Alamo Scouts – New Guinea 1944 Impression

Not USMC but i will post my Alamo Scout impression anyways 😉 The Alamo Scouts where a special reconnaissance unit of the 6th Army in the PTO, founded in November 1943 and disbanded in November 1945. The scouts were the brainchild of General Walter Krueger, commander of the 6th Army, also known as the “Alamo Force”. This is where their name originates from.

Their main job was reconnaissance behind enemy lines but they also undertook small raids and POW rescue missions. They operated in small teams named after each team leader, the teams frequently cooperated with the Navy an where often inserted into enemy territory by PT boat. The  existence of this elite unit was kept secret for a long time even after the second world war. They conducted 106 known missions, gathering information behind enemy lines, rescuing many POWs and killing a large number of Japanese soldiers. All without a single scout being killed or captured! A record very hard to beat…

It is not so easy to gather reliable info on this small unit when it comes to the equipment they used, there are photos to be found but most are very small and you can not make out details. Luckily two books on the Alamo Scouts are available and with the help of those and the photos you can piece together all sorts of info. Still some things are a bit vague.

So here is my impression of an Alamo Scout during the earlier operations on New Guinea in 1944. I am still refining some details, in hindsight i should have ditched the undershirt for example. You can see only one layer of clothing on most pics. Some indoor pics will have to do for now since an Alamo Scout would look stupid standing in the snow 😮 Outdoor shots will follow, as will pics of my scout impression with 2nd pattern HBTs.

The camouflage coverall was mainly worn on New Guinea, later on the green two piece HBT suit became dominant and any sort of camouflage clothing was used only on rare occasions. Helmets were never used by the scouts, they wore HBT caps and occasionally HBT hats. The prefered weapon was the M1 Carbine (both M1 and the M1A1 folding stock version), Thompson SMGs were also used frequently, in photos you can mostly see M1928A1s. M3 Grease Guns and M1 Garands also saw some action as did Shotguns and even BARs on rare exceptions. In addition Scouts carried 1911 pistols and fighting knives.

Early on the teams used SCR-536 radios for communication but quickly found out that the range was insufficient for their kind of operations and switched to the SCR-300

A slight variation of the impression, no haversack, HBT hat, shotgun and a captured Japanese canteen (you can never have enough water 😉 )

Some original Alamo Scouts photos. Note the wide variety of footwear. Roughouts, double-buckle boots, jungle shoes and jump boots were all used by the Scouts.

Reading:

“Shadows in the Jungle” by Larry Alexander

“Silent Warriors of WW2: The Almo Scouts behind the Japanese lines” by Lance Q. Zedric

~ by m1pencil on February 27, 2011.