In "Cooper on Handguns" (1974) Jeff Cooper mentioned another Marine Colonel known to him at the time who carried a S & W .357 Magnum with the long barrel onto Guadalcanal and who used to "go hunting" Japanese with it. I forget the name of the man now and my old thumb-worn copy of the book is back in Canada. I asked Phil Roettinger if he had known Cooper, and Roettinger said that he had not. It had NEVER occured to me to ask if he had known Bill Jordan -- a man I personally met and talked to for a while. Stupid of me, as I have found out from one of the posts here that Phil and Bill were actually friends!
I might point out that Cooper himself carried a Colt Single Action Army .45 onto Guadalcanal on the advice of (and I quote Cooper from memory here, so if I get a word or two wrong correct me) "a still active gunwriter who's honesty I have good reason to call into question". This, of course, was Elmer Keith, whom Cooper had written before shipping out to ask if the S.A.A. was a good defensive choice. Cooper went on to say something like "trying to reload that relic in the dark, in the rain, under fire, was an experience one only wants to live through once." At that point he decided the U.S. Army Ordnance Department knew more about the selection of personal weapons than he did and went back to his issue 1911A1. (Cooper fanatics may trip me up on a word or two, but remember I have none of my old books down here, and it has been some 25 years since I was more or less working for the MAN as an IPSC Section Coordinator, and I apologize if I don't have the exact quote handy. My wording is close and my gist of the meaning is pretty correct -- but feel free to give me the exact quotes if you have them, I won't be offended. In case it isn't clear, I pretty much esteemed Cooper and would not deliberately try to misquote him or misrepresent him in any way, shape, or form.)
Cooper's shooting of the Japanese soldier carrying the Type 99 in the chest while on Guadalcanal with the S.A.A. has been documented in other places and I bring it up to simply agree with the various posts regarding the carrying of "non-issue" personal weapons by the U.S. Marine Corps, certainly during the Guadalcanal campaign. I am no source of reference as to whether or not this went on through-out the war so other people will have to comment upon that. "American Handgunner" ran an article some years back on Cooper's three shootings -- damned if I remember but it MAY have even been written by Masaad Ayoob (another gunwriter whom I met and talked to, at the 1980 Second Chance, and came away with a very favourable opinion of). In 1999 the Mexican Army decided that "gun magazines" were the Devil's work and banned them. Can't buy them here, period. Oh, you can subscribe -- but I don't happen to have a subscription right now. Next chance I get, I'll go back to American Handgunner, I got sick of them stealing my issues at the Mexican Aduana (Customs). Anyway, I got off topic, but I mention the article in case anyone is specifically interested.
Back on topic; Marines carried a different assortment of personal weapons. That's obvious and we certainly have enough examples around to know it wasn't really an isolated occurance. That was my point. As usual, I took way too long and too many words to make it. Thanks for putting up with my rambling.
Cal