WW2 D-Day US Army Lieutenant Duffel Bag With Top Secret POM Markings

Code: 10529

For sale is a RARE WW2 D-Day US Army Duffel Bag With Top Secret POM Markings on. A little more on what POM is, is below. These items with these markings rarely come up for sale so don’t miss out. The duffel bag on the front says:

LT. NYE McLaury

0-1584596 

4//9-M

B 

The reverse has the POM Markings- serial number and bar code:

82037-L

Please see photos for POM BAR COLOUR CODE

In the build-up to Operation Neptune and other large-scale military operations during WW2, the United States Army introduced a system by which all items that were to accompany a unit on an overseas voyage could be correctly identified to their respective units. These items included large personal equipment to vehicles and tentage of the unit. The system which was devised can be likened to the modern day bar code system. By assigning each unit a 5-digit serial number all items could be easily identified. To expedite the process of identifying the numerous pieces in the system, a colour code was also devised, with specific colours relating to the final two digits of the 5-digit code.

Unfortunately, since the information that was relevant to this particular system was highly confidential (most documents referring to it were rated as "BIGOT" - the highest security type used for the invasion of Europe), very little evidence or documentation exists to document the process and system used. Attempts have previouslt been made by researchers and historians to gather a list of these POM markings (or more accurately, Unit Serial Numbers), but most have failed to produce a definitive list due to the lack of evidence or official history.

A number of militaria collectors have identified pieces in their collection which bear these multi-coloured barcodes with Unit Serial Numbers, and following discussion with some of these collectors, it was decided that another attempt to document the codes and locate the units to which they relate should be made. In early 2009, Ben Major of the WW2 US Medical Research Centre set about starting a database to collect the numerous codes and their respective units. Now in 2010, the project still remains very much a work-in-progress, and although research into the area continues, there are still large gaps in the database.

These particular markings, referred to as "Preparation for Overseas Movement" (POM) markings were typically applied to US Army materiel that was to be shipped to its destination. They were designed to replace unit idenfication markings, thus making organisation and transportation simple. Each unit was issued with a five digit code which uniquely identified it. Each number of the code corresponded to a colour, which would be painted in the form of three stripes, representing the following > top bar: penultimate digit, middle bar: final digit, bottom bar: penultimate digit. As far as we have been able to ascertain, these markings were assigned at a Company level.