It depends on the unit and the rank of the soldier. In that book I mentioned above, one of the things that surprised me was the difference in both training and issued equipment between units that existed before the start of WWII and those units that were created later..in the movie FURY, Brad Pitt (Wardaddy) carried an S&W 1917 in .45 ACP in a shoulder rig. I wonder how common this actually was other than movie stuff.
Units that existed between the wars had a lot of old WWI (and sometimes earlier) equipment in their possession. Some NCOs and officers chose to keep these older weapons that they were more familiar with rather than the newer stuff that they would have available later. The older units also had much more autonomy in their training. Recruits (usually locals within their state) that were added to these units to bring them up to full strength were often brought in green and given "boot camp" type training right in the unit, so these units developed their own way of doing things. Of course, we started the war with a very small army and later on so many new units were created, the old school units became the minority.
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