84th Division Documentary

Watching this old documentary.  84th Division holding the Marche - Hotton road in the Battle of the Bulge, and other actions.


I wonder why this guy's ammo has the rounds sticking our like that?  At first I thought it was stripper clips for an '03, but now thinks it's an M1.

But it's nice to see closeup of a soldier kit in these.

Everyone has one of these.  Guessing gas mask?  I could be wrong and they are extra rounds for the mortar tube spread out over a squad. But other than that they seem to be packing surprisingly light.  These days I expect bigger rucksacks getting humped all over for our soldiers.  When they're not fighting.  Maybe these aren't expecting imminent action, but action soon. Nice having lots of trucks hauling your groceries.

Even with a bigger pack it's still not that big.

But there is the entrenching tools.

It just struck me.

Lots of this is stock footage or footage re-used from other parts of the same documentary.  Such is the way of 1940s film.  You got more movie than you got footage.  I recognized someone hitting the deck from a different training film.  But the vast majority seems to be stuff from November and December 1944.  They aren't putting too much stuff from 1942, say, to pad it out.