Buying a M1903

[cplnorton]

Just curious. Since the M1 Garand entered service in the mid-1930s, why were the Marines still using the M1903 at Guadalcanal?

There is a really good article on this in the latest Garand Collector's Journal if you get that.

But the Marines actually had a lot of Garands even before Pearl Harbor, and even adopted the M1 as the main battle rifle before the Canal. But they just didn't have the faith that it would be reliable in combat until all the revisions on it were done. The Marines had a lot of problems with the Gas Traps they had tested, so they were waiting for all the revisions on them before they were issued widespread to the infantry. But Marines were issued Garands for the Canal. It was mostly just to Marines who were in Support roles, and some of the replacments were issued some as well.

[firstflabn]

The 1903 Rifle won the first offensive engagement in the Pacific Theater of WWII: Guadalcanal.

A pretty bold assertion. Can you tell us a bit about how you arrived at that?

[blackhawknj]

I read an account of the Ardennes, told the story of a cook in an artillery battalion, when he was handed an M-1 he said he' d never seen one, he joined the Army in 1941, qualified on the M1903-and probably hadn't fired since.

[PhillipM]

Army had top priority for M1s; Marines were supplied on the "trickle-down" principle.

In 1940 the USMC turned down the M1. Your story is a myth. In fact, had the USMC got on board with the M1 in 1940 and shared the tooling up costs, the USMC would have had M1's out the ears.

[Art]

Don't forget the "Alamo of the Pacific," as the History Channel foolishly calls Wake Island. (The difference: the defenders of the Alamo, did NOT surrender.)

"Alamo of the Pacific" was a term coined by the press at the time, in fact while the fighting was still going on. Word of that got to the defenders and it was emphatically not good for morale.

The Alamo almost surely did have six to 10 men surrender to Gen. Manuel Castrillon who offered them, in good faith, safe conduct and who were subsequently executed on orders of Santa Ana. Another group made a run for it when the situation was untenable and were cut down by Mexican cavalry stationed outside the walls for just that purpose. Interestingly there is a record of one fellow who received a Republic of Texas land bounty warrant as a veteran of the Alamo. In addition several people including Bowie and Travis' slaves who apparently actually did fight and later surrendered were let go as did a Mexican army deserter Brigido Guerrero who had joined the Texans and then convinced the Mexican authorities that he was in fact a P.O.W. so it wasn't just women and children who were released. Juan Seguin was sent out of the Alamo shortly before it fell to seek help, got to Houston who forbade him to return. None of this in any way diminishes the courage of the men there but there are a lot of myths and fables that grew up around the battle, one was that "Thermopylae had its messenger of defeat and the Alamo had none."

[clintonhater]

The Alamo almost surely did have six to 10 men surrender to Gen. Manuel Castrillon who offered them, in good faith, safe conduct and who were subsequently executed on orders of Santa Ana. Another group made a run for it when the situation was untenable and were cut down by Mexican cavalry stationed outside the walls for just that purpose...

Oh, no--John Wayne got it wrong! Gee, who can you trust?

Thought this was the greatest picture I'd ever seen when it was first released, and saw it twice, maybe three times, at my town's only theater. But when I tried to watch it again not long ago on TCM, I couldn't get much beyond the first half-hour without succumbing to boredom, which is pretty much my same reaction to all the pictures I loved as a kid or young adult.

[cplnorton]

You guys might like this, and we already put this in the Garand Journal. So it's not a huge secret if people read that article. But Tim Plowman found these at the Archives.

But in Feb 1941, the Marines decided that the M1 was pretty comparable to the 1903, as long as it wasn't exposed to extreme conditions. And they state that they believe there will be revisions to the rifle, that will make it just as reliable. So what they decide to do was purchase 3,000 Garands a month starting in April 1941, and distribute them out to everyone that wouldn't expose the rifles to the extreme conditions. Then wait till the revisions were in effect that would make it reliable even under extreme conditions, and then arm for example the Infantry.

On Dec 10th, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor, the Marines did a count and had 24,000 M1 Garands. They then immediately put in a request to Army Ordnance to get the shipments increased.

But yeah it's interesting to know, that on the day the Marines were attacked at Pearl Harbor, the Marines already had 24,000 M1 Garands. Which I think there was only about 60,000 Marines at this time. So they almost had one for every two men before the war even started. Which this contradicts I think most of the books out there.

But the Marines officially adopted the M1 in July 1942. But 1942 was also a very tough year for the Marines, as the size of the Marines was exploding at a level that they just coudln't keep up with supply. So that led to shortages of rifles for Marines going through boot camp. So the Marines desperate for rifles, and couldn't get enough Garands from the Army, turned to the Navy, and got a lot of really JUNK Navy 1903's. lol

But by about Jan 1943, the Garands supply lines caught back up and well the rest is history.

[louis]

Steve. I was under the assumption that the early M1 Garands delivered were the early gas trap models that were sent back to Springfield for upgrading. I don't have written proof but I've read it from original papers from headquarters USMC and through another reliable source we both know. So yes the Marines did have M1's but not enough to cart off to war at that early time of Guadalcanal as they were being rebuilt and slowly shipped back in small lots at a time.

[louis]

By the way by the end of March 1943 the USMC had 342,905 Garands in possesion and were slated to receive another 75,000 over the next 3 months by late June 1943

[cplnorton]

Steve. I was under the assumption that the early M1 Garands delivered were the early gas trap models that were sent back to Springfield for upgrading. I don't have written proof but I've read it from original papers from headquarters USMC and through another reliable source we both know. So yes the Marines did have M1's but not enough to cart off to war at that early time of Guadalcanal as they were being rebuilt and slowly shipped back in small lots at a time.

If you get the Garand Journal there a really good article that details the rollout of the Garands. Its' in the Fall 2016 issue starting on page 25. But yeah the first 400 they tested were Gas Trap and from reading the Marine Docs, they were going to send those back. Those did leave a bad taste in the Marines mouths. But the Marines actually tested a second lot at the end of 1940, which they detail as being of the latest style. Which those would have been post Gas trap. I have a lot of documents on this, but this one sums it up pretty good.



Then the Marines decide these new style Garands are good enough to give it a go, but they are still cautious of issuing them to Infantry. Just because of the bad taste in their mouth from the Gas Traps. But they order 27,600 of the new style M1's with a delivery date of 3,000 per month starting in April 1941. By Dec 10, 1941 they had received 24,000 of the new Garands. Which is detailed in that count in that document in previous post. But it's listed multiple times on several documents.




But after Pearl Harbor is bombed, the Marines request they start to receive shipments of 5,000 a month, then I see a note requesting the shipments be increased to 8,000 per month. And I think I remember a request being increased to 22,000 a month by late 1942. But don't quote me. There are a ton of documents in this, and it's been probably a year since I read them. I'm just pulling out a few to show here that I had set aside from this box.

But I do know for a fact they did get the 24,000 before Pearl Harbor, because it details where every one of them went. So I have the detailed counts of where every Marine Garand went in 1941.

They are broke up in different timeframes, and multiple pages, but they detail where everyone went. But here is just the beginning of the counts for each group. Some of this might end up in the Garand Journal, so I would rather not show some of it. But some of the ones above have already been in the magazine so I don't care about showing them.

[firstflabn]

So yes the Marines did have M1's but not enough to cart off to war at that early time of Guadalcanal as they were being rebuilt and slowly shipped back in small lots at a time.

You might want to look into what rifles the 3rd Defense Battalion landed with on Aug 7.

I'm not a Garand guy, so I can't say when SA completely switched over to the new front end, but the SA Annual Report for FY40 says, "Delivery of the redesigned front end for the M1 Rifle started in June 1940." How many Garands did the USMC have at this point - 900 or so?

USMC's Garand shortage was at least partially of their own making. While the Army was sharing rifles in training, the Marines (as I understand it - Help! Steve) issued rifles to individuals soon after induction. That can eat up quite a quantity pretty quick. If it turns out that was done in disregard of a unit's planned deployment date, then it seems even more ill advised under the existing desperate circumstances.

Here's a quote from the CG of the 94th Infantry Division during the scarcity period. "The 94th was activated on 15 Sep 42: Our rifles and carbines (approximately 11,367) were issued initially on a 25% and 20% basis. Of necessity they were rotated between and among units." Based on carbine monthly production, my guess is this remark described a period no earlier than Spring, 1943.

Logistics can be a pretty complex subject - especially during this period with so many plans being changed to adjust to changing conditions (plus they had no idea what they were doing at this stage). Thanks to the research and level headed analysis of Steve and Tim, at least we no longer have to rely on the uninformed complaints of grunts to assess who got what. Shouldn't take the Internet Rangers more than 10-15 years to catch on (not talking about you, louis - keep up the good work).

[louis]

Thanks for the correction Steve. Hopefully you'll write a book on the hard work you're doing and share with us Marine collectors. Great stuff. A year or so ago there was one of these early Garands with the papers sold on GunBroker. It came with a few hundred pages of research. What a find that was.

[louis]

Too bad we don't have serial numbers on all those rifles. I suppose one day hopefully not too far in the distant future.

[cplnorton]

Thanks for the correction Steve. Hopefully you'll write a book on the hard work you're doing and share with us Marine collectors. Great stuff. A year or so ago there was one of these early Garands with the papers sold on GunBroker. It came with a few hundred pages of research. What a find that was.

Someday I would love to share everything. But I can't take all the credit, I have to thank my friends, Tim Plowman and Andrew Stolinksi. They have really worked hard pulling stuff from the Archive locations, and I wouldn't have near as much without their hard work.

I really love to read, and reading this stuff from back then is just very interesting. So much is different than what the books say, and in some ways, I almost enjoy hunting for the documents more than the actual rifles and pistols anymore.

By the way, that early Marine Garand on Gunbroker with all those documents. I bought it. lol The guy who original owned it, wrote a article on the first 400 Marine Garands for the Garand Journal back in like 2006. It was all his research he did to write the article.

[cplnorton]

Too bad we don't have serial numbers on all those rifles. I suppose one day hopefully not too far in the distant future.

Man I can only hope, but the Marines issued a order not to track serials during the war, only quantity. So the serials would have only been recorded at say the unit level. Which those documents usually weren't archived. Which stinks. lol.

But you never know, there are more documents released all the time and a lot of archive locations haven't been hit at all. So I can only hope. lol