Saturday, November 04, 2006

Please Help

Okay, I'm looking for a little information- hopefully someone out there can help me; I'm trying to discover what the average US soldier carried/wore during World War 2. Ideally I'd like a picture of a front and rear shot of a GI, and I'd really like to know what equipment and ammo was considered an average load.

How many rounds would have been carried for a Garand, for example? What amount of rations did they have? What about sleeping gear?

I'm looking for an Osprey book on the subject but I have a feeling that military historians won't be too bothered by whether GIs carried 200 rounds of ammo or not.

Can anyone help?

Be interesting to compare and contrast a WW2 GI with the gear that's the norm in Iraq right now. I wonder what the Greatest Generation would have made of a modern soldier and his equipment way back then?

UPDATE - Got some info on this here.

1 comment:

David Codrea said...

Without specifying, I assume you mean for the European Theater...aside from Google searches for terms like (GI uniform equipment WWII, etc.), I'd suggest contacting:

1. Reenactors, who go to great expense to outdo each other on authenticity.
See: http://ww2reenactors.proboards35.com/index.cgi

2. Veterans organizations like American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars.