Brigadier General Claudius M. Easley, a man with an established reputation as an Army rifle coach and sharpshooter, was Asst. Division Commander and served under General James L Bradley. The training of the division was his mission. The superior marksmanship of the 96th developed under the supervision of General Easley earned for the unit the nickname of "Deadeyes", which the 96th still carries to this day.
This Ping List is for all things pertaining to infringes upon or victories for the 2nd Amendment.
FReepmail me if you want to be added to or deleted from the list.
More 2nd Amendment related articles on FR's Bang List.
My father was an army engineer in the Pacific during WWII. On Okinawa in the final stages of the battle he was engaged in building an airstrip near the final ridge battles.
As an engineer, he carried an M1 Garand. Some of the Marines on the way to assault the ridges carried M1 Carbines. Sometimes they would trade the Carbines for the Garands the engineers carried.
Define carbine please.
i had an old military bolt action once, can’t remember what it is- the sites looked like they were way way off- bent even- but man it was spot on- Think it was a 7.62xsomething, (or something like that, My memory fails me on the actual calibre now)- was really beat up looking- but really nice to shoot- not a lot of kick- ended up selling it- wish i had hung onto it though now-
My grandad says the Japs found out real quick how effective the M1 carbine was - the Marines favored it over the M1 Garand.
“The confusion between the two weapons..”
Who the hell has ever been confused between the two?
Bugsy Siegle was shot through the eye with an M1-Carbine while he was sitting on his couch reading the Los Angeles Times.
An M1 Carbine story: Back in the 1980s my parents
traveled from NorCal to Anaheim to attend an 11th
Airborne Div Association reunion. My dad was an
original 11th AB “Angel”. My sister lived in Burbank
at the time and visited my folks at the reunion hotel.
Sis and mom were enjoying a conversation with other
wives in the lobby when a message came over the PA
system regarding the purchase of raffle tickets. The
prize was a commemorative M1 carbine manufactured by
Iver Johnson which, BTW, had NOT produced that model
for WWII. Anyway, my mom and the other wives found
humor in the prospect that one of the elderly
paratrooper “boys” could be lurking around the hotel
with a WWII firearm. As it turned out the winner of
the carbine was my dad. The joke was on my mom.
I inherited the gold trimmed carbine from my dad
and it still has never been fired.
If you’ve ever seen both rifles, or better yet, fired them there’d be no confusion. I trained in basic with the .30 Cal carbine, its woefully underpowered compared to the M1 Garand. Guys in Korea armed with the carbine would shoot an advancing enemy soldier only to see him get up after a few minutes, brush off his quilted and multilayered cloth jacket, and continue his advance. “The little yellow devils just wouldn’t stay shot.” But that didn’t happen with the M1 rifle, they got hit and they stayed right there where they dropped.
Years later I bought a .30 Cal carbine, it had belonged to a decorated Marine officer who fought on Iwo Jima. He’d taken on a Japanese officer, mano a mano, killed him and took his rifle, pistol, and combat gear home when he returned. He was one of the best men I was privileged to know. Over time I came to like the carbine more and more, it was fun to shoot at the gun range, but it just didn’t have the horsepower for medium size wild game.
OTOH the 30-06 M1 Garand had plenty of power, enough for any animal in North America. Many experienced hunters think it’s too powerful, they usually opt for .243s or .308s.
Anyway, in my opinion the Military made a mistake issuing the .30 Cal carbine. It lacked the essential characteristic necessary for a combat firearm: it failed to inspire the troops it was capable of killing the enemy.
bttt
Winchester was in the process of designing a rifle for the army that was to be an improvement on the Garand action. The Army put out a request for firms to submit prototypes for testing.
At first Winchester didn't even want to submit as they were too busy producing Garands for the war effort. Someone noted the prototype Winchester design and urged them to submit it to the Army. Carbine Williams had been a major influence on the prototype design. He told the people at Winchester that they couldn't downsize the cartridge as requested by the Army without a major redesign of the gas piston system and he wanted no part of it.
Williams was later convinced to help on the project. Winchester had only one or two prototype rifles and they sent one to the Army for testing not knowing how well it would function. After testing, the Army asked for a number of modifications, but it became the M! Carbine.
The M1 Carbine was not a little brother in the sense that so many carbines are simply shortened versions of main battle rifles. It does have a relations ship to the M1 Garand, but a distant one. The M2 Carbine which had select fire was much prized by the soldiers in WW2, at least according to my dad who was in two amphibious landings on Japanese held islands.
One last point the reason that the M1 Carbine is so far superior to a M 1911-A1 pistol in .45 ACP is mostly accuracy and that is due to the longer “sight radius” or the distance between the rear sight and the front sight. A marginally trained soldier with an M1 Carbine can shoot kill shots out at 100 to 150 yards all day long, but it takes a real expert to do that with a pistol.
In Korea my Dad, a platoon leader, traded with a tank driver his carbine for the tanker’s “grease” gun.
It sure as hell isn’t some Obama pencil neck “general”!
True story: back in the 80’s, my buddy found a gun shop in NoVA that had gotten in several crates of M-1 Garands. Not sure where they came from: South Korea, were CMP disposals, or what. Four to a crate, varying conditions, as is. Covered in cosmo and wrapped in plastic, $100. We figured that if we could build two good ones out of four beaters, we were kings. They sold out before the two of us could scrape together the C-note to buy a crate. What a missed opportunity.
The both were designed by the same guy. Same guy, in fact, as designed the M1 tank and the M1 57mm towed anti-tank gun.
/s