Lingering still on the top half of Photobook page 15, we focus on this excellent view of gear. The posed photo of our EJZ, showing how the OSS looks for bad guys in caves, also shows us that the unit is still in wait-and-prepare mode at this point. So look at the items: rifle with strap, pistol in holster, either a US M3 fighting knife or US M4 bayonet with the hilt visible behind the holster, and a magazine pouch mounted on the stock. A 15-round magazine is visible just below the sight.
The rifle is a .30 Caliber M1 carbine.
What is that vertical thing on the side of the stock?
And, dangling down from our view of the holster, hence attached either to the holster, or to the bayonet or knife, is a strange thing with strings dangling off it. What is it?
The photo below, illustrating a US Army paratrooper's kit, is from Philip B. Sharp's 1938 The Rifle in America. The paratrooper's M1 carbine is a little shorter than the standard M1 rifle that ground troops would carry, according to the text. It does not look exactly the same as the carbine carried by Pfc Eugene Zdrojewski: the vertical thing on the stock looks different. It is an "M11903A1."
But look, you can see very well how the strap attaches to the rifle.
In the paratrooper's kit, above, from Sharp's book, it is clear that the knife is different; the ammunition pouch looks similar; those two empty pouches (above the grenades and to the left of the gloves) look very familiar, don't they; the binoculars case looks exactly like the one on the kitchen windowsill of the Marilla house - how about that.
The holy Wikipedia article has a very clear photo of the M1 rifle and the M1 carbine:
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| Wikipedia: "Carbine." |
We have seen this type of carbine before, from Photobook Page 3, of training near U Chicago in the summer of 1944. By the time our EJZ gets to China, he has been training with this rifle for a year and a half.
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| From Photobook Page 3. |
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| Again from Photobook Page 3. |
We have the strap from Dad's M1 carbine.
Marty and I - nosy kids - always knew it was there in his closet, way over on the right, by his neckties, looped around one of those skinny white coat hangers. We thought nothing of it.
Then the day came when we emptied the Marilla house, and there it still was.
When Gene came home, for the rest of his life he went to sleep with his rifle strap no more than 12 feet from his hand.
Z
1 comment:
The vertical thing in the carbine stock is a strap well; see: http://www.rollanet.org/~stacyw/us_m1_carbine_sling.htm . There were various designs for this cut-out in the wood.
And the string arrangement under the pistol holster is a leg tie string, which was often braided if the holster was not secured to the leg at the bottom. You can find those online as well. There was a special method for braiding them, at least in the USA.
David Fletcher (PS: I am very happy that you have made these photos available online. Thank you.)
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