photo #7976775

GI with a BAR advances into Germany - February 1945This soldier is dressed in the late-war M1943 combat uniform, he has a BAR belt, but it is unbuckled.The long narrow pouch would have held the cleaning rods for his BAR.Slung over his shoulder is his lightweight gas-mask bag. By this stage in the war the masks were often discarded and the bags were used as convenient "musettes" for carrying rations etc.It might just be the angle, but the shaft of his M1943 entrenching tool seems to have been shortened?He has a couple of Mk 2 "Pineapple" fragmentation grenades attached to his harness. Originally these were painted yellow but as the war progressed they were finished in OD with just a thin yellow band at the top.