Grenade Pouch - Period Photographs

[artu44]

I bought just few hours ago this group on ebay. At first glance I was embarassed with the grenade triple pouch being smaller than usual and with only one LTD.

Then I could remember something alike in an old MCF topic (reference section) and I found Charlie Flick posted a pic of this pouch hanging from a BAR belt.

Is this a coincidence or this pouch go married well with the BAR belt?

[2ad82recon]

Morning Artu, there are various theories for that pouch. I have one marked JQMD 1944 and it fits either:

 

2 x first aid tins perfectly per pouch

or

1 x smoke grenade perfectly per pouch

 

BUT one thing it is NOT is a grenade pouch, although they do fit it but are loose in the pouch.

 

Perhaps someone will come up with the 100% definition of it, but this pouch first surfaces in pictures around August or September 1944.

[artu44]

Yes, but it makes no sense a BAR gunner or assistant would carry 6 f.a.dressings. In the pic you can see a WWI 2nd assistant BAR belt. It's possible this belt would have been used in WWII as is, allowing the use of an M1 rifle but with only four clips of ammo. In this case this odd triple pouch could have been useful for more clips.

[craig_pickrall]

This is some pics I had of the 3 pocket pouch. I suspect the one of the BAR man is the same one that you refer to Charlie posting.

 

There is also a series of pics for experimental bags and pouches to carry grenades that is shown on MCF. They are the property of "army junk". I hesitate to post them without his permission and I'm not sure if he is a member here. The 3 pocket pouch with one LTD is shown in that group. You can do a search by his name and find them.

 

Ranger

 

 

OSS

 

[artu44]

In that old thread in the reference section of MCF about grenade pouches, only few pics are still visible. Charlie pic and many others won't appear any more.

Anyway I think Robin's suggestion would be the right one without tripping too much with the mind: fragmentation grenade pouch. Maybe, from the collector point of view, a bit scarcer than the bigger one with two LTD.

[craig_pickrall]

Artu, I will send you an email with pics I can't post here. Let me know if you receive it okay.

[artu44]

Received everything. Thanks

[robinb]

Our local military museum has on micro-fiche all of the Jeffersonville QMD blueprints of the gear they made. Now I have been made curious enough about that 3 pocket pouch to make the journey to the museum and see if I can find the truth to what it really was designed for. If I find it, I'll post what I learn.

[2ad82recon]

Thanks Robin, then maybe we will solve the mystery once and for all. Also then we can possibly solve the 5 x 15 rd carbine mag pouch issue also made by JQMD.

[robinb]

I know that pouch. I have one around here somewhere. I'll see what I can find on that one, too.

[2ad82recon]

Thanks Robin, you will know it when you see it. Looks like it was designed to slip over a cartridge belt or pistol belt and hold 5 grenades or carbine mags or garand clips.

 

Fact is I think I have just cracked what it is, an experimental pouch for holding additional "ammo" of various sorts or a combination of all.

[Charlie Flick]

For years collectors of US web gear have debated the purpose and nomenclature of the 3-cell grenade pouch. Period pics exist that demonstrate its use in the field in WW2, and yet little official has ever been learned about it.

 

Well, that still hasn't changed. However, I have discovered a new pic---in color no less---showing a soldier in WW2 using the pouch with fragmentation grenades. The pic is below. The caption to the photo reads "Private demonstrates the use of the M2 hand fragmentation grenades and the bag that holds six of these types of grenades" (Credit: The photo is in the public domain and was located at www.historylink101.com.)

 

While this pic is not enough to put this debate to bed for good, I think the weight of evidence now indicates this pouch to be for frag grenades, and not for carlisle bandages, smoke grenades or the other suggested uses that have come up from time to time.

 

What do you guys think? Can we now proclaim this a fragmentation grenade pouch?

 

 

[qmjones]

I say BOTH frag and/or smoke. Canfield's book "Infantry Weapons of WWII" shows a pic of a WP in the top pouch. Definitely NOT for first aid item(s).

[Gliderinf]

I didn't think there was a debate on this style, its a grenade pouch - just hardly ever used in ww2. The debate was about the other style (also hardly ever used) as to wether it was grenade or dressings.

[glenm]

The other pouch is the one with a single LTD pointed flap and different size pockets.

 

It is not the same pouch as the triple grenade one featured above.

 

[peter]

As one can see on the photo ( the GI wearing a swivelbale helmet and latewar HBT suit OD#7 with Buckleboots ) it is taken in the latter stages of war, or even postwar. I've never seen wartime photo's with the 3 cell grenadepouch in combat use depicted on them. However: it seems that the 3 cell grenadepouch saw extensive use in the PTO by the USMC.

The smaller 3 cell pouches were intended to be used as ammopouches for the half moon clips for the M17 S & W revolver, according to the revised version of "From Doughboy to GI", but the smaller 3 cell pouches were also used by individual medics as first aid pouches...

[Johan Willaert]

The type of pouch shown by Glen shows up in period photographs of OSS Jedburgh Teams and on the DVD Color of War, on a GI walking thru a Normandy field in Summer 1944...

[glenm]

The guy in the training photo above is wearing an M10 or M28 "Doughboy" Pack and what looks like an M17 Rifle Belt, so it's probably 1944 (first year the triple Grenade Pouch was made) or 1945.

 

The USMC used their own double (not triple) pocket grenade pouch in the PTO by the way. This pouch has the USMC style belt hook on it.

 

Peter, you're mixing up two different pouches there - the S&W ammo pouch is not the same one as the triple first aid pouch (the S&W one is much smaller and fits onto the belt like a .45 auto magazine pouch).

 

Here's another pic of the triple "first aid" pouch in use that I've got on my website:

 

 

CG-4A Glider chalk no. 49, nicknamed Hump II, before Operation Market Garden. The two men in front of the glider are probably the C-47 Pilot and the Glider Pilot. The Gilder Pilot is wearing M43's, has flying goggles on his helmet and a Gas Arm Brassard on his left arm. He is also wearing a Triple First Aid Pouch on his left hip.

[peter]

Thanx for the info, Glenn! About the USMC double pocket pouch, here is an example from my collection:

 

<img src="http://img262.No_outside_hosting.us/img262/1369/do...nadepoch8au.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />

 

Note the typical USMC wire hook

[General Apathy]

 

Hi Charlie Flick, Thanks for opening this particular can of worms. So far I dont think that anyone has turned up any conclusive written proof either way, as to the use of the single lift dot three pocket pouch. There's is no argument by anyone on the larger two lift-dot three pocket pouch, it's for grenades. The two variations of the three pocket pouches are totally different in size, width, depth and pocket shape ( i.e. Cadillac and Ford Pinto ).

 

The small three pocket pouch in ' Doughboy to G.I. ' was given to the author by a medical corpman who related that that is what he used it for, which was anecdotal evidence. The two different pouches are displayed here. On the flip side of this question, on this forum in a different section there is a post about Marines in early WWII using left over WWI corpsmans bandage belts to carry grenades, again I believe he states anecdotal veteran statement. How many anecdotal statements do you get about the helmet, headwear, cooking-pot, digging foxholes, washing bowl, etc, etc.

 

In 1979 I attended an Airborne reunion in Nijmegen Holland, I questioned a vet as to what he was wearing by 1944 in that area. He stated this large bag with lots of straps, I suggested the M-1928 pack. He was adament it was not that, I sensed I was pushing too hard so stopped questioning. five years later I turn up a photo, they were using ' jungle' packs, so do we say he was wrong that they were only used in Jungles, because that's what they are called, and he could not have used it, as he was ' Airborne' Cheers ( Lewis )

[bilko1]

36th inf 3 cell pouch.

 

[General Apathy]

 

Hello everyone again, I have heard several statements that the three pocket/ two lift dot grenade pouches were never used in Europe. In other posts one of our members has used the phrase ' Never say never' several times. Here is the front cover of ' American Rifleman July 1944 ', it shows a soldier in Italy 1944, and on his right hip can be seen the three pocket pouch.

The blurb inside says that the soldier is Sergeant Donald P. Hamilton from Oklahoma. it states that he has worn the American armband twice before, once Sicily and again at Salerno. I have seen this exact same photo in another wartime publication, it was taken at exactly the same time in the identical pose, but his armband had been slipped off. so at the same photo shoot they had photographed him with and without the armband for some reason. Cheers ( Lewis )

[glenm]

Hi Ken,

That pouch looks to me like it is the single LTD pointed flap one - you can see the corners of the pointed flaps in the colour photo.

[General Apathy]

hi GlenM, thanks for posting, I couldn't find at the time of posting the other photograph that I mention in the text, I think it is a little more evident in that one. However as with all things I am ready to listen and learn. cheers ( Lewis )

[craig_pickrall]