The M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) provided the basis for squad firepower and in early 1944 squads were authorized 3 BARs per rifle squad. M1936B BAR belt held two 20-round magazines in each of its six pockets. The BAR’s bipod was sometimes removed to reduce weight. This Marine is wearing the Herringbone Twill (HBT) two-piece uniform in sage green. On his helmet he wears a reversible camouflage M-1 helmet cover in the “frog pattern”, green side out (four color).
He carries his K-BAR, canteen with army canteen pouch, and jungle first aid pouch on his belt. The first aid pouch was issued after 1943 and contained a field dressing, insect repellent, iodine, petrolatum, a tourniquet, and Band-Aids. He wears the khaki colored web-gear common through-out the majority of the war and leather boon-dockers with rubber soles and canvas gaiters. The base of the miniature is sand from Iwo Jima’s Yellow 1 Beach, where 1st Battalion 23rd Marines came ashore. Yellow 1 is located on the south-eastern side of Airfield 1, now over grown but still discernible in satellite imagery, and was collected in December 2005.
This poor private has been armed with an anti-tank lunge mine, a shaped charge strapped to a bamboo or wooden pole. The Japanese were forced to use these and other suicide anti-tank measures due to a lack of anti-tank guns capable of taking on U.S. medium tank armor.
The private comes equipped with a Type 30 bayonet and a Japanese Imperial Army style canteen in canvas carrier on his web gear. On his head he wears the Type 92 (1932) helmet with camouflage netting that was widely worn throughout the Pacific Island Campaign. He wears standard leg wrappings and leather split toe shoes. The miniature is based on sand form Okinawa’s Yellow 2 Beach where 1st Battalion 5th Marines came ashore on 1 April 1945. Yellow 2 is the public pay beach and Ganjyu Farm restaurant just north of Bishi River inlet south of Tori Station; the sand was collected in March 2016.
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