Glad to be corrected on the 1917 mis-identification. All manner of troops inhabited Guadalcanal 1942-1946, so it's anyone's guess what the origin of this copy might be.

My father, a WWII vet who retired from the USMC as a Lt. Col., served on the MLR in Korea in 1952-53. He told me in a recent conversation that his company possessed all manner of non-issued arms in their forward positions, ranging from sawed off shotguns, to big bore handguns and jerry-rigged incendiaries. These they routinely wrapped and buried during front-line inspections--so there must have been some restrictions on their use. I'll ask him next time I talk to him. Just for the fun of it, Dad's on the right in this photo--made on the MLR some time in the fall of '52, I believe: