony, do you have a picture of the butt plate? How is the oiler marked? And is the sling marked?

Jim

No markings on the sling. Oiler is marked II. Butt plate is pictured below. The stock does not bother me as it is part of the carbines history. This one is a VET bring back.

[firstflabn]

Do I see the beginnings of initials on the left side of the stock? Any idea of what it says? Is it done by the same method? How about the obvious question: do you know the name of the bringer backer? If not...

I'm always intrigued at any chance of connecting an artifact to a particular unit. Lots of indirect ways for a carbine to get to Iwo - so many that it often becomes a useless speculative exercise. Looking at the most direct way - that the carbine was carried by the same guy from initial issuance thru Iwo and assuming the carbine was issued within a reasonable time after manufacture - the 5MARDIV can likely be eliminated as a candidate. That still leaves the 3rd and 4th (if you exclude follow-on support troops) and their attachments.

The dates of organization for these two divisions allow for a plausible case to be made. Further, on June 30, 1945, there were over 20,000 carbines on Iwo in the hands of support troops - the majority of these were in the hands of army troops. A little harder to see a QM guy unloading freighters finding a reason to carve Iwo on a carbine unless the GI was recording where he was on V-J Day (see how easy it is to get into speculation mode).

When carbines were just starting to come off the assembly line, there had to be an agreement among the services as to how they were parceled out. The only thing I've seen along those lines is the Nov 42 list of airborne units getting the very first of the M1A1s (but it essentially just confirms the obvious). Anybody have unit histories for the 3rd and 4th Divs that might mention initial carbine issuance?

[NRA]

Or maybe some, young in years but old with experience, Marine who made it back from Iwo Jima with his carbine and carved that as a woah I made it. Who knows?
Either way, early Inland. You can find early stocks if it bothers you.

Tony, do you have a picture of the butt plate? How is the oiler marked? And is the sling marked?

Jim

interesting theory Jim

[INLAND44]

The U.S. military has never condoned 'trench art' on weapons. There were and still are severe penalties for turning in a weapon that has been defaced. However, in the case of a 'bring back' that was never turned back in, I guess its possible. And possibly one of the reasons for 'liberating' it.

[sfdgunny]

Very interesting. 6000 sooner than my 91154 I posted under "5 digit Inland (With pics)", but got a barrel dated a month later. Always very interesting to see arms from the same period. Different mag release and safety. Same stock with the same marks in sling well. Buttplate looks the same (yours is cleaner). Any evidence it ever had a P on the stock or the crossed cannons. I thought mine was sanded off, but could it be they didn't receive those stamps in the first place? Very cool.