Brad Pitt Goes to 'War' with S&W M1917

[JSR III]

You are right when you say that many of the greatest generation did not talk about the war.

My father served in an armored division that was caught up in the battle of the bulge. Only later in his life did he even discuss with me some of his memories of WWII. He was not a gun guy and probably never wanted to handle a gun again being a very mild man. He did however allow me to follow my interest and even took me to the local range for training as a youth.

The one story that I recall was him telling of tanks returning from the front lines that were pink in color from the blood of wounded soldiers being brought back for treatment. The other story was that of his truck being straifed by a german plane and he and his co pilot bailing out of the truck. Not sure why, but he said he never saw the guy again.

I do have a nice Behorden Model and a Sauer and Sohn shotgun that he sent home to my mother in my collection that were war pickups. I also have his silverware and pouch and a bunch of great photos that he took in Belgium and Berlin.

Someday I will scan them into my computer and post them here for all to enjoy.

He is gone now like many of his commrades and I miss him every day. There will never be another generation like them....

 

[Texas Star]

Didn't really change much in 22 years either, huh.....

Two comments about this picture. First, you didn't post the caption. I think that Willie was saying something like, "There'll be a little detour..."

Secondly, look at the upright pole with a hook, on the front of the jeep. It was designed to cut wires that the Germans might string across a road, hoping to decapitate a courier on a motorcycle. Someone posted about that here awhile back.

Mauldin was a very observant soldier-cartoonist. He was in the war zones and would have seen jeeps fitted with that device and asked what it was. He was personally armed only with a .45 auto, I think. I saw a photo of him wearing it. Don't know if he got way with it or later bought one. He remained a very famous newspaper cartoonist after the war. Patton hated him for his irreverent cartoons, many of which were not very respecting of officers' ranks.

But I guess that Eisenhower realized the positive effect that he had on morale, so Mauldin stayed.

One of my junior HS chums had a book of Mauldin's cartoons. I enjoyed them a lot. I think the book was called "Up Front."

 

[PALADIN85020]

Texas Star, there are many pictures of scruffy and bearded WWII G.I.s and Marines. When out on the "front" a lot of spit and polish was left behind.

Your second comment is pretty dead on. Most Hollywood types today wouldn't make a pimple on a real man's derriereer (sp).

Bill Mauldin's "Willie and Joe" WWII cartoons invariably feature GIs with very scruffy appearances. I'm sure that in combat, hot showers, shaving gear and the time to use it were in VERY short supply. Good grief, uniforms get dirty and improvised. Think of the guys at Bastogne who had to use bedsheets for camouflage, and had to pretty much concentrate on keeping from being annihilated rather than shaving. Lack of sleep didn't do wonders for one's personal appearance either. War is hell, and the participants will not usually look like recruiting-poster models. A far cry from barracks life.

John

 

[Qmark]

Charlie,

You may find this of interest... but I bet you already knew. 1917's were soldiering on well after they were officially removed from the inventory.
Drew

Close friend of mine claimed the 1917 revolver was still in use by US troops in late 70's Germany. He was unsure if Colt or S&W but was sure they were 45 caliber. The revolvers were being used to discharge blanks during bivouacs and war games.

 

[Watchdog]

Hollywood is composed largely of men so far from real soldiers and even from traditional patriotic Americans that they have to scum up about every war film they make.

This thread sure has drifted from talking about a new movie and its weaponry, but I do have a question, and then I'm probably gonna let this be it from me on this subject.

Men who work in Hollywood don't have to be soldiers. They have another job. The guy who delivers your mail doesn't have to be a soldier, he works somewhere else. So does the guy who bags your groceries. And so on and so forth. We aren't a nation of soldiers.

And what, pray tell, is a "traditional patriotic American"? I Googled it, and don't find it. I looked in some dictionaries and drew a blank there, too. I'm probably one, and can qualify my reasons, but I don't know how to really define it.

Why would you question someone's patriotism based on where they live or what they do for a living, i.e. "Hollywood" and "actor"?

Using Brad Pitt as an example, he is on record (and quoted) in the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action Newsletter as being pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment. I'll take a wild guess and say he's probably pro-Constitution as well.

To quote Pitt: "America is a country founded on guns. It's in our DNA. It's very strange but I feel better having a gun. I really do. I don't feel safe, I don't feel the house is completely safe, if I don't have one hidden somewhere. That's my thinking, right or wrong."

Regarding "scumming up about every war film they make"...I don't remember any grunts who went into battle or out into the bush wearing their Class A uniforms.

I've pretty much had it with this thread. People like you love to point your finger at others, cluck your tongues, and wag your head, and you take all the fun out of talking about something as simple as a movie.

 

[awp101]

Texas Star, there are many pictures of scruffy and bearded WWII G.I.s and Marines. When out on the "front" a lot of spit and polish was left behind.

Some years ago I took a class on WWII history at the local community college in Clarksville. We had a speaker who had written a book on the Vosges campaign late in the war (IIRC the book was When the Odds Were Even).

I don't remember all the points he made but something he brought up was the difference between the images the US and the Germans used for home front propaganda purposes. It was along the lines of "Official German photos usually showed clean cut troops in top physical shape. Official US photos showed scruffy troops."

The Germans were trying to make the point they were the superior "race" to keep morale up at home while the US wanted to those at home to feel sympathetic for "their boys" and to continue being willing to sacrifice comforts for the war effort.

True or not, I thought it was an interesting observation.

 

[Old TexMex]

Two comments about this picture. First, you didn't post the caption. I think that Willie was saying something like, "There'll be a little detour..."

Secondly, look at the upright pole with a hook, on the front of the jeep. It was designed to cut wires that the Germans might string across a road, hoping to decapitate a courier on a motorcycle. Someone posted about that here awhile back.

Mauldin was a very observant soldier-cartoonist. He was in the war zones and would have seen jeeps fitted with that device and asked what it was. He was personally armed only with a .45 auto, I think. I saw a photo of him wearing it. Don't know if he got way with it or later bought one. He remained a very famous newspaper cartoonist after the war. Patton hated him for his irreverent cartoons, many of which were not very respecting of officers' ranks.

But I guess that Eisenhower realized the positive effect that he had on morale, so Mauldin stayed.

One of my junior HS chums had a book of Mauldin's cartoons. I enjoyed them a lot. I think the book was called "Up Front."

One thing to say about yours. There wasn't any caption. It didn't need one.
Some of us get it. 1944 + 22= 1966

 

[THE PILGRIM]

Speaking of Bill Mauldin-
There is a restaurant in Española, New Mexico by the name of El Paragua. If you look near the restrooms, by the stairs to the second-floor dining area, you'll see an empty picture frame on the wall. Step closer and you'll see why it's there:
Yup, sketched there on the bare stucco is none other than "Joe", famous cartoon World War II dogface, put there by New Mexico native Bill Mauldin himself.

 

[153]

Mauldin became friends with gunwriter extraordinaire Skeeter Skelton, as I recall they lived near each other in New Mexico. Mauldin even redrew his famous cartoon of a GI sadly putting his jeep "out of it's misery" changing the GI to a likeness of Skeeter in Sheriff's uniform.

 

[semperfi71]

I love "the PILGRIM's" anecdote about Korea, but if he was referencing about me (my first name is Milt) that wasn't me.

My only "combat" in the Marines was two short fist fights in Boot-Camp. One win, one draw.

I never was overseas, unless you count the Mexican town across the border from Yuma.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

I love "the PILGRIM's" anecdote about Korea, but if he was referencing about me (my first name is Milt) that wasn't me.

My only "combat" in the Marines was two short fist fights in Boot-Camp. One win, one draw.

I never was overseas, unless you count the Mexican town across the border from Yuma.

I do some more threads about Milt- nighttime- over run my Chinese, shoot out and get away, later captured by Chinese, escape again, spends nights with 4077 MASH. Writes story line for TV show,
And he wasn't walking Army, he was Ordnance!
Gen. Mark Clark made him his aide, in spite of him being Ordnance.
Mark Clark hated ordnance.

 

[rjb1]

One of Bill Mauldin's cartoons in "Up Front" expressly addressed the differences in appearance and grooming between the garrison and the front lines.
In the cartoon one guy is pouring water out of a five gallon can into the GI's individual canteens. They are all clearly right on the front line. The caption says: "Drink it up, boys. Th' guy wot put out that order about shavin' ain't comin' up here to inspect us."

If you have never read "Up Front" I very highly recommend it.

 

[Mk VII]

The movie tank appears to an 'Easy Eight' with the horizontal volute suspension. These would not have been common until the closing months of the war. They were used by many other nations in the 1950s who received US equipment under the various postwar defense assistance programs, which is probably why this one is still working.
Many, though not all, of the firearms will be solid resin models as hiring real guns for movie work is expensive and the British authorities get nervous about allowing it. Likely Bapty's will be supplying the guns - they do most of the movie guns in England.

My 1917, which was shipped to the Military Ocean Terminal, New York Port of Embarkation, in Oct. 1918.

 

[dswancutt]

One of Bill Mauldin's cartoons in "Up Front" expressly addressed the differences in appearance and grooming between the garrison and the front lines.
In the cartoon one guy is pouring water out of a five gallon can into the GI's individual canteens. They are all clearly right on the front line. The caption says: "Drink it up, boys. Th' guy wot put out that order about shavin' ain't comin' up here to inspect us."

If you have never read "Up Front" I very highly recommend it.

I would also recommend "A Sort of a Saga", which is about his childhood years growing up during the depression.

 

[Mk VII]

yesterday I saw a props tank that had been built for the filming of the movie. The dummy Sherman hull lacks a ball-mounted MG, as noted above. The platform on the front is presumably for filming head-on shots; a similar platform was added on the rear. The seat is probably for the real driver to drive the tank remotely while the actor sits in the driver's position, or to film driver's POV shots. It will look OK on the screen. as long as they keep the camera shot above running gear level. The real hull and running gear is probably from a British FV432 APC.

 

[jtcarm]

Certainly better than that flake Tom Cruise stating that with all the pre-film infantry training he receives for movies that he and other actors are just as savy and well trained as Army and Marine infantry. I think he may have used the term "warriors" I couldn't believe when I read this.

Perhaps he should volunteer for Iraq or Afganistan.

Modern WWII movies are very good in terms of originality, but they suffer from the same problem as their predecessors of 60 years ago: nearly all big-name actors are WAY too old to portray combat soldiers.

 

[DWalt]

"Modern WWII movies are very good in terms of originality, but they suffer from the same problem as their predecessors of 60 years ago: nearly all big-name actors are WAY too old to portray combat soldiers."

During WWII, the typical grunt in combat was probably 19-20 years old (or less), with the typical front-line officer not much older than that, maybe early-mid 20's. So how old is Brad Pitt? 51 this December. Most WWII Generals were younger.

 

[Skeetr57]

While most draftees were fairly young in WWII many were not. I worked with a civilian employee in the early 1970s who was 32 years old when he joined the National guard in 1941, and went on active duty when the Guard was Federalized later that year. He was called back to active duty for the Korean war and stayed in the Army until the mid 1960s when he volunteered for VN duty and the Army realized he was 60 years old and retired him. The father of one of my friends died this year at age 98 so he would have been 25 in 1941, and 28 when he landed at Normandy on D Day. Many officers were older too, such as one of my uncles who graduated from college in 1933 and was commissioned then. He was called up from the reserve and served through the war in the Infantry. The point is that not all WWII soldiers were youngsters.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

While most draftees were fairly young in WWII many were not. I worked with a civilian employee in the early 1970s who was 32 years old when he joined the National guard in 1941, and went on active duty when the Guard was Federalized later that year. He was called back to active duty for the Korean war and stayed in the Army until the mid 1960s when he volunteered for VN duty and the Army realized he was 60 years old and retired him. The father of one of my friends died this year at age 98 so he would have been 25 in 1941, and 28 when he landed at Normandy on D Day. Many officers were older too, such as one of my uncles who graduated from college in 1933 and was commissioned then. He was called up from the reserve and served through the war in the Infantry. The point is that not all WWII soldiers were youngsters.

DWALT is correct. He is talking typical and you are bringing up the exceptions.
I know a guy from Georgia. He was drafted out of college. Became a company clerk ( he could type). A year plus later he was a first sergeant. In the old small army a first shirt had 20 years experience. In a huge expansion army a company clerk, who is sort of a first in training, becomes a first sergeant. With year or two experience, He is one of your more experienced troops.
My dad? One of the old guys. They kept moving up the bar for the draft and he was drafted.
The classification folks readily realized he was not walking army material.
But Navy. Navy Carpenters Mate? You bet. He came out of boot camp as a Carpenters Mate 3rd Class. The Navy needed large numbers of 'ratings' folks and evaluated them at boot camp and assigned them to fields that they knew about. Faster and easier than sending them to schools.
Then you assign them to support ships. Troop transport in the case of my dad.

 

[jchodur]

Patton preferred large caliber revolvers for serious work. His SSA was the official army sidearm just a few years before he graduated West Point and it was still considered a substitute standard when he was commissioned. Because he purchased it when it was a substitute standard it was grandfathered in for him to carry it. I've also read that he he called the .357 Mag. his "killing gun". Don't know why because there are no pictures of him carrying it in combat. When out in the field he always seemed to have the SSA. Only President Roosevelt, General Marshall, General Eisenhower, and after D Day General Bradley would have had authority over him. At least the generals would have understood military tradition and the grandfathering in of certain privileges.