03's in 1943?

[shoobe01]

Well, at least back home. I was watching a show on German POWs in the US, and there were a bunch of photos of them being escorted off the train in this one town (apparently they didn't build a siding into the camp, just marched 'em all thru the middle of town).

Plenty of cops around, with holstered revolvers, a few clearly marked MPs, with armbands and usually just a baton. And also a bunch of Army guys, carrying mostly '03 Springfields. Nice ones too. A few M1 Thompsons, but mostly brand new looking Springfields.

Its nice that if we had minor shortages of Garands the War department was smart enough to send them all overseas and use the old guns for home defense purposes, but I have never seen such a thing in photographic evidence before. Does anyone know how many of these were used by troops during the war, in any capacity. When did the '03 finally get pulled from service officially? And can anyone identify that patch? I thought it was 4th ID at first, but now I'm not sure.

 

[shoobe01]

The '03 in question. Lots visible, but for photos from TV, this is by far the best:

Thompson and patch clearly visible:

 

[Nightcrawler]

The M1903A3 was manufactured through 1944, I believe. Mostly went to rear units, etc., later in the war, though.

 

[Gewehr98]

Cool framegrab!

But...

That's not a 1903, or even 1903A3. Look very closely. It's a U.S. Model 1917 Enfield.

See the difference? Note the ears protecting the front sight, the "belly" of the box magazine, the dogleg bolt handle, and the elephant ears protecting the rear peep sight.

It's either a Winchester, Remington, or Eddystone M1917, probably still issued for rear-echelon use at the time. It would be a neat bit of research to figure out how many were still out there in service during that stage of the war.

Edited for the goofy 1918 typo. I don't look at my keyboard when typing, and sometimes I pay the price.

 

[armoredman]

I had a Springfield 1903A3 marked 1943. Wonderful rifle - damn the luck that made me sell her.:banghead:

 

[MrMurphy]

I've seen pics of rear-area units just after D-Day in France with 1903A3s.

 

[ACP230]

That rifle is a 1917 Enfield.

 

[shoobe01]

Gewehr98, you are right. And I know this perfectly well. It was late. Of course its a P.17 (can I assume 1918 is a typo on your part?).

But that makes it even more interesting. I thought the Army decided it kinda hated the Enfields, so to still be using them in 1943, even back home, is very interesting.


I am suprised the '03 was still made that late. I thought we only issued it to front-line troops as the sniper version, and had always assumed that those were all conversions as needed. So, a followup question: Was the Garand difficult enough to produce or something that we kep up production of what we knew (the '03) for a while longer? I never got this impression before since so many factories made rifles (and carbines).

 

[shoobe01]

Oh, and this is just the cheating photo of a tv. Get real square to it, turn off flash and crop in the computer. A frame grab would be way better, but I never got into computer video editing.

 

[Fed168]

Good write up on the 1917 in the new issue of Small Arms Review, comparing it to the 03.