Interesting Photo

[Darreld Walton]

45th Infantry Division somewhere in the Mediterranean, June or July, 1943. Note the 03's hanging on the bunks.....

[Emri]

Velly Interesting !!

I couldn't tell what the shoulder patch is on the Sgt. scratching his wrist, but it looks kinda like a Corp of Engineer's logo. I did notice they had M1907 leather slings.

Thanks for posting,

Emri

[RCS]

Special units like the truck drivers or engineer could have been issued just the 1903, some units that strung wire just had carbines

[Shooter5]

The Thunderbird division logo.

Neat museum in Oklahoma City.

http://45thdivisionmuseum.com

[Emri]

The Thunderbird division logo.

Neat museum in Oklahoma City.

http://45thdivisionmuseum.com

Thanks for the info.

[Darreld Walton]

The 45th Inf. Div. was 'federalized' in 1940, and prior to that, was comprised of Nat'l Guard units across Oklahoma, New Mexico, and IIRC, parts of Texas and Arizona. Their original unit crest was the reverse "swastika", which was rapidly changed after events of 1941...anyhow, the 158th was "peeled off" when the Army went from the "square" division to the "triangle" division organization, and was sent to the Canal Zone, where they picked up the moniker "Bushmasters". Yes, THAT Bushmaster. Refer to Brophy, where he describes the "Bushmaster" carbine, and includes a photo of an officer with his hands in the air, and a soldier with one of the carbines, "holding" him. Later, the 158th went over/down to Australia, then worked their way up the islands with McArthur, getting gnawed on in the Phillippines.
The remainder of the 45th was filled with draftees, and sent to N. Africa, then made landings on Sicily, Salerno, Palermo, and Southern France. They 'discovered' Dachau, and in the confusion, a 'bunch' of captured SS 'guards' were being held against a wall. One of the men covering the SS was a young private who'd just come out of Dachau, and was visibly upset. He was told to man a .30 cal Browning, and when the officer left, he opened up on them, killing, depending on who's telling the story, anywhere between 12 and 50 of the SS before being literally kicked off the gun by one of the NCO's.
One very notable member of the 45th ID was Bill Mauldin, the same Bill Mauldin who's Willie and Joe were featured in Stars and Stripes, and garnered Mauldin more than a couple of severe ass-chewings by Patton..........and I couldn't forget Dan Blocker, or "Hoss Cartwright" of Bonanza. Blocker wrote once that he led a patrol out in Korea, and his squad got pinned down in a small ditch. He said if he laid on his back, the commies shot at his belly, if he laid face down, they shot at his butt.

[Shooter5]

Some recent titles on the 45th in WW2: am currently reading the latter.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Rock-Of-Anzio-Infantry/dp/0813343011

http://www.amazon.com/The-Liberator-Soldiers-500-Day-Odyssey/dp/0307887995

[smle-man]

Lots of non infantry units had standard 03s; infantry units had 03s with grenade launchers. After reading for 40 years that 03A3s never saw combat I've seen at least a dozen photos recently of A3s in the combat zone primarily in Europe but one photo in Burma.

[Herschel]

Darreld, The book I mentioned in my email to you is THE LIBERATOR as mentioned in Shooter5's post above.

[firstflabn]

Nice photo. Not surprising to see '03s in units organic to an infantry division in mid-'43. The T/O&E in effect then (dated Mar 1 '43) lists 46 in an infantry battalion - 8 in HQ, 10 in each rifle co, and 8 in HW Co.

The next T/O&E revision (either Jul '43 or Feb '44) called for replacing those with Garands and the M7, but that road turned out to be pretty bumpy.

No way to know if it's representative, but since some facts beats no facts: the Ninth U.S. Army official history shows about 7,000 total '03s with that command in Feb-Mar '45 in a total strength of over 300k. A report for a similarly sized Third Army shows it with 17 ORD BNs and 11 QM BNs (among other service units), so nowhere near all of a field army's '03s would have been with combat units.

[Jiminvirginia]

Any idea which troopship the 45th crossed the Atlantic on? My dad was Naval Armed Guard on a troopship. Someone has been translating German U-Boat war logs. In June 1943 the U-154 fired two torpedos at a "Mariposa"type ship in June 1943 but missed. It is likely the ship never knew they were fired at. The Mariposa was a WW2 troopship and was at sea en route to Casablanca in about June 1943. My dad did not get on the ship until 1944.
Point is - if the troops in the picture were on the Mariposa in June 1943 they very likely almost ended up being sunk in the Atlantic - and not likely to survive - and never even knew it. The U-Boat Captain missed because he underestimated the ships speed by 1 knot. May not seem like much but at the distance he fired and the speed of the torpedo he missed the ship by about 100 yards.

[Fred]

Cool! Thanks for sharing that Jim!

[Shooter5]

http://www.uboat.net

Any idea which troopship the 45th crossed the Atlantic on? My dad was Naval Armed Guard on a troopship. Someone has been translating German U-Boat war logs. In June 1943 the U-154 fired two torpedos at a "Mariposa"type ship in June 1943 but missed. It is likely the ship never knew they were fired at. The Mariposa was a WW2 troopship and was at sea en route to Casablanca in about June 1943. My dad did not get on the ship until 1944.
Point is - if the troops in the picture were on the Mariposa in June 1943 they very likely almost ended up being sunk in the Atlantic - and not likely to survive - and never even knew it. The U-Boat Captain missed because he underestimated the ships speed by 1 knot. May not seem like much but at the distance he fired and the speed of the torpedo he missed the ship by about 100 yards.