WWII Hand Grenade Care

[Harlan (Deceased)]

This color photo is from the US National Archives. Many people think of WWII as the war fought in black and white and only a few rare shots were taken in color, but deep in the American archives there's a huge collection of color photographs taken in every theater of WWII.

This is a photo is a Nissei soldier of the 100th Battalion ready with his Garand and two hand grenades. Unlike what's seen in movies, GI's were very careful when dealing with live grenades. No one wanted to accidentally set one off. Experiences soldiers often would tape the handle down as seen here as a precaution against the ring getting accidentally snagged and pulling out the pin.




Seen here in detail, the left grenade is secured with yellow tape and is also tied to his M36 suspenders with string.




The grenade on the right has the spoon slipped through the suspender ring, and then fastened down with string or an elastic band.



There's a book titled U.S. Army Photo Album by Jonathon Gawne with lots of these color photos of the ETO from the US archives and I highly recommend it. It's usually about $30 in the US and can be found on Amazon and usually on ebay.

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[JimF4M1s (Deceased)]

Didn't like playing chicken huh?

[Harlan (Deceased)]

I had read before that GI's often taped the spoons down as added insurance, but that photo really illustrated it in actual use and thought some might find it informative.

[Charles Lipscomb]

thanks for the posting. now I want another leather sling for my 1945 M1.

[browningautorifle]

We had a grenade pouch for years. It always made me nervous at the thought of my grenades clanking around together doing God knows what...hooking together, pulling whatever...You'd never know until...

[TDH]

How to handle a grenade? VERY VERY CAREFULLY

[gijills]

Once you pull the pin Mr grenade is not your friend anymore!
a line from a US Army training manual

[alktrio06]

Very nice picture, I'm going to look into that book.