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TITLE Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) DESCRIPTION Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) Model 1918A2 Adopted shortly before World War II, it was designated a Squad Automatic Weapon. CONTEXT "When we got overseas they were reassigning weapons. And the BAR usually went to the tallest, or the heaviest guy in each squad. I think there was one BAR to the squad. I'm pretty tall for the Japanese American 100th/442 group. I'm 5"6" and I weighed 140 pounds. So I was a big guy. But when they started to pass out the BARs I shrank down to 5"2" and I bet I only weighed about 120. At any rate, I didn't get the BAR. I got my M1, which only weighed about 9 pounds. BARs weigh about 14 plus pounds." Chester "Chet" Tanaka "But the things that I remember about the BAR man is that it was considered the death wespon for the BAR man, particularly in an attack situation where you are advancing on an enemy and where you are close by, maybe 20 feet away or so from the people behind trees and things like this, and situations like that. When you are in a mountain position holding a mountain top, it doesn't make much difference. You are barraged anyway, you might get killed on the luck of the draw. But when you are up in an advance close position, as I noted, the BAR man is the target, and he was killed usually. And so it's a tough weapon to hold and to advance with. It's a man with fire power, and the Gerries know where the fire power is, and they are after him. Yeiichi "Kelly" Kuwayama CREDIT National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution |
