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I was rewatching Band of Brothers, and I wondered what determined what weapon the US soldier carried. Most of them carried Garands of course, but who got to carry the M1A1s (Thompson) and why? If they went to officers, could privates still carry them? If a private took one off of a fallen soldier, could he opt to carry it for the rest of the war?
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1911s. I’ve read that mostly officers carried sidearms, but Private Webster is frequently seen carrying a .45 in a nifty snap holster on his chest - not a hip holster with the flap. Would this be a civilian purchase? He was a Harvard undergrad, so presumably he could afford it. Was that widely allowed in wartime? Also, what about all the scavenged Lugers? Were they allowed to carry them in combat?
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Non-standard issue weapons. What were the actual on-the-ground wartime regulations about privately purchased weapons - if such a thing was possible. Could a soldier have purchased his own sidearm, hunting rifle, or even shotgun to carry as either a primary or secondary weapon? Before they jump, one of the soldiers gets a last minute package from his hometown police. It’s a big revolver. I expected that would have been followed up on since they made a point to highlight it, but it’s never seen again.
band of brothers were paratroopers and their weapons were somewhat mission specific. but they were allowed to carry personal weapons (“as eagles screamed” bantam books.)
paratroopers had to carry a lot of firepower. night drops often saw most of them them issued with thompsons which they could fire while still aloft. machine gunners can fire their weapons as soon as they hit the ground. but in answer to your question, squad leaders and officers were the ones who usually carried thompsons and carbines (when private carried garands.) light automatic weapons would supplement longer more powerful arms as you can imagine with WW2 armies whose primary infantry weapon was the bolt action rifle. a soldier fights with what he has for the duration of a campaign. not until he’s releaved and sent behind the lines could the unit replenish and re-arm.
lots of pictures of airmen carrying .45s in shoulder rigs (easier when you’re in a cockpit i suppose.) again, you fight with what you have.
the shopping soldier is generally an american phenomenon. the author in “as eagles screamed” kept his nickel-plated .45 which his father bought him secret. he had no trouble with that. he also grabbed a P-38 as a souvenir. he was later wounded and made a fuzz about it being his war souvenir. i don’t remember him having much problem with that either.
Thanks for the answers. If anyone else has something to add, I’m all ears.
Naturally, I can’t find my copy of Band of Brothers. Nevertheless, I’ll do my best to help out.
Here is a site that purports to be the TO&E for the 101st Airborne Division in 1944. It does not list the Thompson SMG at all (either the M1928 or the M1 Thompson), instead listing the M1 carbine in that role. That said, I doubt the TO&E listed at that site was set in stone tablets, carried down from Sinai. Wiki claims,
Supporting the TO&E, John Keegan wrote in Six Armies In Normandy, his history of the WW2 fighting in Normandy from D-Day until the liberation of Paris, a quote from Private Donald Burgett, a paratrooper with the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (and the probable author of these histories of the 506th). Burgett wrote that he carried a rifle and .45 automatic pistol when he jumped into Normandy. He only carried 66 rounds of .45 ammunition, which is sufficient for a pistol, but not for his main weapon. The quote is lengthy, but can be found at page 77 of the paperback edition of Keegan’s history.
Here is a similar question to yours asked three years ago at thehighroad.org (a firearms enthusiast site), with responses.
Finally, though half a world away from Normandy, in Eric Bergerud’s excellent history of the land portion of World War 2 in the South Pacific, Touched With Fire, he talks about the Thompson. He writes that pre-war “Many Marines bought them for use on their far-flung postings.” In the Pacific, at least,
It was evidently not popular with soldiers in the Solomons due to it sounding a lot when fired like the Japanese 6.5 mm Type 96 Nambu light machine gun. Having heard a Nambu (not sure whether it was Type 96 or Type 99, in 7.7 mm) and a Thompson being shot at the excellent living history demonstrations at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas (hometown of Admiral Nimitz), I agree with their assessment. OTOH, Bergerud writes that the Americans and especially the Australians in New Guinea loved their Thompsons for the short-range firepower they provided. His quotes on the subject can be found starting at page 292 of his book.
When I was in the Army the squad carried M-1 Garands. The squad leader carried the heavy Browning Automatic Rifle. No one wanted to be squad leader… 
Infantry have to qualify with the weapon they are primarily using so that they can use it efficiently and effectively and not become a liability to themselves or their buddies. The decision for distribution of types firearms would be made at the company or brigade level prior to a battle. (Ex: You would not want all of your troops picking an M1 Carbine when they were going to take on fortified positions.) Unlike video games, it takes a lot of practice to shoot an M1 Thompson effectively and you could easily get yourself killed in battle while trying to master it.
Personal sidearms were typically allowed for higher level enlisted and officer ranks. Junior elnistred had to kepp with issue stuff.
Personal longuns were not allowed–unless it was chambered in cal .30-06 where would you get the ammo? There was also no rfile that could fire at the rate of the M1 Garand, so you would be down at the level of German Infantry in firepower if you brought your deer rifle with you. Civilian rifles and shotguns were also not designed for battle and would qucikly breakdown from the war grime.
As an aside, my great uncle did some island hopping with the Marines. He hated the BAR he was issued (too heavy), so he burned up (i.e. fired until ruined) two of them and was transferred to explosives. What soldiers will do to shed a few pounds!
An uncle who was in Europe during WWII told me that it was fairly common for infantry to keep German weapons that they found or took from surrendering Germans. They would carry the with, and fire them first, until they ran out of ammunition for them. Then they would discard them, and use their army-issue American guns. Effectively, just an extra weapon and more rounds available.
This was during heavy-combat times, when they needed all the firepower they could carry. Later, when it was clearer that they would go home someday, such guns were kept as souvenirs. Or sold (at inflated prices) to officers from behind the lines. (My uncle didn’t have much good to say about officers, especially those from behind the front lines.)
These guys are jumping with loaded automatic weapons? And firing them on the way down into the dark where some guys may have already landed?
They are far, far tougher than I.
How old are you?!
The Germans did the same. Notably, on the Eastern Front captured PPSh submachine guns were very sought after - they had a much larger magazine than MP-38/40s, didn’t jam as much, had a faster rate of fire and used the same ammunition.
And of course, they were also a mark of standing because having one meant you had killed at least one Russian, and from close enough that you could loot the gun off his corpse.
Jake was born at the very ass-end of 1940.
Forgive the lack of specifc cites – I’ve just finished reading a stack of Stephen Ambrose’s books, along with “The Pacific” by his son Hugh, along with “With the Old Breed” an “Helmet for my pillow”… I think it’s all tangled up now. 
Marine Pvt. Eugene Sledge who was a 60mm mortar man in the Pacific recounts how he and his buddy Snafu had a Thompson they shared – whoever was on watch carried it – as protection against Japanese night infiltrators. Marine Pvt. Leckie also carried one as a patrol scout (after he was transferred from being a machine-gunner).
There’s a couple of (scary) amusing anecotes about specialists in D-Day carrying them too – one chap was a Austrian (?) Jewish volunteer (present to be a translator) who tells how he ran off the Higgins boat with his Thompson which had a 30 round magazine (he generally only used the 20 round version). The 30 round magazine was significantly heavier and apparently had a tendency to spontaneously detatch from the weapon. He lost his magazine in the surf and waded ashore without ammo. :eek:
Someone – I think in Band of Brothers – talks about how pistols were issued to Officers and Non-coms and that Privates had to purhase them if they wanted to carry one… and that most of the Airborne did just that.
IIRC Sledge had a sidearm that his father had sent him.
Not true; the MP38/40 fired the 9x19 parabellum, while the PPSh fired the 7.62x25 Tokarev.
You might be thinking of the German C-96 pistol, which didn’t fire 7.62x25 but did fire a pretty similar (maybe even interchangeable?) round.
The Garand wasn’t the only .30-'06 used by US troops in WW-II.
When the US first entered the war, M1 Garands were in limited supply. Many troops were issued '03 Springfield bolt action rifles left over from the earlier World War and still produced during the intervening years.
The Garands were issued to troops that were expected to see heavy action. Support troops, sentries in rear areas, etc. got the Springfields…my Dad, a mechanic in an engineering group, for example was issued an '03-A3.
A selected and tweaked Springfield is quite a bit more accurate than you can make a Garand, so they were also used by snipers.
The Marines started the war with Springfields. As for the last sentence…bullshit. A tweaked Garand can shoot just as accurately as a tweaked Springfield, allowing for the errors that creep in due to the action. Besides, the Springfield as a sniper rifle was a piece of shit. The scope interfered with loading and ejection.
Was the M-14 used as a snipers, or have I seen pictures of a sniper rifle that resembles it?
Yep. They use an off-set scope. Since the M-14 takes a bottom-loading magazine, you don’t have the “single round at a time” problem the 1903 had.
And err… “liberated” as many M1s as they could get their mitts on.
Well, I haven’t read all the replies, so I hope I don’t repeat. Here’s what I think I remember from various sources on this:
1.) You are right that the M1 Garand would be the weapon carried by an ordinary soldier. The Band of Brothers people are Paratroopers, I believe, right? Airborne, being special forces, had more options in what they were assigned. The lightweight M1 Carbine, often with a folding wire stock, was often used in larger numbers by them when they were actually jumping into combat. Paratroopers at that time were light troops, intended to grab something and wait for QUICK relief, so light handy weapons like that to do the job close-in and allow more ammunition to be carried are useful to paratroopers. German paratroopers actually parachuted onto the Greek island of Crete carrying pistols; they were to run to canisters and break out their submachine guns once on the ground. The British taught them that was a bad idea and they repented of it after Crete. [Russian special forces seizing the president and cabinet of Czechoslovakia, in 1968, used .32 ACP Scorpian machine pistols–very light stuff.]
Once assigned to combat on the ground, an elite unit like the 101st would have more option than a regular unit as to the firepower it wanted, and would tend to upgrade. They were, after all, sent in to do the roughest kind of dirty work, as shown in the series. My guess is that the officers decided who carried what, with the individual soldier able to express a preference. Ordinary American infantry would have far fewer options and their untutored firepower ambitions counted for little. Among “regular” units, carbines generally were issued to officers later in the war, and 1911s (generally) were carried by officers before that.
A Thompson would likely be allocated in any unit on the basis of a demonstrated ability to use it effectively, something of a skill. It was not, as I once saw it described, “a slob’s weapon.” Again, in an elite unit, there would be a lot of flexibility in this decision–but a final decision would likely be up to the company or platoon officer.
As far as taking a Thompson off a fallen comrade, again, an officer would most likely make a decision, actively or tacitly, as to whether you could “keep” it, based on his judgment of you and the weapon as a couple. Highly valued was a good man with a BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle).
2.) As for sidearms, the shoulder holster you describe was U.S. Army issue, I believe. It was for higher-field-grade officers, pilots and the like, and the issue was whether you could get your hands on one. In an elite, hard-fighting unit like the 101st on Band of Brothers, again, there were more options. You could probably take whatever you wanted from the Germans as a sidearm, but, as always, an officer would decide what you kept at the end of the day. Generally, in an elite unit, they were probably tolerant. You wouldn’t want to carry a weapon with which you were unfamiliar (Lugers had an odd toggle locking-system and could jam if not kept clean) or a pistol which was underpowered, like a German officer’s Walther PPK, standard in .32 ACP and .380 ACP.
3.) British officers, in various wars, were known for taking some favored hunting rifle or privately-procured pistol to war. For the Airborne, in heavy fighting as in Band of Brothers, with permission from an officer, you could probably use something sent “from home” if it didn’t violate the Geneva Convention or U.S. military regulations (which probably didn’t encourage the practice).
Issue shotguns were used in WW II by U.S. troops, I believe, but in WW I I’m pretty sure the Germans complained that they were an inhuman weapon as used in trench warfare. Some things you might not want to be caught with by German troops, and ammunition availability would always be an issue for any non-issue weapon. The tendency of a wise officer would be to limit any weapons not proven on the battlefield and in the hands of the soldier carrying it. Common sense needs to prevail on any battlefield.
Again, I emphasize that these “rules” are my guesses from my reading, and that they apply to the elite soldiers of Band of Brothers far more than ordinary U.S. infantry.
My father in law worked hard to get his BAR. He also did the island hopping with the Marines. He had to qualify before getting his BAR. And to qualify his unit had a compitition. Anyone who wanted to try after showing his knowledge had a compitition. They started at a distance from a target and fired a series of shots. the man with the best score got the BAR. If there was a tie they backed up 10 feet and repeated the shooting. In his case they backed up 4 times. He hit dead center 10 out 0f 10, the other man missed dead center by less than a inch on one shot.
The advantage of being the man with the BAR. When his unit was drilling he got to fall out. And he did not get any of the KP or latrine duties. He was also assigned a man to carry his amo.