RARE WORLD WAR ONE REGIMENTAL FIELD DESK!
AUTHENTIC
WORLD WAR I
FIELD DESK
OF THE
147th FIELD
ARTILLERY
REGIMENT
A.E.F.
 |
The 4 inch deep top lid of the field desk is closed by two latches and an all-brass Corbin keyed lock that was also common to high quality American made trunks manufactured at about the same time. Glued inside the top there is a sheet of paper dated June 28, 1916 that measures about 11 x 16 inches. The sheet is a typed list that describes the inventory of an Adjutant’s Head Quarters Library which was obviously once kept in the field desk. The items specified on the list are mostly US Army publications dated between 1908 and 1916.
|
| Those 40 or so publications are largely field manuals such as the “Infantry and Cavalry Drill Regulations for the Automatic Machine Rifle, Model of 1909”, “Description and Rules for the Management of the United States Magazine Rifle, Model of 1903”, “Officer’s Manual - Moss - 1911”, etc. A removable tray inside the top apparently once held that library material. |
 |
 |
With the top open and with the two side latches unlatched, the entire 21 x 30 inch hinged front panel opens downward to create a desk surface with a green oilcloth center and recesses to hold two inkwells. The back portion of the desk is comprised of 16 pigeon holes and one drawer, all 12 inches deep. On both ends of the field desk there are sewed 1-1/4 x 4-1/2 inch harness leather handles fixed in metal housings.
|
| Both ends of the field desk are stenciled in red with RECORDS 147th F.A. [Field Artillery] ADJ. DESK. On the top, the red stencils read RECORDS HQ 147th F.A. 39 ADJ. DESK WT.85 CU.FT.4. The front of the top has a red stencil reading STATEROOM, which is where the field desk was carried aboard ship on its way home from France after World War I. |
 |
 |
The 2-1/4 inch oval manufacturer’s name plate riveted to the top is heavy cast bronze, and the field desk has two wooden slats on the bottom. The lock on the front is open and we are trying to find a key to fit it. |
This field desk was found here in the Black Hills recently just as you see it. It has not been fixed, painted or messed with. It was painted in standard light gray-green United States Army olive-drab, probably after the army got it but before it went to France in World War I. 98% of that original paint is still there and it is in good condition.
This fine old Artillery field desk is in great solid shape and would be a spectacular addition to a Smithsonian Museum display, a field gear collection, or as a part of the equipment of a World War I military vehicle. We have never seen another 1906 field desk as complete or in as good condition as this one!
This USM Books web page is Copyright © 2004 by USM, Inc., and the text and images on it are fully protected by international copyright law. It is therefore, illegal for anyone to take any of the material found here and use it for their own purposes without our written permission, irrespective of any excuse they may feel they have for doing so. We will expose and prosecute those guilty of theft of our copyrighted material. |
|||
|
USM, Inc. Post Office Box 2600, Rapid City, SD 57709-2600 USA
|
|||