In October 1943 as part of a program to improve the usability of the BAR, several carry handle designs were produced and tested. The result of the design and test efforts was the “Handle, Carrying, T4” which was recommended for adoption in December 1944 for all services by request of the Marine Corps.

There is a published photo of the carry handle in use by a US Marine on Page 180 of Rock In A Hard Place by James Ballou. The caption reads: "A BAR in action on Okinawa, near Shuri Castle." This is the one and only photo that is known of in the BAR collectors circle and has been published in support of the Carry Handle being used during WWII. To my knowledge as of the time of this writing, there are no other known photographs of the Carry Handle purportedly from WWII published.

I believe this photo may have a correct caption but has been attributed incorrectly as a WWII photo. I assert that this is not of a Marine in WWII but rather is of an Army BAR Gunner during the 1950's on Okinawa, near Shuri Castle. Okinawa was used as a training base extensively post WWII, with exercises being carried out on many of the battlefields of 1945.

The gunner is wearing a M45 pack, which did not see any appreciable use during WW2 by the Marine Corps. The Marines continued to use the USMC pattern 41 haversack through the 1950's in many instances - not fully transitioning to different patterns till the 1960's. Some M44/M45 packs were used on Okinawa, but only by US Army units and not Marines. The BAR is equipped with the canvas sling, which shows up first in the 1945 ORD8 SNL A-4 as part number D44058. The combination of M45 pack, Carry Handle, Canvas Sling and Army can easily draw the conclusion that this photo actualy being from 1950's training conducted on Okinawa. The caption may be right as it is stated in the book - simply having the date left off and the incorrect assumption made that it was WWII.

From examination of photos from the recently opened LIFE magazine archive on Google, numerous examples of 1950's training on Okinawa have been found. Those photographs very closely emulate the uniform and equipment of the soldier in the disputed photo. Photographs of BAR's in these training exercises also display the same characterisitics of Carry Handle, Canvas Sling and top screw bipods.