For clarification I mean personal items as in for example letters, books, privately bought pen knives etc not issued personal equipment.
This has bugged me for a while. I realise some items are problematic, such as diaries or heavy books, and a small and/or useful item like a lighter less so. But people were away from home for months and years, and war is mainly downtime. There must have been some need to have private stuff. Were private things sent home, discarded, put into storage before battle or carried into it? What about souvenirs from the battlefield?
My question still stands for other wars than and eras than WW2 as well if some of you happen to have a good answer but for another conflict.
Yes. As a rare book dealer, I met a WWI veteran who carried a 1st edition of TS Eliot poetry inside his helmet. he had ripped it in half along the spine to make it fit. And people collect special editions of novels the military printed for soldiers in WWII. Tiny print, half the size of normal paperbacks (same width, half the height). Flimsy covers so easy to bend. And a veteran I know showed me a cool compact drafting kit carried by a WWII soldier in a pocket that unfolds to a whole set of tools. JD Salinger reputedly carried part of the draft of what would become The Catcher in the Rye with him during his service in Europe during WWII. Soldiers were known to take souvenirs from combat. They shipped home what they couldn't carry.