Most 'Japanese' Lugers I have seen were of Dutch origin, captured in the Dutch East Indies. And some were recaptured by American Marines on Guadalcanal... In fact, Ian of 'Forgotten Weapons' posted a movie yesterday about a museum on that island where many 'Japanese' items are shown that were found on the island over the years. To his surprise he discovered many weapons of the Dutch colonial army (KNIL) in that museum, among these a couple of Dutch Lugers! Even during the Vietnam War, US forces encountered some Dutch KNIL Lugers in the hands of Vietcong fighters! None of the KNIL Lugers had the lug to attach a shoulder stock, but had a grip safety...
Fun fact: after the Japanese surrender, a couple of captured dutch lugers and papa nambu pistol fell into the hands of Indonesian nationalist when they seize Japanese arms depots. General Soedirman, the Commander of Indonesian forces fighting the Dutch, personnaly has a dutch M. 11 as his personal sidearms.
@@allangibson8494 And the nationalists got a lot of their weapons and ammunition from the Japanese, who rather gave it to them than to the allied forces.
5:51 The 1908 Luger missed grip safety while the manual safety switch operated in reverse with respect to earlier modifications. Shown at 5:51 is a P06 "New" model, still with grip safety but with a coil main spring instead of a laminated one.
Legacy collectibles has a very in depth lugar history/ collector's guide on RUclips. And of course he's mentioned Felton on at least one occasion I can remember.
Discovered today that Norinco made two Luger prototypes for sale in the US market. Very unfortunately, it never came into mass production. The two prototypes did make it into the US and are currently in the private collections of two lucky individuals
So we have A German designed 9mm pistol that post WW1 was copied and built by the British for the Dutch who then had them taken by the Japanese who then had them taken by Americans as war booty back to the United States, wow quite a story 👍 Thanks Dr Felton for a v interesting and informative video.
I think Vickers Ltd acted as an intermediary because German manufacturers could not sell Lugers for export post-WW1. Hence I think Vickers imported the parts from Germany and then assembled the pistols for the Dutch contract. During the 1970s, I sometimes saw batches of un-blued Luger parts offered for sale in the UK - these may have been squirrelled away by Vickers in anticipation of further sales.
Ian at Forgotten Weapons just did a video on battlefield relics recovered on Guadalcanal, there were at least two of the Dutch Lugers shown in that video.
I bought a nice DWM Luger after my first deployment. As great an historical piece it was, I was not fond of firing it. It is heavy and prone to jamming even with lots of TLC. I sold it. The P38 and Walther PP are more fun to shoot.
I have a Honest German Luger given to me by my Uncle, he took it from a Jap on Guadalcanal, dated 1918 There are no Japanese markings on it. I also have a picture of him holding the gun while standing next to a captured Japanese flag.
Nice picture of Dutch marines in the water, with their pistols drawn. These guys didn't belong to the KNIL (Royal Dutch Indies Army), I know because they have Navy shoulder patches, as our marines still have.
Very interesting Mark. I had no idea whatsoever that Vickers had made copies of the Luger. Thank you for enlightening me. I will have to look in my Luger book.
The Vickers Lugers were assembled and proofed in the UK. But the parts were made in Germany by DWM. The two companies had had been close since 1896 when DWM was founded to build Maxim Guns for the Imperial German Navy.
Forgotten Weapons just had a video from a museum on Guadalcanal. This museum is of finds from the jungle - just about everything is rusted, bent and broken to a greater or lesser degree. Ian showed one of the Dutch Lugers that was found, with that brass unit plate.
Hi mark, great content as usual. Was wondering if you could do some research on one of my family members, my aunty married him 20ish years after world war 2 I believe, Kennedy Burnside from melbourne, a surgeon and POW from changy. He used a secret camera and took photos, stashed them in a artilliary shell and burried them for it to be dug up post ww2
In a related video (posted several days ago) by Ian McCullum (Forgotten Weapons), he's in a museum in Guadalcanal set up by the locals made up of battlefield pickups from after the war up to present day. Among them are several Lugers from the Dutch military (with the brass plates about the only thing you can read off the guns) and a quite a selection of other firearms (captured during the initial Japanese successes in the war) besides the standard American and Japanese weapons.
My dad's uncle, my great uncle Pete. He was in the pacific during ww2. His only souvenir was a German bayonet. So if they used lugers, a good possibility.
It’s worth noting that the Japanese Navy used a series of contract Mauser rifles to make up small arms shortfall in 1937-38, these being the K98k, Standardmodell, and VZ. 24. There were also numerous other German-copied aircraft weapons, such as the Type 97/1 copies of the MG15. Re: the Chrysanthemum, it was applied to the foreign rifles used for service from 1874-1880s, but not thereafter. It’s also notable that many of the captured Dutch weapons stayed in ex-KNIL hands when they were rearmed as Heiho and Giyugun auxiliaries, including the famous Pembelah Tanah Air.
Great video! I am curious about the long barrel Lugers issued to the German Navy; I understand that long barrel Lugers with buttstocks were issued to land forces for Sturmtruppen units to storm trenches, but what was the rationale for issuing long-barrel Lugers to Naval units? The only reason I can think of was because Naval crews (especially on U-boats) had limited space to store firearms and a long-barrel Luger with a buttstock gave a bit more "rifle-ish" performance without the storage demands, but that's all I can think of.
When the German Navy adopted the Luger in 1906 they specified an effective range of 200m. So their pistols had a 150mm barrel. The German Army expected pistols to be used only at shorter ranges so had a 100mm barrel on their 1908 pistols. It was later that the artillery decided that carbines were too cumbersome. And asked for a long (200mm) barrelled pistol with a detachable stock to arm their gunners.
You should do a video about what occurred at FN in Belgium, where POWs were used. They sabotaged many, and the pistols could blow up in your hand. I don't know if anything like that occurred at Mauser or Walther. Saying this, I believe that I would have preferred the Walther P-38 during the war, especially over it being a double-automatic similar to how a revolver's action works.
I knew a Navy Captain, whose admiral brother gave him a Czech-made PPK. [The brother had been in the ETO.] It was beautifully finished, but he was afraid to shoot it, as it was probably made with slave labor and could well have been sabotaged.
Io possiedo una DWM 1916 matricola 385 olandese con il crest perfetto giapponese e la canna è con i caratteri giapponesi, certamente rifatta in una fabbrica in Giappone..qualità elevata e non certo copia per imbrogliare gli acquirenti...
I have a Russian NCOs nagant revolver that my Dad traded for in the late 40s. My Dad was WWII vet army and army Air Corp. The story he got with it was the vet had taken it off a dead German. Feel sorry for the German. Survived the eastern front only to get kill on the western front. As always great video.
@@Mr_Fancypants Except they were not the WW2 FPS type on the eastern front. Lacked simple pistols of their own, so they not only late war but always used captured pistols. For example in the Hungarian Army my own grandpa owned a 37M pistol, this pistol was a high price bartel at the Germans.
@@Mr_Fancypants Yes but also no. The problem is that weapons need ammunition and you cannot just take a Thompson M1928A1 that uses .45 as Germany only used the .45 with the Kongsberg Colt that were Norwegian produced Model 1911 Colt, German did gain the MP 34 from Austria but they were re-barrelled to chamber 9×19mm ammunition. The standard German ammunition was 9×19mm Parabellum for automatic pistols and submachine guns and 7.92×57mm Mauser for rifles, meanwhile the Red Army used the 7.62×54mmR for riles and machine guns as well the 7.62×25mm Tokarev for rifles leading to being incompatible with their own ammo supply stock if either side tried to use their enemy weapons. And if you dont have the ammo a German weapon is as perfectly fine as a Russian one, Germany would not "supply" their own troops weapons they had no ammunition for, the Nagant M1895 uses 7.62×38mmR ... I have no idea were that German got the gun but he wouldnt have much of ammunition for it on the Western Front.
Forgotten Weapons just did a video that had Lugers in it. A Japanese garrison unit from the Dutch East Indies was sent to Guadalcanal as reinforcements. They brought Dutch Lugers with them. There's a museum in the capital on Guadalcanal where every piece is recovered comes to. In addition to the 10 tons of live ordinance that gets found and disposed of every year, there are literal tons of small arms recovered from the jungle. Ian recorded two Lugers, one definitely had the Dutch unit plaque on the left side of pistol.
Ian on Forgotten Weapons just reported couple of the captured Dutch M.11s found on Guadalcanal just a few days ago. Japanese unit was known to have come from the Dutch East Indies and transferred to the Canal. Couple of Dutch carbines and Madsen LMGs with short barrel
Thank you for this video. Growing up my best friend's Father, a veteran of the Pacific Campaign, showed us a pistol he brought back from the war. I only saw it that one time and my friend always called it a Luger. I've often wondered if it was or if it was actually a Nambu. That's over 40 years ago. However, your video has confirmed that Lugers were indeed used by the Japanese. Thank you.
Ian of Forgotten Weapons has recently done a video of a museum in Guadalcanal that has loads and loads of weapons and other WW2 stuff. Dutch lugers in plenty.
That faked mum mark on that luger is certainly well done. Unless you know exactly what is being offered or have paperwork to back up anything, always buy the gun at a price for the gun, not the story. As we can see, someone took a thousand dollar luger, ruined it by altering it, and probably sold it to some unweary buyer for 5 thousand or more. Thank for showing this, Mark.
The uneven bluing is a giveaway that ought to alert a buyer that something is fishy. That area just forward of the toggle was frequently used for some type of authentic and legitimate marking, so engraving or stamping that fake imperial chrysanthemum meant filing off quite a bit of original metal along with the deep rust bluing applied by the DWM factory. Then there were a number proofing stamps and other markings to file off or obscure. However, the gun is far from ruined. There are many gun collectors who prefer to collect fakery or bizarre copies like the so-called Chinese mystery pistols of the warlord era. A "Wauser" in good condition is worth more these days than an authentic "Red 9" in a similar state of preservation.
@@enscroggs oh I get it. Like mis prints and such. I just can't see spending above and beyond a typical luger price. Yes its neat, but the real collector value is ruined.
Just a few days ago Forgotten Weapons uploaded a video showing a museum on Guadacanal dedicated to the battle fought there. The museum exhibits one of the dutch Lugers found on the island. The weapon is in pretty poor condition, but the brass plate is still readable.
There were a couple of Dutch Lugers visible in that movie... or what remained of them. Also a number of Dutch KNIL M95 Steyr/Hembrug Mannlicher carbines in 6.5 mm Dutch. I knew the Japanese captured a lot of these carbines in the Dutch East Indies and issued them to Indonesian auxiliary forces, but carrying them (and the different ammo!) all the way to Guadalcanal?
I know it's totally unrelated, but I've just seen a photo of a Ukrainian soldier using a Russian PM 1910 heavy machine gun, in an image from today's Guardian. Amazing. Still in use.
It'll still SHOOT, and that's what COUNTS. Both sides have busted out old T-54 and T-55 tanks and have sent them into action. I believe both the Ukrainians, and the Russians, at their Uralvagonzavod factory, have refitted T-55s with modern fire-control and communications gear, and have stuffed the 2A46 125 mm gun into that already-cramped turret. The engine powering those beasts is, I believe, an uprated version of the original v2 12-cylinder ALUMINUM diesel engine that powered T-34 tanks during the "Great Patriotic War".
my Granndad told me this many moons.ago (RIP granddad Bill ),he was in North Africa artillery for 4 and a half years and was de-mobbed but his "return home ship" was diverted to Scilly,he was then put in a camp next to the Canadians where he said they shared rations and it was the best food he had eaten in 4 years and he at some point he said he bought a German luger from a Canadian guy but when he finally was put on a ship back to blighty they confiscated it..I'm pretty sure that luger ended up in some RN officer's cellar
Great and interesting video Doctor Felton, and you did Luger collectors a real service by pointing out the "Mum" marking on a Luger is fake. You've probably saved a lot of people some serious money and embarassment, although not the embarassment for those who've already been stung! I've handled both Lugers and Nambu pistols and quality-wise there's no comparison. The Nambu's serviceable but that's as far as it goes so it's no surprise a Japanese officer of means would purchase a Luger if he could afford one. The disadvantage would be the 9mm cartridge fired by the Luger since it wasn't Japanese standard and the officer would have to buy as much as he thought he might need before deploying. The fact ammunition for the Nambu would be much easier to obtain would more than likely have a bigger influence on a Japanese officer's purchase decision than patriotism would, at least in my opinion.
Do you really think officers are firing so many rounds from their pistol that they can't buy enough up front? This is a sidearm and they're officers. If they can afford a Luger I'm sure they can afford some ammo for it.
@@slcpunk2740 They also have to CARRY said ammunition with them, which means space in their luggage and much of the time for the Imperial Japanese Army, that means their own bodies as they didn't always have trucks, pack animals, and/or porters to carry things for them. So while any officer could carry a few rounds of 9mm for their immediate use, they'd not always be free to carry enough for practice or a long campaign, whereas they could just ask the quartermaster for a fresh box of 8mm every now and then. Also the issue of armorers being trained on the Japanese weapons, not so much the foreign ones. If one's Luger had a problem, one couldn't be sure the armorer could fix it for him like he could if he brought a Type 14 or similar pistol.
@@LD-Orbs "Mum" is a LOT easier to spell too! Which is why nurseries and flower shops spell it that way. Mum takes up a LOT less space on signage as well! 😉
@@slcpunk2740 I didn't say that, you completely misunderstood. If an officer bought a Luger and all the ammunition for it he thought he might need that's ALL the ammo he was going to have when he deployed to wherever, there'd be no easy resupply. That means no shooting for fun or showing off, he'd have to save what he had for when he really needed it especially if he was an officer of lower rank like an infantry platoon or company commander. Were you ever in the service yourself?
American soldiers would find these and sometimes accidentally shoot themselves with it because they were not trained with it. Although heavier, the 1911 pistol was the best semi-auto pistol of WW2. A darn near perfect design by Mr. Browning. That pistol and his Browning M2 .50 cal machine gun are still very common in militaries today.
My hopeful preconceptions about being able to smugly list sources for Japanese Lugers in the comments were dashed by this excellent video - you even provided avenues I hadn't considered. Thanks once again for the education, Mark. All the best from Pittsburgh USA.
In a movie Letters from Iwojima directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Ken Watanabe，there is a scene of General Kuribayashi receiving M1911 pistol as a parting gift from a group of US commanders and he gladly used the M1911 as a sidearm in his final last stand in the Battle of Iwojima。
My father was a World War II vet posted in the Philippines in New Guinea and brought back a Nambu pistol, dated pre-war 1937 with the cleaning kit and holster and a certificate when he entered the San Francisco, allowing him to own the piece. It is quite valuable.
My dad had brought back an awesome Walther PP from Europe during WW2..Originally 8thAAF, had a cushy time as a training instructor in Miami, later transfered to Anti tank miner group, one of those guys with a metal detector who walks in front of the tank, for a few extra bucks. Send over after bulge push, came back on a hospital ship and ended up at Walter Reed. I didnt think much of the Walther as kid, but used to see it in a drawer from time to time..fast foward years later, my dad now moved to Fla, now into guns, i asked him what happened to the old Walther, no answer, after a few months passed i asked again..my father finally said he sold it..me saying, but i wanted it, how much did you get for it..his reply was..it wasnt about the money, it was about looking at it, i felt like using it..never talked about it again..
I personally bought owned a .30 cal DMW Luger my old WWII Pacific Vet friend, JR Ruben, brought home from Burma along with a very nice Katana, and an issued Shin Gunto (SP?) sword in 1946. He got them after the surrender from his airfeild where the Japanese had disarmed and camped. Sadly, I had to sell it due to family needs along with the Katana
@@karlheinzvonkroemann2217 I am unsure of the amount of small arms. According to the National Museum of Australia 130,000 troops surrendered. So amount guns should be commensurate. That is a heck of a lot.
in 2005 I obtained a Colt Browning model MG38BT .30 CAL BMG receiver on a table at a gun show in of all places Brisbane, Australia for fifty dollars. Receiver had been cut in half. Turns out only about one thousand were ever made, a contract for the Dutch East Indies in WW2, so it is quiet rare. I had it welded back together, fitted some standard 1919A4 parts, and now it is a nice deactivated display piece on a 1919A4 tripod.
@@rpm12091 I forgot to mention, I also registered it with the police, and as I had a licence allowing me to possess MGs, I was allowed to keep it , so long as I obtained a deactivation certificate, and it remained deactivated.
Recently I watched a Forgotten Weapons video where Ian MacCollum did the walkaround of a military museum in Guadalcanal (where war debris keep on surfacing today). I don't recall seeing any Luger but Dutch rifles were present and at least one ZB.26 LMG. According to Ian, at least one specific Japanese unit was fully equiped with captured Dutch hardware, so it is not unlikely that some Japanese Luger shows up sooner or later there.
Agree - one of the shotguns I sold after my dad died that I should have kept was a Japanese made Browning over/under 12 gauge - absolutely beautifully made.
For a brief time in the 1970s and into the 1980s Miroku also made Brown Bess replicas. Pretty well done too, in fact they were slightly more authentic than the Italian Pedersoli made ones being a bit more massive. Put an Italian Bess next to a real one and you can spot the difference. The only downside to the Miroku Besses were the cast springs, they were more prone to breakage than the forged springs on the Pedersoli ones.
@@wes11bravo It's too bad a lot of traditionalists turned up their noses at the Miroku Brownings saying the Belgian made ones were better. Not so, the Miroku made ones were absolutely just as good, they just didn't have the "cachet" of the Belgian ones.
Growing up, I found out that my neighbor served with the 1st Cavalry Division as an MP. As he was retired, I would go over and help him in his garage. One day, he pulled down his foot locker and spoke to me about his service in the Philippines and then later as part of the occupation of Japan. I remember him showing me a Dutch Luger he had salvaged from a Japanese armory that was set up in a tiny building about 500sq feet. As I was looking at it, I remember seeing a crown on it, but not a "Vickers" stamp or a brass plate. But, that was over 45 years ago.
As a fellow legit historian, I'd like you to do a video discussing what the Axis, and troops like Japanese thought about and did with war souvenirs and trophy's, because we only look at it from a Western eventual win scenario, when in reality for several summers the Axis was the ones bringing back captured stuff, and itd be interesting to know their views and outcomes
...Guid Efternain Mark...I work in a store in Perth up here in Scotland and while helping an elderly customer with a paint choice he'd made we started chatting about life in general (his wife rolled her eyes knowing what was coming next) and he showed me a photo of a flag with a Swastika and a gold eagle on it (random I know) I wondered where the conversation was going but apparently his Father (who'd fought in WW2) had taken it from Reichsmarschall Herman Goering's boat Carin II. I remember watching your video on the Carin II and letting him know he could view your channel here on YT. He told me he'd donated it to a military museum and produced a newspaper cutting showing himself the flag and an accompanying piece relating to his donation. It had an upstanding Swastika with a gold Reichsadler in the top right corner. I don't know if his info was correct as it looked very much like a Reich service flag but the gold Reichsadler had me thinking he was genuine?
In case you hadn't seen it, Ian from the Forgotten Weapons channel posted a video of his tour of a Guadalcanal museum with lots of WW2 guns. There were quite a few Dutch made guns as well. ruclips.net/video/PzKEQoKQtvI/видео.html
As a kid, I used to have small Luger replica that looked just perfect. From then on, I have always thought of the Luger as the perfect looking handgun. Later on, I also became fascinated by the Colt 1911, mainly through comics like 'The Spirit' by Will Eisner which was funny because the 1911 is the exact opposite of the Luger in that you don't even see the barrel when it's not firing. The Luger on the other hand, is all barrelly perfection.
Great details and photos. A fellow down the road has a Mauser rifle that belonged to his father. Wehrmacht eagle stamps but also Chinese or Japanese characters stamped onto it.
Brilliant content Mark. I certainly learn something in all your videos. I'm not sure if you have done a video on this topic or not, I used to own a Portuguese Mauser 1906 in 8mm. I certainly miss that rifle. Mine was picked up in the Timor area by Australian forces during WW2. I also believe that a heap of them were used in South Africa. Brilliant, accurate and well made bit of kit.
Forgotten Weapons recently made a video about a museum in Guadalcanal, and among their collection they had plenty of captured Dutch weapons used by the japanese that were found on that battlefield. Among those a Dutch Luger.
I’ve got an FN1910 rig that was shipped to Japan by Schroeder Brothers in 1939 and just sold a nice Japanese holster for a Mauser 14/34. I was surprised when I started seeing how many non-Japanese produced pistols ended up being used by the Japanese officers.
Thank you so much for this and many historical videos you post. I'm writing a spy novel and this video gives me ideas about the theme. Keep it coming! 😊
My brother mainly collected 'American Civil War'/antebellum items....but has many WW1-2, Russian n Ukrainian war items. 1 being a Ukrainian Soviet upper classed officer w/(medals 🥇 attached ) uniform jacket 🧥 the family gave him when he married into the family in Ukraine. I remember the man was crying w/pride when he gave it to my brother......the whole family was around. ( It was a big deal.) ...n reminded that the Ukrainian people are still HIGHLY saddened w/Russia today for the atrocious wars past n' present. 😢
It is common knowledge that every American and allied soldier was going after Lugers and katanas, but what trophies or souvenirs did the Axis forces go after?
Link to Forgotten Weapons where you can see actual recovered Dutch Luger pistols with brass plate. Fascinating Finds in a Guadalcanal Relic Museum ruclips.net/video/PzKEQoKQtvI/видео.html
Before the German-Italian alliance, Germany sold arms to China, so after the Chinese army surrendered to Japan, a significant number of German-made pistols were sold to officers. If an officer who bought a German-made pistol in China transferred to the Pacific theater, it wouldn't be strange for the Luger to be found in the Pacific theater. 現に、My grandfather said that he bought a Spanish Astra pistol when he served in the Chinese front, but was later transferred to Indonesia.
The Luger is just a wonderful pistol, I shoot mine very often. I actually just saw Ian from Forgotten Weapons video from the war museum on Guadalcanal. I knew some Dutch Lugers ended up there but not the other Dutch weapons found on the Island.
As a dea;er we had to be very. very carful with the German Lugers. Too many were made by Slave Labour, who sabatoged them. I was showing one to a potential customer; it went off while closing the breach (the round went into the range table top). Lost the sale. c. 1977. Japanese weapons were embossed with the Imperial Chrysanthemum, So for a weapon to still have it, it was not surrendered. Surrendered weapons had the crest ground off.
Considering the various people that were shareholders in Vickers, it is very difficult to ascertain if Vickers made or merely assembled parts from DWM. Needs looking into. . .
I have seen Japanese Nambu pistols floating around gun stores. They are not sought after and most US gun buyers are not interested in Japanese weapons for obvious reasons.... although they probably drive Japanese cars now ;)
When I was in college over 50 years ago I had a fraternity brother who had a relative who fought at Guadalcanal and brought back a German Luger. nobody believed him.
It is the nature of small arms that they eventually turn up everywhere around the globe. Just ask any Iraq or 'Stan vet... the stuff they found when they rounded up weapons was unbelievable.
Most 'Japanese' Lugers I have seen were of Dutch origin, captured in the Dutch East Indies.
And some were recaptured by American Marines on Guadalcanal...
In fact, Ian of 'Forgotten Weapons' posted a movie yesterday about a museum on that island where many 'Japanese' items are shown that were found on the island over the years.
To his surprise he discovered many weapons of the Dutch colonial army (KNIL) in that museum, among these a couple of Dutch Lugers!
Even during the Vietnam War, US forces encountered some Dutch KNIL Lugers in the hands of Vietcong fighters!
None of the KNIL Lugers had the lug to attach a shoulder stock, but had a grip safety...
I was just about to bring up Ian's video haha
Yep, me too. I watched it just yesterday as well. Interesting timing on these two videos, and both incredibly well done!
You guys beat me to it!
The ones found (dug up 80yrs later) on Guadalcanal were Dutch East Indies .
gun jesus is always on the pulse .....
The Forgotten Weapons / Mark Felton subscriber Venn diagram is probably just a circle 🙂 Time for a collab surely??
Here comes Othias!
A Mark Felton and Forgotten Weapons colab would be cool sometime
A great Sunday morning history lesson! Thank you, Mark!
Fun fact: after the Japanese surrender, a couple of captured dutch lugers and papa nambu pistol fell into the hands of Indonesian nationalist when they seize Japanese arms depots. General Soedirman, the Commander of Indonesian forces fighting the Dutch, personnaly has a dutch M. 11 as his personal sidearms.
A significant part of the Indonesian nationalist forces actually consisted of Japanese troops who didn’t surrender…
@@allangibson8494 And the nationalists got a lot of their weapons and ammunition from the Japanese, who rather gave it to them than to the allied forces.
@@allangibson8494
Wow, really?! I never learned about that in school here in Indonesia, do you mind giving me the link? I want to read it for myself.
5:51 The 1908 Luger missed grip safety while the manual safety switch operated in reverse with respect to earlier modifications. Shown at 5:51 is a P06 "New" model, still with grip safety but with a coil main spring instead of a laminated one.
Magnificent pistol, still available in conservative states within the US at a high price. Field stripping this pistol is difficult.
Legacy collectibles has a very in depth lugar history/ collector's guide on RUclips. And of course he's mentioned Felton on at least one occasion I can remember.
And a good Sunday morning to everyone 😊
Good Morning!!
Great video, as if that's a surprise. I never knew that Vickers made Lugers.
Discovered today that Norinco made two Luger prototypes for sale in the US market.
Very unfortunately, it never came into mass production. The two prototypes did make it into the US and are currently in the private collections of two lucky individuals
Absolutely fascinating, Dr. Felton. Thank you.
Hearing Mark Felton say, "Wauser," has made my day.
So we have
A German designed 9mm pistol that post WW1 was copied and built by the British for the Dutch who then had them taken by the Japanese who then had them taken by Americans as war booty back to the United States, wow quite a story 👍
Thanks Dr Felton for a v interesting and informative video.
I think Vickers Ltd acted as an intermediary because German manufacturers could not sell Lugers for export post-WW1. Hence I think Vickers imported the parts from Germany and then assembled the pistols for the Dutch contract.
During the 1970s, I sometimes saw batches of un-blued Luger parts offered for sale in the UK - these may have been squirrelled away by Vickers in anticipation of further sales.
Thank you again for precious information only Dr felton can produce
Another good one Mark
👍👋🇨🇦
Ian at Forgotten Weapons just did a video on battlefield relics recovered on Guadalcanal, there were at least two of the Dutch Lugers shown in that video.
I bought a nice DWM Luger after my first deployment. As great an historical piece it was, I was not fond of firing it. It is heavy and prone to jamming even with lots of TLC. I sold it. The P38 and Walther PP are more fun to shoot.
Go on Dr Feltzie giving us more great history thanks for the excellent videos sir.
Great video. As always, well researched and very educational.
I have a Honest German Luger given to me by my Uncle, he took it from a Jap on Guadalcanal, dated 1918 There are no Japanese markings on it. I also have a picture of him holding the gun while standing next to a captured Japanese flag.
Nice picture of Dutch marines in the water, with their pistols drawn. These guys didn't belong to the KNIL (Royal Dutch Indies Army), I know because they have Navy shoulder patches, as our marines still have.
Thank you. This is really helpful
Very interesting Mark. I had no idea whatsoever that Vickers had made copies of the Luger. Thank you for enlightening me. I will have to look in my Luger book.
The Vickers Lugers were assembled and proofed in the UK. But the parts were made in Germany by DWM.
The two companies had had been close since 1896 when DWM was founded to build Maxim Guns for the Imperial German Navy.
That was a nice Father’s Day surprise thank you , happy Father’s Day
I love this series 😃
Unrelated, I wonder if you have/could cover operation aerial. I was reading about it and it’s a really interesting event
As a dutchman I am surprised by this nugget of knowledge.
Forgotten Weapons just had a video from a museum on Guadalcanal. This museum is of finds from the jungle - just about everything is rusted, bent and broken to a greater or lesser degree. Ian showed one of the Dutch Lugers that was found, with that brass unit plate.
Literally just got here
Hi mark, great content as usual. Was wondering if you could do some research on one of my family members, my aunty married him 20ish years after world war 2 I believe, Kennedy Burnside from melbourne, a surgeon and POW from changy. He used a secret camera and took photos, stashed them in a artilliary shell and burried them for it to be dug up post ww2
In a related video (posted several days ago) by Ian McCullum (Forgotten Weapons), he's in a museum in Guadalcanal set up by the locals made up of battlefield pickups from after the war up to present day. Among them are several Lugers from the Dutch military (with the brass plates about the only thing you can read off the guns) and a quite a selection of other firearms (captured during the initial Japanese successes in the war) besides the standard American and Japanese weapons.
My dad's uncle, my great uncle Pete. He was in the pacific during ww2. His only souvenir was a German bayonet. So if they used lugers, a good possibility.
It’s worth noting that the Japanese Navy used a series of contract Mauser rifles to make up small arms shortfall in 1937-38, these being the K98k, Standardmodell, and VZ. 24. There were also numerous other German-copied aircraft weapons, such as the Type 97/1 copies of the MG15. Re: the Chrysanthemum, it was applied to the foreign rifles used for service from 1874-1880s, but not thereafter. It’s also notable that many of the captured Dutch weapons stayed in ex-KNIL hands when they were rearmed as Heiho and Giyugun auxiliaries, including the famous Pembelah Tanah Air.
Thank you for the lesson.
I think that there are Lugers on display in a Guadalcanal museum
Great video! I am curious about the long barrel Lugers issued to the German Navy; I understand that long barrel Lugers with buttstocks were issued to land forces for Sturmtruppen units to storm trenches, but what was the rationale for issuing long-barrel Lugers to Naval units?
The only reason I can think of was because Naval crews (especially on U-boats) had limited space to store firearms and a long-barrel Luger with a buttstock gave a bit more "rifle-ish" performance without the storage demands, but that's all I can think of.
When the German Navy adopted the Luger in 1906 they specified an effective range of 200m. So their pistols had a 150mm barrel.
The German Army expected pistols to be used only at shorter ranges so had a 100mm barrel on their 1908 pistols.
It was later that the artillery decided that carbines were too cumbersome. And asked for a long (200mm) barrelled pistol with a detachable stock to arm their gunners.
Wish my dad had hung on to his German officer's Luger. Traded it for a French resistance pistol.
My first squirt gun was a transparent green luger.
You should do a video about what occurred at FN in Belgium, where POWs were used. They sabotaged many, and the pistols could blow up in your hand. I don't know if anything like that occurred at Mauser or Walther. Saying this, I believe that I would have preferred the Walther P-38 during the war, especially over it being a double-automatic similar to how a revolver's action works.
I knew a Navy Captain, whose admiral brother gave him a Czech-made PPK. [The brother had been in the ETO.] It was beautifully finished, but he was afraid to shoot it, as it was probably made with slave labor and could well have been sabotaged.
I’m sure the fake Japanese markings one those Lugers greatly devalued them
ruclips.net/video/PzKEQoKQtvI/видео.html shows a couple of dutch/japanese lugers on Guadacanal
Io possiedo una DWM 1916 matricola 385 olandese con il crest perfetto giapponese e la canna è con i caratteri giapponesi, certamente rifatta in una fabbrica in Giappone..qualità elevata e non certo copia per imbrogliare gli acquirenti...
I have a Russian NCOs nagant revolver that my Dad traded for in the late 40s. My Dad was WWII vet army and army Air Corp. The story he got with it was the vet had taken it off a dead German. Feel sorry for the German. Survived the eastern front only to get kill on the western front. As always great video.
Might aswel be the German was issued the gun.
Late war Germany was using everything they could.
@@Mr_Fancypants Except they were not the WW2 FPS type on the eastern front.
Lacked simple pistols of their own, so they not only late war but always used captured pistols.
For example in the Hungarian Army my own grandpa owned a 37M pistol, this pistol was a high price bartel at the Germans.
K
@@Mr_Fancypants Yes but also no.
The problem is that weapons need ammunition and you cannot just take a Thompson M1928A1 that uses .45 as Germany only used the .45 with the Kongsberg Colt that were Norwegian produced Model 1911 Colt, German did gain the MP 34 from Austria but they were re-barrelled to chamber 9×19mm ammunition.
The standard German ammunition was 9×19mm Parabellum for automatic pistols and submachine guns and 7.92×57mm Mauser for rifles, meanwhile the Red Army used the 7.62×54mmR for riles and machine guns as well the 7.62×25mm Tokarev for rifles leading to being incompatible with their own ammo supply stock if either side tried to use their enemy weapons.
And if you dont have the ammo a German weapon is as perfectly fine as a Russian one, Germany would not "supply" their own troops weapons they had no ammunition for, the Nagant M1895 uses 7.62×38mmR ... I have no idea were that German got the gun but he wouldnt have much of ammunition for it on the Western Front.
Poor guy :-(
Forgotten Weapons just did a video that had Lugers in it.
A Japanese garrison unit from the Dutch East Indies was sent to Guadalcanal as reinforcements. They brought Dutch Lugers with them.
There's a museum in the capital on Guadalcanal where every piece is recovered comes to.
In addition to the 10 tons of live ordinance that gets found and disposed of every year, there are literal tons of small arms recovered from the jungle.
Ian recorded two Lugers, one definitely had the Dutch unit plaque on the left side of pistol.
@ Corey S saw it too 🙌🏾
just wanted to post the same :)
Great content Mark. Always a must watch
Absolutely. Dr Felton's content, no matter the topic is always light-years above similar channels. Top tier almost seems an understatement.
Ian on Forgotten Weapons just reported couple of the captured Dutch M.11s found on Guadalcanal just a few days ago. Japanese unit was known to have come from the Dutch East Indies and transferred to the Canal. Couple of Dutch carbines and Madsen LMGs with short barrel
Think it was "Forgotten weapons" just a couple of days ago who explained luger finds in Guadalcanal? Dutch eastindies troops,
Thank you for this video. Growing up my best friend's Father, a veteran of the Pacific Campaign, showed us a pistol he brought back from the war. I only saw it that one time and my friend always called it a Luger. I've often wondered if it was or if it was actually a Nambu. That's over 40 years ago. However, your video has confirmed that Lugers were indeed used by the Japanese. Thank you.
Ian of Forgotten Weapons has recently done a video of a museum in Guadalcanal that has loads and loads of weapons and other WW2 stuff. Dutch lugers in plenty.
That faked mum mark on that luger is certainly well done. Unless you know exactly what is being offered or have paperwork to back up anything, always buy the gun at a price for the gun, not the story. As we can see, someone took a thousand dollar luger, ruined it by altering it, and probably sold it to some unweary buyer for 5 thousand or more. Thank for showing this, Mark.
The uneven bluing is a giveaway that ought to alert a buyer that something is fishy. That area just forward of the toggle was frequently used for some type of authentic and legitimate marking, so engraving or stamping that fake imperial chrysanthemum meant filing off quite a bit of original metal along with the deep rust bluing applied by the DWM factory. Then there were a number proofing stamps and other markings to file off or obscure.
However, the gun is far from ruined. There are many gun collectors who prefer to collect fakery or bizarre copies like the so-called Chinese mystery pistols of the warlord era. A "Wauser" in good condition is worth more these days than an authentic "Red 9" in a similar state of preservation.
@@enscroggs oh I get it. Like mis prints and such. I just can't see spending above and beyond a typical luger price. Yes its neat, but the real collector value is ruined.
Just a few days ago Forgotten Weapons uploaded a video showing a museum on Guadacanal dedicated to the battle fought there. The museum exhibits one of the dutch Lugers found on the island. The weapon is in pretty poor condition, but the brass plate is still readable.
There were a couple of Dutch Lugers visible in that movie... or what remained of them.
Also a number of Dutch KNIL M95 Steyr/Hembrug Mannlicher carbines in 6.5 mm Dutch.
I knew the Japanese captured a lot of these carbines in the Dutch East Indies and issued them to Indonesian auxiliary forces, but carrying them (and the different ammo!) all the way to Guadalcanal?
beat me to it 😄
I know it's totally unrelated, but I've just seen a photo of a Ukrainian soldier using a Russian PM 1910 heavy machine gun, in an image from today's Guardian. Amazing. Still in use.
It'll still SHOOT, and that's what COUNTS. Both sides have busted out old T-54 and T-55 tanks and have sent them into action. I believe both the Ukrainians, and the Russians, at their Uralvagonzavod factory, have refitted T-55s with modern fire-control and communications gear, and have stuffed the 2A46 125 mm gun into that already-cramped turret. The engine powering those beasts is, I believe, an uprated version of the original v2 12-cylinder ALUMINUM diesel engine that powered T-34 tanks during the "Great Patriotic War".
my Granndad told me this many moons.ago (RIP granddad Bill ),he was in North Africa artillery for 4 and a half years and was de-mobbed but his "return home ship" was diverted to Scilly,he was then put in a camp next to the Canadians where he said they shared rations and it was the best food he had eaten in 4 years and he at some point he said he bought a German luger from a Canadian guy but when he finally was put on a ship back to blighty they confiscated it..I'm pretty sure that luger ended up in some RN officer's cellar
Very interesting and informative as always. This is a great companion piece to the Forgotten Weapons video on Chinese Lugers and Warlord pistols.
Great and interesting video Doctor Felton, and you did Luger collectors a real service by pointing out the "Mum" marking on a Luger is fake. You've probably saved a lot of people some serious money and embarassment, although not the embarassment for those who've already been stung!
I've handled both Lugers and Nambu pistols and quality-wise there's no comparison. The Nambu's serviceable but that's as far as it goes so it's no surprise a Japanese officer of means would purchase a Luger if he could afford one. The disadvantage would be the 9mm cartridge fired by the Luger since it wasn't Japanese standard and the officer would have to buy as much as he thought he might need before deploying. The fact ammunition for the Nambu would be much easier to obtain would more than likely have a bigger influence on a Japanese officer's purchase decision than patriotism would, at least in my opinion.
Do you really think officers are firing so many rounds from their pistol that they can't buy enough up front? This is a sidearm and they're officers. If they can afford a Luger I'm sure they can afford some ammo for it.
(Scratching my head over "mum", before realizing it's short for "chrysanthemum"!)
Sorry, slow on the uptake! 🙃
@@slcpunk2740 They also have to CARRY said ammunition with them, which means space in their luggage and much of the time for the Imperial Japanese Army, that means their own bodies as they didn't always have trucks, pack animals, and/or porters to carry things for them.
So while any officer could carry a few rounds of 9mm for their immediate use, they'd not always be free to carry enough for practice or a long campaign, whereas they could just ask the quartermaster for a fresh box of 8mm every now and then.
Also the issue of armorers being trained on the Japanese weapons, not so much the foreign ones. If one's Luger had a problem, one couldn't be sure the armorer could fix it for him like he could if he brought a Type 14 or similar pistol.
@@LD-Orbs "Mum" is a LOT easier to spell too! Which is why nurseries and flower shops spell it that way. Mum takes up a LOT less space on signage as well! 😉
@@slcpunk2740 I didn't say that, you completely misunderstood. If an officer bought a Luger and all the ammunition for it he thought he might need that's ALL the ammo he was going to have when he deployed to wherever, there'd be no easy resupply. That means no shooting for fun or showing off, he'd have to save what he had for when he really needed it especially if he was an officer of lower rank like an infantry platoon or company commander.
Were you ever in the service yourself?
Keep up the great work Mark, as a avid gun collector, I learned a lot today!
American soldiers would find these and sometimes accidentally shoot themselves with it because they were not trained with it. Although heavier, the 1911 pistol was the best semi-auto pistol of WW2. A darn near perfect design by Mr. Browning. That pistol and his Browning M2 .50 cal machine gun are still very common in militaries today.
Another well researched and edited documentary which only Dr. Felton can produce . Thank You once again and all the best.
My hopeful preconceptions about being able to smugly list sources for Japanese Lugers in the comments were dashed by this excellent video - you even provided avenues I hadn't considered. Thanks once again for the education, Mark. All the best from Pittsburgh USA.
In a movie Letters from Iwojima directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Ken Watanabe，there is a scene of General Kuribayashi receiving M1911 pistol as a parting gift from a group of US commanders and he gladly used the M1911 as a sidearm in his final last stand in the Battle of Iwojima。
It that actually documented or added for the movie?
My father was a World War II vet posted in the Philippines in New Guinea and brought back a Nambu pistol, dated pre-war 1937 with the cleaning kit and holster and a certificate when he entered the San Francisco, allowing him to own the piece. It is quite valuable.
Who says they are valuable? Too me they are only valuable if they came off a dead Jap.
Own it? He had it.
Not pre war for Japan
@@noway57 yes my brother has it
@@noway57 He needed a paper from his unit so he could bring the gun home.
Well I have one in my desk, so I know for a fact they did :)
My dad had brought back an awesome Walther PP from Europe during WW2..Originally 8thAAF, had a cushy time as a training instructor in Miami, later transfered to Anti tank miner group, one of those guys with a metal detector who walks in front of the tank, for a few extra bucks. Send over after bulge push, came back on a hospital ship and ended up at Walter Reed. I didnt think much of the Walther as kid, but used to see it in a drawer from time to time..fast foward years later, my dad now moved to Fla, now into guns, i asked him what happened to the old Walther, no answer, after a few months passed i asked again..my father finally said he sold it..me saying, but i wanted it, how much did you get for it..his reply was..it wasnt about the money, it was about looking at it, i felt like using it..never talked about it again..
Understood. Smart - and brave - father!
I personally bought owned a .30 cal DMW Luger my old WWII Pacific Vet friend, JR Ruben, brought home from Burma along with a very nice Katana, and an issued Shin Gunto (SP?) sword in 1946.
He got them after the surrender from his airfeild where the Japanese had disarmed and camped.
Sadly, I had to sell it due to family needs along with the Katana
British Webley revolvers have also been found in Japan or on Japanese battlefields. Likely also private purchases or captured models.
They would more likely be captured ones than bought in private by an individual officer
Probably from the surrender of Singapore.
Could be either one or both! How many British small arms were captured just on Singapore?
@@kirbyculp3449 Certainly very possible.
@@karlheinzvonkroemann2217
I am unsure of the amount of small arms. According to the National Museum of Australia 130,000 troops surrendered. So amount guns should be commensurate. That is a heck of a lot.
in 2005 I obtained a Colt Browning model MG38BT .30 CAL BMG receiver on a table at a gun show in of all places Brisbane, Australia for fifty dollars.
Receiver had been cut in half.
Turns out only about one thousand were ever made, a contract for the Dutch East Indies in WW2, so it is quiet rare.
I had it welded back together, fitted some standard 1919A4 parts, and now it is a nice deactivated display piece on a 1919A4 tripod.
There will be a loud knock on your door very soon.
@@rpm12091 I forgot to mention, I also registered it with the police, and as I had a licence allowing me to possess MGs, I was allowed to keep it , so long as I obtained a deactivation certificate, and it remained deactivated.
Recently I watched a Forgotten Weapons video where Ian MacCollum did the walkaround of a military museum in Guadalcanal (where war debris keep on surfacing today).
I don't recall seeing any Luger but Dutch rifles were present and at least one ZB.26 LMG. According to Ian, at least one specific Japanese unit was fully equiped with captured Dutch hardware, so it is not unlikely that some Japanese Luger shows up sooner or later there.
The Japanese produce very well made firearms. The new Winchester 1873 lever actions are made by Miruko in Japan for Winchester.
Agree - one of the shotguns I sold after my dad died that I should have kept was a Japanese made Browning over/under 12 gauge - absolutely beautifully made.
For a brief time in the 1970s and into the 1980s Miroku also made Brown Bess replicas. Pretty well done too, in fact they were slightly more authentic than the Italian Pedersoli made ones being a bit more massive. Put an Italian Bess next to a real one and you can spot the difference. The only downside to the Miroku Besses were the cast springs, they were more prone to breakage than the forged springs on the Pedersoli ones.
@@wes11bravo It's too bad a lot of traditionalists turned up their noses at the Miroku Brownings saying the Belgian made ones were better. Not so, the Miroku made ones were absolutely just as good, they just didn't have the "cachet" of the Belgian ones.
Forgotten Weapons just put out a video from Guadalcanal where in a scrap museum he found one of those brass plaque lugers.
Growing up, I found out that my neighbor served with the 1st Cavalry Division as an MP. As he was retired, I would go over and help him in his garage. One day, he pulled down his foot locker and spoke to me about his service in the Philippines and then later as part of the occupation of Japan. I remember him showing me a Dutch Luger he had salvaged from a Japanese armory that was set up in a tiny building about 500sq feet. As I was looking at it, I remember seeing a crown on it, but not a "Vickers" stamp or a brass plate. But, that was over 45 years ago.
As a fellow legit historian, I'd like you to do a video discussing what the Axis, and troops like Japanese thought about and did with war souvenirs and trophy's, because we only look at it from a Western eventual win scenario, when in reality for several summers the Axis was the ones bringing back captured stuff, and itd be interesting to know their views and outcomes
...Guid Efternain Mark...I work in a store in Perth up here in Scotland and while helping an elderly customer with a paint choice he'd made we started chatting about life in general (his wife rolled her eyes knowing what was coming next) and he showed me a photo of a flag with a Swastika and a gold eagle on it (random I know) I wondered where the conversation was going but apparently his Father (who'd fought in WW2) had taken it from Reichsmarschall Herman Goering's boat Carin II. I remember watching your video on the Carin II and letting him know he could view your channel here on YT. He told me he'd donated it to a military museum and produced a newspaper cutting showing himself the flag and an accompanying piece relating to his donation. It had an upstanding Swastika with a gold Reichsadler in the top right corner. I don't know if his info was correct as it looked very much like a Reich service flag but the gold Reichsadler had me thinking he was genuine?
Dutch Lugars were officially issued to some RNZAF units in NZ during WW2. These were brought back from the Dutch East Indies.
Barry
I still find it endlessly ironic, that Hitler shot himself with a British Walther and not a Luger. Ace as always Mark Felton Productions
British Walther?
What is a British Walther pistol?
In case you hadn't seen it, Ian from the Forgotten Weapons channel posted a video of his tour of a Guadalcanal museum with lots of WW2 guns. There were quite a few Dutch made guns as well.
ruclips.net/video/PzKEQoKQtvI/видео.html
As a kid, I used to have small Luger replica that looked just perfect.
From then on, I have always thought of the Luger as the perfect looking handgun.
Later on, I also became fascinated by the Colt 1911, mainly through comics like 'The Spirit' by Will Eisner
which was funny because the 1911 is the exact opposite of the Luger in that you don't even see the barrel when it's not firing.
The Luger on the other hand, is all barrelly perfection.
Great details and photos. A fellow down the road has a Mauser rifle that belonged to his father. Wehrmacht eagle stamps but also Chinese or Japanese characters stamped onto it.
Great video, can see a lot of research went into this one! 👍
2:45 $1 in 1920 ($13 today)between wars luger, take my money sir
Brilliant content Mark. I certainly learn something in all your videos. I'm not sure if you have done a video on this topic or not, I used to own a Portuguese Mauser 1906 in 8mm. I certainly miss that rifle. Mine was picked up in the Timor area by Australian forces during WW2. I also believe that a heap of them were used in South Africa. Brilliant, accurate and well made bit of kit.
The video by Ian from Forgotten weapons uploaded just 2 days ago shows they were real.
Forgotten Weapons recently made a video about a museum in Guadalcanal, and among their collection they had plenty of captured Dutch weapons used by the japanese that were found on that battlefield. Among those a Dutch Luger.
I am loving these axis weapons series!
I’ve got an FN1910 rig that was shipped to Japan by Schroeder Brothers in 1939 and just sold a nice Japanese holster for a Mauser 14/34. I was surprised when I started seeing how many non-Japanese produced pistols ended up being used by the Japanese officers.
Thank you so much for this and many historical videos you post. I'm writing a spy novel and this video gives me ideas about the theme. Keep it coming! 😊
Marvellous details even when involving the more arcane aspects of WW2 .
My brother mainly collected 'American Civil War'/antebellum items....but has many WW1-2, Russian n Ukrainian war items. 1 being a Ukrainian Soviet upper classed officer w/(medals 🥇 attached ) uniform jacket 🧥 the family gave him when he married into the family in Ukraine. I remember the man was crying w/pride when he gave it to my brother......the whole family was around. ( It was a big deal.) ...n reminded that the Ukrainian people are still HIGHLY saddened w/Russia today for the atrocious wars past n' present. 😢
It is common knowledge that every American and allied soldier was going after Lugers and katanas, but what trophies or souvenirs did the Axis forces go after?
Link to Forgotten Weapons where you can see actual recovered Dutch Luger pistols with brass plate.
Fascinating Finds in a Guadalcanal Relic Museum
ruclips.net/video/PzKEQoKQtvI/видео.html
Before the German-Italian alliance, Germany sold arms to China, so after the Chinese army surrendered to Japan, a significant number of German-made pistols were sold to officers. If an officer who bought a German-made pistol in China transferred to the Pacific theater, it wouldn't be strange for the Luger to be found in the Pacific theater. 現に、My grandfather said that he bought a Spanish Astra pistol when he served in the Chinese front, but was later transferred to Indonesia.
The Luger is just a wonderful pistol, I shoot mine very often. I actually just saw Ian from Forgotten Weapons video from the war museum on Guadalcanal. I knew some Dutch Lugers ended up there but not the other Dutch weapons found on the Island.
As a dea;er we had to be very. very carful with the German Lugers. Too many were made by Slave Labour, who sabatoged them. I was showing one to a potential customer; it went off while closing the breach (the round went into the range table top). Lost the sale. c. 1977. Japanese weapons were embossed with the Imperial Chrysanthemum, So for a weapon to still have it, it was not surrendered. Surrendered weapons had the crest ground off.
Considering the various people that were shareholders in Vickers, it is very difficult to ascertain if Vickers made or merely assembled parts from DWM. Needs looking into. . .
1:24 However, the Japanese did copy the German MP31 SMG as their Type 100 gun, the only submachine gun to be produced in Japan during WW2.
I have seen Japanese Nambu pistols floating around gun stores. They are not sought after and most US gun buyers are not interested in Japanese weapons for obvious reasons.... although they probably drive Japanese cars now ;)
Forgotten weapons had an episode that overlapped w/ Dutch Lugers yesterday. Guadalcanal had a stockpile of them!
When I was in college over 50 years ago I had a fraternity brother who had a relative who fought at Guadalcanal and brought back a German Luger. nobody believed him.
Bought my first Luger (1930 police gun in 7.65) this spring. It is awesome. Ergonomic functional beautiful and accurate.
It is the nature of small arms that they eventually turn up everywhere around the globe. Just ask any Iraq or 'Stan vet... the stuff they found when they rounded up weapons was unbelievable.