American Rifle - Alexander Rose [168]
Rupertus’s public relations exercise on behalf of the Garand did not, however, fully pay off until the Battle of Guadalcanal (August 7, 1942–February 7, 1943). There Springfield-armed Marines stormed ashore and entered the steaming rain forest—a place where thousand-yard head shots were in short supply and where overwhelming firepower quickly brought to bear was of prime concern. Lieutenant Colonel John George, who fought in the battle, recalled that the Marines “soon realized” they had made a mistake in sticking with the Springfield when the army units that followed them carried Garands.
From almost the first minutes of the combat on Guadalcanal the Marines began wishing for a basic semiautomatic rifle. By the time we landed we had to keep ours tied down with wire. Leathernecks were appropriating all they could lay their hands on by “moonlight acquisition.” In daylight, they would come over to our areas to barter souvenirs with the freshly landed doughboy units; any crooked supply sergeant who had an extra M1 rifle could get all the loot he wanted.
When the Marines began to get a few Garands up to the front, the demand proportionately increased. They quickly learned that the M1 did not jam any more often than the Springfield, and that it was equally easy to maintain. The disassembly system, especially, made the M1 much easier to clean and oil.
Yes, the Marines were justified in their yen for the Garand. Once in combat, no one could see the logic in remaining in the same armament class with the Japs. Most of the officers who had been appalled at the Garand’s lack of target accuracy were quick to give it due credit in combat.
The behavior of one Marine corporal seemed to epitomize this attitude. It was during the organization of a joint Marine-Infantry patrol, shortly after we had landed. I saw this Marine, a member of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, place and keep himself squarely behind one of the Army sergeants in the advance platoon. When the march was well under way, the sergeant inquired as to why the leatherneck kept treading on his heels.
The answer came quickly: “You’ll probably get yours on the first burst, Mac. Before you hit the ground, I’ll throw this damn Springfield away and grab your rifle!”92
Key to the Garand’s success among the Marines (and army soldiers) was its eight-round capacity, a 60 percent increase over that of the Springfield. His men “gained a certain assurance and confidence,” recalled Colonel Whaling, a veteran of several Pacific campaigns, from being able to outfire the enemy.93
Marine Corps fears that the Garand was unacceptably inaccurate compared to the Springfield turned out to be unfounded. Marksmen, in fact, were well served by the Garand. One remembered that at Guadalcanal “Jap swimming holes and river crossings were ideal spots to watch, from any point not over 600 to 700 yards away.” Happily, “the Japs could not believe that a kill at 700 yards was anything but accidental, so that the spot could profitably be watched three or more times a week.”94 Japanese troops, observed Colonel George, who enjoyed an immense amount of personal experience in the matter, were not trained in marksmanship to anything like the level in the U.S. Army and shot out only to four hundred yards (“Japs are poor belly shooters”), though they did (quite sensibly, he thought) compensate by using improvised rests as often as possible.95
Employed in combination with traditional American marksmanship, the Garand was a particularly lethal weapon that could be used in situations ranging from the toughest, bloodiest assault to pinpoint sharp-shooting. It was the perfect everyday weapon of Everyman, and it seemed to possess an incredible ability to transform ordinary men into extraordinary soldiers. On January 26, 1945, in the final accounting, General George S. Patton would provide the ne plus ultra of celebrity endorsements: “In my opinion, the M1