Jump to content

Early WW2 Marines....1903 or M1?


kilgarvan
 Share

Recommended Posts

Hello,

 

Looking for help on this. What did the Marines carry for example on Guadalcanal? Early WW2? Did they carry both the 03 and M1?

 

Anybody with pics?

 

Thanks

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The 1943 movie "Guadalcanal Diary" got it right as demonstrated by Richard Jaeckel as Private Johnny "Chicken" Anderson on the left.

post-32676-0-45898700-1526930989_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Awesome pics! Thanks! Ok, so....anybody know then of a battle when BOTH 1903 and M1 deployed? Pics?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Awesome pics! Thanks! Ok, so....anybody know then of a battle when BOTH 1903 and M1 deployed? Pics?

Cape Gloucester/Bougainville.

 

Paramarines had 03s and Garands in mid November of 1943

Link to comment
Share on other sites

firstflabn

The correct answer for Guadalcanal is: both. See GCA Journal Fall 2016 for a fine example of writing and research on the subject. The article looks at the overall subject of USMC adoption and early distribution of the Garand and disproves tons of internet crapola and conclusions based on anecdotes.

 

Again, this is as nice a piece of work as I have seen and shows how it should be done.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The correct answer is actually both as firstflabn said. The Marines had been receiving M1 Garands at 3000 per month starting in April 1941. In fact by the time Pearl Harbor was attacked the Marines had 24,000 M1 Rifles.

 

The Marines believed more changes would be coming to the M1 rifle. So the new rifles they received in 1941 went to everyone but the infantry first. The infantry they planned to retrofit with the M1 Last, so the Infantry would receive the newest rifles with the suspected revisions.

 

Basically the only reason the Marines had the M1903 on the Canal, is the infantry never had the changeover before Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the Army cut supply of M1's to the Marines after.

 

 

But Marines WERE armed with the M1 on the Canal but just not the Infantry. Even though the 8th Marines did have some.

 

In fact the Marines had 1850 M1 Garands on the Canal and these were not ones stolen by the Army. I have the breakdown of who had what and for instance the 1st Marine Wing had 132, 9th Defense Battalion had 884, the 3rd Defense battalion had 250, etc, etc...

 

But in contrast the Marines had 24,046 M1903's. So that is why it is so common you see only M1903's in pics.

 

But the correct answer is actually both.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the first photo that Old Marine put up.....see the guy to the right with his back to the camera.

That is Dr. Sid Phillips taking a wizzzzz. He was one of the five Marines depicted in the Hanks/

Speilburg series, The Pacific".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know this is hardly worth mentioning but I believe there were also a very few M1941 Johnson automatics.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Linedoggie

In the first photo that Old Marine put up.....see the guy to the right with his back to the camera.

That is Dr. Sid Phillips taking a wizzzzz. He was one of the five Marines depicted in the Hanks/

Speilburg series, The Pacific".

He would be pissing almost onto the man in front of him if true

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know this is hardly worth mentioning but I believe there were also a very few M1941 Johnson automatics.

 

 

They had a 127 of them. None of the semi's, but a 127 of the light Machine guns.

 

If you guys want to know what they had on the Canal, I have all the counts of every weapon. Like for instance they had 11 Sniper rifles, and 3 silenced M1903's.

 

The biggest surprises to me, they had Lewis guns, mostly what they say is the airplane type, and they had M2 Brownings that were water cooled. I didn't even know a water cooled M2 .50 Browning existed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Linedoggie

 

 

They had a 127 of them. None of the semi's, but a 127 of the light Machine guns.

 

If you guys want to know what they had on the Canal, I have all the counts of every weapon. Like for instance they had 11 Sniper rifles, and 3 silenced M1903's.

 

The biggest surprises to me, they had Lewis guns, mostly what they say is the airplane type, and they had M2 Brownings that were water cooled. I didn't even know a water cooled M2 .50 Browning existed.

M2 Watercooled .50's were AA guns

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...