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| Topic - US Navy Carbines Posted: Nov 29 2020 at 7:44pm By painter777 |
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Side note about US arms in the Philippines:
The case of “freed” American weapons When Japan overran the Philippines, a significant number of American weapons were captured intact. The Japanese captured 27,412 rifles (mostly M1903 Springfields but also some M1917s and a few M1 Garands) along with 68 BARs, 218 machine guns, and 1,161 handguns. Some of these captured weapons were dispersed to Japanese forces in the East Indies and South Pacific, but by 1943 sea transport had become dangerous and most were retained in reserve in the occupied Philippines. When the empire declared the ‘Second Philippine Republic’, a short-lived puppet regime, it’s mediocre attempt at a collaborator army was armed with ex-American weapons. When American forces returned in 1944 and 1945, surprising quantities of these guns from 1941 were recaptured. It was decided to treat them as Japanese weapons and they were destroyed. Less anything of intelligence value, American military policy in the Pacific theatre was to destroy captured Japanese equipment. This policy was adhered to during the 1944 – 1945 liberation and through the immediate postwar period in late 1945. There was initially grumbling in the Philippines over this, as with only months to go before independence, it was viewed as depriving the new military of a source for free equipment. In retrospect, it probably wouldn’t have mattered as none of the Japanese gear shared ammunition or spare parts commonality with American weapons which would form the core of the Philippines military for decades. A US Navy officer supervises the destruction of a pile of Arisakas in the Philippines near the end of WWII.  A pile of “freed” American weapons in the Philippines, mostly M1917 rifles, burned by the US Army at the end of WWII.  In 1946, the Philippines army was simply a snapshot of the guns American GIs had carried during WWII: The M2 Browning, M1918 BAR, M1919, M1 Garand, M1903 Springfield, M3 Grease Gun, M1 carbine, and M1911. While WWII was still in progress, the M1 carbine was one of the weapons the Allies supplied Filipino guerillas with. As American forced returned in 1944 and 1945, guerilla units made contact with advancing American troops and were re-equipped and reorganized as regular fighting units. Nieves Fernandez was a schoolteacher before WWII. During the occupation, she was credited with killing 200 Japanese troops and was shot once. Eventually she led a guerilla group and was considered an equivalent rank to captain by the US Army. Here she illustrates her wares to an American GI, a M1 carbine and a bolo knife. Fernandez passed away in 1996.  An American instructor, with M1 carbine, stands with Filipino guerillas after they were refitted upon making contact with the US Army in 1945. They were armed with M1 carbines and M1A1 tommyguns.   These guns were captured from defeated ISIS forces during the five-month battle of Marawi in 2017. Two WWII guns are present; a M1918 BAR in the center and a M1919A4 second from the right. These guns were destroyed after the battle.   Luis Taruc, the Huk leader, in gym shoes at the center of the photo. Judging by the newspaper headline this was at the start of the Korean War in 1950. The Huks were unique as a communist force armed entirely with WWII American weapons: here, the M1 carbine, M1 Garand rifles, and M1918 BARs.  If interested much more in this link: FWIW, Charlie-P777
Edited by New2brass - Nov 30 2020 at 12:26pm |
