Table Of ContentORDNANCE WENT UP FRONT
Some Observations and Experiences of a Sergeant of Ordnance, who served
throughout World War II with the United States Army in Egypt, the Philippines
and Japan—including Way Stations. With Comment and Opinions on the many
different Small-Arms in use by the Forces Engaged.
By ROY F. DUNLAP
COPYRIGHT, 1948, BY
THOMAS G. SAMWORTH
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission.
A Samworth Book on Firearms
Published by
SMALL-ARMS TECHNICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY
Plantersville, South Carolina
TYPOGRAPHY, PRINTING AND BINDING IN THE U. S. A.
FOREWORD
This isn’t really my fault: I was parked peacefully beneath a
coconut palm splitting a banana with a monkey and wondering if I’d
live through the coming invasion of Japan when some hopeful
soldier who had attended mail call threw me a letter from T. G.
Samworth, “who gets out the books on firearms,” starting everything.
The monkey ate the envelope, and since he looked smarter than I
felt, I asked him what I should do—tell the man the truth, or write him
a gory story (Mr. Samworth had the idea I was the Second Rifleman
to go to War, à la McBride). Anyway, I wrote and explained that I was
usually the snipee instead of the sniper, and that there wasn’t much I
knew to write about except small arms, which would be OK but for
the fact that a batch of other guys had been doing the same thing all
through the war, though it was evident that two-thirds of them never
handled the items they publicized. Besides, I had to work for a living,
instead of fighting—most of the time anyway—so I wasn’t
glamorous. The answer was, in effect, “Write it up anyway, you’ve
seen enough guns, in enough places, and know enough about them
to make a book.” Besides, he offered money. So I then had a post-
war project. This is it.
If the following manuscript can be classified at all, it must be as
an elaborated technical diary of an American gun nut through the
rifles, pistols and machine guns of World War II, both enemy and
allied. I make no pretense of covering all the weapons used—such a
book would be a straight catalog eight inches thick—but endeavor to
present as many of the firearms in the small arms category as I am
or was familiar with. These are the guns issued to individual soldiers
for the express purpose of killing other individual soldiers: In military
parlance, the anti-personnel weapons. Theoretically, grenades,
booby-traps, mines, mortars and such toys should be included,
however I narrowed the “weapons” down to firearms because I feel
that only firearms can be of interest to non-military readers in such a
book as this. Military readers won’t have to read about those other
bits of equipment here. Besides, why should I tell people how to
make grenades in the basement?
I have done my utmost to obtain factual information. All
measurements and weights, unless otherwise stated, were taken by
myself directly from the equipment mentioned. Where cartridge and
bullet data are concerned, I averaged dimensions, angles and
weights from several samples of each caliber wherever possible,
checking my figures and enlisting the aid of men more skilled than
myself in the use of special measuring tools. Often my figures are
slightly different from those given by more established writers and
reference manuals, however—I have the books and manuals too—I
choose to believe what my scales and micrometers and calipers tell
me, rather than copy from specification sheets or other publications.
In the past arms writers have often been forced to go by official or
semi-official specification writeups on foreign material, since it was
impossible to obtain the actual weapons. The result was that many
errors, some small, some of magnitude, came to be perpetrated time
and again. One particular error, regarding British equipment, I traced
through two well-known American arms books to a manual written by
a British brigadier who must have used a ouija board for his source
of information.
Wherever possible I have avoided using information not
gathered by myself and in such cases as it was impossible to
present a complete description of the particular item concerned
without the use of such hearsay data, I have tried to mention that
fact. Luckily, I was able to see, handle, use and work on most of the
German, Italian, Japanese, British, American and other principal
small arms, and compile a few statistics concerning them for my own
use during the war.
As it is doubtful that anyone except a confirmed American gun
crank would be interested in this volume, it is written at that level.
The vocabulary and general terminology will be familiar to most gun
men. When I write “FPS” I expect the reader to understand that I
mean “Feet Per Second Muzzle Velocity,” without having to stop to
explain on every other page. I do not go into detail on bullet ogives
or degree of angle on boattails, which may offend some ballistics
student-handloaders. Technical military wording is defined when
used. The reader won’t read very long before he begins to suspect
I’m one of those people who like all guns, and he’ll be right. I
contend that all guns are good—some are just better than others.
And I’ll argue that stand with anyone, basing my reasoning on the
grounds that for any arm, in any country, to get beyond the inventor’s
model stage and into production it must have sufficient merit to
warrant the huge expenditure in money and/or man-hours of labor
necessary to manufacture any modern or semi-modern weapon. In
order to present the various rifles and pistols covered in as unbiased
a manner possible, I try to list all features, good and bad, and make
plain that my personal opinion is just personal. There has been a
great deal of illconsidered writing concerning certain German and
Japanese small arms, which I hope I can counteract in a small way.
So far as U. S. equipment goes, I let it go; I give it a once-
overlightly treatment, compare it in my own light and experience with
similar items of other nations and leave the final decision to the
reader. Working on our small arms was my technical job in the army
for most of the war and I have no illusions about what they could and
did do. I’m the rifleman who went to war—to fix ‘em. We had a lot of
good stuff and a lot of stuff not so good, but as a rule only about half
the quantity or quality the home front thought we had. The
propaganda this country swallows would make Goebbels roll in his
grave. In envy. He had suckers, but not so many.
The mechanics of the writing herein aren’t very good, I know.
“Was” and “Is” in regard to weapons just about floored me, for it is
very hard to keep tenses straight in all cases. A good many war
weapons will not be made again; most Axis arms are positively past
numbers, but how about Italian stuff? I finally gave up, with a short
prayer that people will overlook these shortcomings.
Concerning my war career, the autobiographical data are kept
as unobtrusive as possible and used to tie in war and weapon
information principally, for, as mentioned, I’m no hero, did nothing
spectacular, and try to soft-pedal my own noise (I’m not being
modest—I just don’t think my personal history is interesting). The
army gave me six ribbons, three with stars and arrow-heads and
such on them, which proves nothing except that I got around a little. I
have a fine battle dress jacket so covered with insignia and bars and
brassards it looks like a military store window showpiece, but I am
now so wide I can’t wear it any more, so, as the man said, what price
glory? I’m satisfied. My malaria hasn’t bothered me for eight months;
I wasn’t hurt too much by jungle rot although my ankles and feet and
legs are now sort of a purplish-brown color; I didn’t get a Purple
Heart, for which I am very happy, and though my joints complain
sometimes that I slept on the ground a night or so too often, I’m not
bad off. A lot of things could have happened to me that didn’t.
I hated the army, but I didn’t mind the war so much.
Thanks.
ROY F. DUNLAP
Lincolnshire, Illinois.
March, 1946.
Contents
I. “APPROACH”
II. SIGNED UP
III. ON THE MOVE
IV. TO EGYPT VIA SOUTH POLE
V. DESERT STATION
VI. MODERN EGYPTIAN LIFE IN CAIRO
VII. WITH THE EIGHTH ARMY
VIII. AT THE CAPTURED EQUIPMENT DEPOT
IX. BRITISH AND GERMAN AMMUNITION
X. ITALIAN SMALL ARMS AMMUNITION
XI. ITALIAN MACHINE GUNS
XII. GERMAN SMALL ARMS USED IN EGYPT
XIII. THE GERMAN LIGHT MACHINE GUNS
XIV. THE GERMAN PISTOLS
XV. “FOREIGN” GERMAN PISTOLS
XVI. THE EUROPEAN POCKET PISTOLS
XVII. THE ITALIAN PISTOLS
XVIII. BRITISH SMALL ARMS
XIX. A DETAIL WITH QM
XX. RIFLE PRACTICE IN EGYPT
XXI. WITH THE RIFLE RANGE DETAIL
XXII. OUR INTERNATIONAL RIFLE MATCHES
XXIII. STATESIDE BOUND
XXIV. ORDNANCE SCHOOL AND MISSISSIPPI
XXV. TO THE PHILIPPINES AND THE 1ST CAVALRY DIVISION
XXVI. BEACHHEAD LANDING ON LEYTE
XXVII. EARLY OPERATIONS ON LEYTE
XXVIII. “FIGHTIN’ IN THEM HILLS”
XXIX. THE FILIPINOS
XXX. AN ORDNANCE DUMP IN THE HILLS
XXXI. OUT OF THE HILLS
XXXII. FIELD REPAIRS AND REPLACEMENTS
XXXIII. THE LANDING AND FIGHTING ON LUZON
XXXIV. MOPPING-UP ON LUZON
XXXV. LOADING UP FOR JAPAN
XXXVI. JAPAN
XXXVII. JAPANESE SMALL ARMS
XXXVIII. THE 7.7MM JAP RIFLE
XXXIX. THE JAP PISTOLS
XL. JAP MACHINE GUNS
XLI. U. S. WEAPONS
XLII. MISCELLANEOUS EUROPEAN SMALL ARMS
XLIII. MISCELLANEOUS MUSINGS ON MEN, OFFICERS, WAR
XLIV. RECONVERSION
XLV. THE STRENGTH AND SUITABILITY OF MILITARY RIFLE
ACTIONS
XLVI. GERMAN SMALL ARMS MANUFACTURING PLANTS
XLVII. METRIC-INCH CONVERSION DATA
INDEX
I
“APPROACH”
This probably really started when I was about three years old,
since somebody is pretty sure to have given me a toy gun about
then. Business picked up when I grew up to six years and enough
strength to operate an air rifle. At nine I altered one of them into a
workable pistol, and have been maltreating guns ever since.
About 1936 or ‘37 I became interested in serious shooting and
after a season or two with vermin rifles and plinking pistols went in
for military rifle shooting. I was a member of the Chicago Rifle Club,
an averaged-sized rifle and pistol club which boasted it was able to
put a Class A .30 caliber team in the National Matches all by itself.
Could, too. The men who weren’t Distinguished Marksmen were
making sure they were going to be. In other words, I was in fast
company and if I wanted to really belong I’d better aim when I shot. I
kept my eyes and ears open and worked at it. By the time the war
interrupted I had a fair idea of what the score was in the rifle game
(and my name on a trophy or two).
Fort Sheridan, Illinois, was our “home” range. Forty (now fifty)
firing points, all the way back to a thousand yards, and the army
manned the telephones and the pits for us, costing us anywhere
from thirty cents to a dollar an hour per target, depending on the
number of targets rented. After the day’s match or matches we’d rent
a few on our own hook and have our fun and practice. Our gang
used to go down to the short ranges and practice rapid fire (small
wagers here and there, etc.!). We didn’t spare our ammunition or our
National Match Springfields as some of the shooters did, which was
probably why one of us nearly always headed the match bulletin. We
all learned things—how and why the big rifles work. I shot two
barrels bald-headed in less than four seasons and had a fair start on
