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Marine Raiders and Their M1903's
"U.S. Marine Raiders gathered in front of a Jap dugout on Cape Totkina on Bougainville, Soloman Islands, which they helped to take. January 1944."
Notice the nice shot of the straight stocked M1903 right up front.... front line yet in 1944 with that Raider.
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Last edited by Mike in Wis.; 03-12-2009 at 12:42 PM.
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03-12-2009 11:54 AM
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Enfield No 4?
Is the guy in the back row, left hand side of the photo carrying a No 4 Enfield?
Interesting photo of an interesting group.
Ed reluctantly no longer in the Bitterroot
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cool picture. i see, a trench gun, a Carbine, and a Garand
. pictures to fuzzy to really make them out as to make.
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Originally Posted by
us019255
Is the guy in the back row, left hand side of the photo carrying a No 4 Enfield?
The rifle is an M1 Garand.
J.B.
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Used for grenade launcher maybe?
Jim
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Used for grenade launcher maybe?
Hi Jim,
Possibly... but the Garand could fullfill that role too with the M7 launcher. By 1944 a Marine Division was authorized 456 M1903 rifles and an identical number of M1 rifle grenade launchers... so launching is certainly a possibility.
For grenade launching, if Marines used their M1903's like the Ranger's did late War with their 03A3's, they would generally have left the launcher attached to the rifle at all times during combat.
My latest research interest, prompted by very recent conversations with my Uncle who was in Europe with the 8th Division in WW2 and another Uncle who was with the 6th Marines on Tarawa, Siapan and Okinawa leads me to believe that M1903's and M1903A3's were used in numbers beyond that which we assume they were by front line combat units. I've been looking for photo sources which indicate their routine combat useage beyond issue to cooks and bakers....
This one is also USMC on Guadalcanal in 1942... it also appears to be a straight stock M1903. This isn't strange at all as M1903's were the issue for most Marines yet in 1942... and I suspect not all were the C stocked versions some assume they all were.
Last edited by Mike in Wis.; 03-12-2009 at 03:49 PM.
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Jim, look at the front sight cover in your picture. It is almost surely a USMC unit for use with the USMC sight modifications. I have seen other pictures from Guadalcanal with what appear to be the oversize USMC front sight covers.
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The rifle is an
M1 Garand.
J.B.
You are right. Upon magnification what I saw as the sight protector on a No 4, is a shadow in the follage.
Ed reluctantly no longer in the Bitterroot
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the second pic, is neet as well, notice, the polished bolt, and sight cover, love the 1911 pistol as well, rifle in the back is a Johnson light machinegun, or a BAR, hard to tell.
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Concerning the original picture in this thread, the location is Cape Torokina on Bougainville BSI, late '43 or early '44. There's an ebay seller who's been unloading low quality copies of this photo for some time who has this same wrong location in his description. The Raider on the left is without a doubt carrying a garand, I have an original copy of this photo but can't make out a trenchgun. The Raider sitting in the front with the '03 has a couple of rifle grenades in containers strapped to the upper part of his pack. Could be he's carrying them for someone else's launcher or has one of his own not attached to his '03. My favorite photo of the pacific war.
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