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Forums - Research / WW2 |
This WW2 forum is intended for asking and discussing reference or historical related issues pertaining to WW2 (1939-1945) subjects. |
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| Subject: | Re: BARs and Paratrooper Usage During D-Day |  |
| Date: | May 16, 2007 |
| From: | Arun Bauer | |
Hi Tim
I took up Your proposal and so I've read George Forty's "U.S. Army Handbook 1939 - 1945" thoroughly. Among other interesting things I found a T/O&E from February 1944 for an Infantry Batalion Parachute which shows 27 BAR's for the Batalion(i.e. one per rifle squad).
So I'm quite sure that there were at least some BAR's used in action on D-Day, for the units in the ETO were equipped according to the latest T/O&E's. This was due to the experience made in Sicily.
I think most of the BAR's went down to the landing zone in parapapacks(or bundles, as mentioned in Mr Forty's book), as did the bazookas, because those days most of them seemed to be one piece M1's or M1A1.
Most probably some of these bundles were gone lost, because they went down far outside of the drop zone due to influence of stormy winds. So the paratroopers had less rifles than they should have at the beginning of the D - Day operations.
But some of the paratoopers took the risk and jumped with their BAR's
and bazookas.
At least for the bazookas I found pictures and reports from people witnessing this on Veteran websides.
There were also Griswold bags for the BAR's but there's only approval of the use of them for 'Market Garden'.
For the parapacks I found only some pic's for a pack howitzer and its ammo at 'Market Garden' in a unnamed pdf file by using 'parapack use of' as the keyword for my Google research.
I hope this will be of some help for You
Kind Regards
Arun Bauer |
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 | BARs and Paratrooper Usage During D-Day - Tim Streeter - Apr 28, 2007 |
| . . . Re: BARs and Paratrooper Usage During D-Day - Rob Galassi - Apr 28, 2007 |
| . . . . . . Re: BARs and Paratrooper Usage During D-Day - Tim Streeter - Apr 28, 2007 |
| . . . . . . . . . Re: BARs and Paratrooper Usage During D-Day - Rob Galassi - Apr 29, 2007 |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . Re: BARs and Paratrooper Usage During D-Day - Robert Anderson - Apr 29, 2007 |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . Re: BARs and Paratrooper Usage During D-Day - Rob galassi - May 1, 2007 |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Re: BARs and Paratrooper Usage During D-Day - Tim Streeter - May 1, 2007 |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Re: BARs and Paratrooper Usage During D-Day - Rob galassi - May 2, 2007 |
| . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Re: BARs and Paratrooper Usage During D-Day - Tim Streeter - May 2, 2007 |
| . . . Re: BARs and Paratrooper Usage During D-Day - Arun Bauer - May 16, 2007 |
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