WWI USMC Army M1910 Pick Mattock HEAD ("U.S." in serif font) EXC+++

Description: WWI M1910 Pick Mattock HEAD ("U.S.") EXCELLENT+++ with Original paint! - A deeply stamped M1910 Pick Head with the "U.S." surcharge in the distinctive large serif font. No date. No maker. -These early tools from the First World War are extremely SCARCE and differ from those manufactured during WWII in the following respects: (1) On Picks of WWI manufacture the "U.S." surcharge is stamped in a conspicuous serif-font on side of the pick end of the Mattock (2) On Picks of WWI manufacture there is complete absence of any contractor name or year of manufacture on either the Pick Head or the Handle. (3) Typically, during WWI the Pick is foundry-stamped on the vertical side of the Pick-end (and not on the top or the bottom of the Blade). + Original factory-applied Olive Drab paint!+ No rust, gouges, or 'bites' to the blade. No dulling to the point. No significant loss of paint.+This is a very handsome "combat serviceable" entrenching tool, that shows the authenticating 'patina' of actual in-theater use during the First World War in France and quite possibly reissued and used again in the Second World War in either the Pacific or the European Theater of Operations.This piece dates from the the outset of the Marines' and Army's campaigns on the Western Front of France with the A.E.F. and again, twenty years later on Guadalcanal alongside the Marines of the 1st Marine Division in the Southern Solomon Islands (Operation Watchtower), and the Army's bitter island-hopping slog up from New Guinea Northwestward to Japan's Home Islands. It just as well could have served in the fighting in North Africa commencing with Operation Torch, the Mediterranean Theater, and the subsequent fighting in the Apennine Mountains of Italy, or in France, Central Europe, and Germany following the Normandy Invasion. It could have have been carried on the jump into Sicily or Normandy by Airborne personnel. ***** "Holes, Shovels, and Picks" (excerpted from the handsome, carefully researched work by Denis Hambucken, A G.I. IN THE ARDENNES: The Battle of the Bulge, Pen & Sword Military Books, Ltd., 2020). "Second only to his rifle, the infantryman's most important tool is his ENTRENCHING TOOL. The M1943 entrenching shovel features a swiveling head that can be fully extended, angled as a hoe, or folded back for storage. The M1943 gradually replaces the M1910 Shovel, although many soldiers prefer the T-handle over the older model. Wherever a unit stops, the first order of business is usually digging in for concealment and protection against shelling and small arms. If they are only stopping for a few hours or to bivouac for the night, soldiers dig individual slit trenches about two foot wide, two foot deep and as long as the soldier is tall. Remembers William Campbell of the 28th Infantry Division: "It was like digging a grave." If the position is to be held, one or two-men foxholes are dug about four to five feet deep, usually with a step at the bottom, upon which soldiers can sit down, or stand to stay out of pooling water or to fire their rifles. According to army manuals, a foxhole with two feet of clearance above a crouching soldier protects him from tanks passing overhead, but German tankers learn to skid their treads over foxholes to collapse them and bury occupants alive. The longer they remain in a defensive location the more elaborate their underground "homes" become. Foxholes are improved with roofs made of logs, doors or corrugated steel taken from nearby buildings and covered with earth for protection against tree bursts and mortar shells. The floor is lined with hay or pine boughs. Soldiers carve out shelves for supplies, candles and ammunition. Frank Mareska of the 75th Infantry Division recalls that the much-dreaded German 88 guns left no time to duck: “You only venture out of your foxhole if it was necessary. Pissing or shitting had to be done either in a K or C-ration box, period! Renderings could then be thrown out over the parapet of your foxhole.” Larger holes are dug for machine guns and mortar positions, sometimes, entire vehicles are entrenched. When visibility is limited by falling snow, fog or obscurity, companies dig listening slit trenches some distance outside their perimeter to post sentries. Hard-frozen ground is doubly murderous for the infantry: It makes shells more deadly as they explode on the surface, rather than penetrate the ground, and it also makes it much more difficult to dig in. John McAuliffe of the 87th Infantry Division recalls that setting up a mortar position involves digging a large, two to three-foot deep circular entrenchment in addition to individual foxholes for the crew: "Sometimes we were digging a hole and we were almost done and they'd say: 'OK, we’re moving out!'“. After a long day of fighting, many are too exhausted to dig. In some places, the frozen ground is simply too hard for the entrenching shovel and few men carry the cumbersome MI910 pick-mattock. Most vehicles carry full-size shovels, axes and pickaxes. John Di Battista of the 4th Armored Division recalls: "The mattocks were heavy enough to go through the crust of ground. Once the crust was broken out, entrenching tools could do the job.[...] We were desperate hugging the ground waiting for our turn at a pick." Some units are provided with half-pound blocks of TNT with pull-type fuse lighters, fuses and blasting caps to blast through the rock-hard crust of the frozen ground. An obvious disadvantage of the TNT method is the attention it draws. Rocco Moretto of the 1st Infantry Division recalls: "Everything was going beautifully but the TNT threw up heavy black smoke in the explosion areas. The enemy observing this quickly began to rake our positions with heavy concentrations of fire and we began to sustain heavy casualties." Naturally, soldiers do not bother to fill their foxholes as they leave, consequently, Europe is riddled with millions of holes. It is not unusual for a foxhole to be occupied alternatively by American and German soldiers. After the war, It falls to landowners and farmers to fill in hundreds of thousands of foxholes and shell craters which are troublesome for machinery and hazardous to livestock. A post war survey of the grounds of the Castle of Rolley, an area of about 730 acres near Bastogne, counts no less than 2,490 foxholes to fill in.

Price: 82.5 USD

Location: Little Rock, Arkansas

End Time: 2024-09-14T00:50:10.000Z

Shipping Cost: 11.45 USD