GotSnlB28 wrote:
About the type 3 band usage - I'm sure I must be missing something - given that Inland was using type 3 bands in the fall of 44 I'd have to assume they went into service and thus in theater? |
Photos are a lousy way to draw conclusions about such broad logistics issues. If you had your picture taken outside the stadium wearing a shirt in your team colors with the logo plastered all over it, what would that tell you about how many similar shirts were at the game? Answer: nothing. An anecdote can confirm it happened once but, at best, even properly used within its limitations, can only lead to a better defined question, not an answer.
Lacking documentation setting carbines with Type 3 bands (or just the bands alone for MWO mods) as an overseas shipping priority or records of issuance to late deploying units, we are left with looking at the big picture. But first, one more chance to beat up on those who rely on anecdotes: CCNL 377 shows 14,124 M2 Carbines in the hands of troops in the ETO. To the best of our current understanding, these would have had Type 3 bands. Where are the photos of these M2s? Bueller?
Now, back to the big picture. A possible answer to why Type 3 bands are not seen all over the Pacific is: by the time the Type 3 came about, the supply pipeline was filled. With no evidence of being assigned a high priority or as a special project, the extremely long shipping times could mean the clock simply ran out. Long range planning - both for production and shipping capacity - requires estimates of expenditure rates (based on field experience) for each item in the supply catalog. For carbines in the Pacific in early 1945, the attrition rate was either 2 or 3 percent per month. Further, rear areas in the SW Pacific and South Pacific departments were being rolled up, so even those tiny loss percentages might have been made up mostly from existing reserves in the region rather than from stateside.
Another category, newly deploying units fresh from the U.S. are another likely suspect - but nobody has gone through the dozens or hundreds of units' records hoping to find a mention of late issuance of updated carbines.
One more point on the supply pipeline. OD records show on 31 Jan 45 they had 229,847 carbines 'Total Supply Ready For Issue'. That month, 38,447 were requisitioned for overseas shipment (for the whole world - but excluding swabbies and maureens). A major effort to reequip stateside training bases for units that would redeploy through the US to the Pacific after V-E Day was just about to begin, so that may account for a portion of new production.
By the time of Okinawa, it was almost too late for a large scale effort to replace complete carbines or perform the bayo band MWO. There was time to do so for the invasion of Japan - but does anyone know where to find an official record stating it was a priority? Guess that wouldn't show up in a photo.
That's a long non-answer; allow me to muddy the waters further. Here's a fuzzy picture of an ETO engineering battalion organic to the 63rd Infantry Div. The undated photo is in a section covering the Occupation, but the division arrived in Marseilles in Jan 45 and returned stateside in Sep 45, so it had to be taken sometime in between. Are those MWO Type 3 bands - or factory M2s?
|