German prison guards guns

DWalt

DWalt

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I’ll place this commentary here, but it could also fit in other areas.

I read this evening on the forum of the International Ammunition Association a very interesting posting that I would otherwise question had it been submitted by anyone else. The author was General Lew Curtis, recognized as probably the world’s foremost authority on 9mm ammunition.

His posting concerned 9mm German military ammunition which had been crudely modified for use in British .38 S&W revolvers. I imagine many have heard of this practice being performed by British troops to use captured German 9mm ammunition in their service revolvers, and there is no doubt that occurred. But Gen. Curtis’ story goes beyond that. It seems that during the war, German troops who were for any reason physically unqualified for combat duty were often assigned as prison guards, and were often given captured enemy small arms for that purpose. He published several pictures of German 9mm rounds with crudely deformed rims to be used by German prison guards in captured British revolvers. That was news to me, having never heard that story previously. Is anyone else aware of that happening?
 
I read what may have been the same article. It showed pictures with what looked like punch marks around the rim of the cartridge. I guess to give the extractor something to push on and to hold the round in place?
 
No - never heard of it but late in the war the Germans and Japanese did many things out of sheer desperation. Both of them actually used bullet projectiles made out of wood - apparently metal was running out.

I found out just recently that the Japanese were not the only ones who had Kamikaze pilots. The Germans started doing that as well at wars end.
 
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Wooden bullets were made up for training purposes and for blanks for the firing of rifle grenades. The wooden 9mm rounds were intended for practice with automatic weapons as the wooden projectile had enough mass to create enough back pressure to operate the gun. Wooden rifle rounds were made by both Germany and the Czechs.
Shortage of metal supply was unlikely the reason for the wooden bullets as there are still tons of German WWII 8mm Mauser ammo stored around the world, but the supply is drying up in the last several decades. Plus, a wooden bullet has a short range to it.
It was found that the wooden bullets created a wound where splinters would shatter into a large area creating a painful and large bleeding area which was hard for medics to treat in field.
 
The 9mm case rims were crudely mutilated, probably with a hammer and punch, to form a larger rim adequate to prevent the cartridge from falling into the .38 revolver chamber. I might try doing that to see how difficult it is to do.

Totally unrelated, but in the old “Hogan’s Heroes” TV comedy, Sgt Schultz always carried a .30-40 Krag rifle, not a K98.
 
diyj98 said:
I believe the last ditch wooden bullet story is mostly myth. People found wooden bullets and assumed they were being issued for combat.
Click to expand...

I tend to agree with you, many "old soldier" tales get started from a little bit of misinformation and speculation getting spread until it's "everybody knows'. Quite a few countries used wooden bullet blanks for training, salutes, etc. They fed more reliably than simple crimped blanks in many guns.

Most of the stories of wooden bullets causing nasty wounds seem to come out of areas where there are a lot of trees and brush ........... which could (and did) cause splinter wounds from regular bullets and shrapnel striking trees and brush and blowing pieces of wood into unfortunate soldiers bodies. There were a lot of these tales from Normandy, probably aggravated by the German troops being on maneuvers and being equipped with a lot of blanks for training when the invasion occurred.

Some troops probably did fire off some of the blanks at GI's if for no other reason to get their heads down and allow them to disengage. And if a GI was close enough (and unlucky) they certainly could have been injured but it wasn't due to a deliberate attempt to increase wounds by using wooden bullets. They are a traditional blank pattern, used by many countries over the years.
 
Don't know about 9mm and British revolvers, but at the back of my copy of Mauser Military Rifles of the World is a list of foreign rifles in German hands that were given official numbers. For example, a Gew 249 is better known to most here as a Model 1903 Springfield. There are some curious misidentifications, too. The British P14 and the Model of 1917 rifle are both listed as "Ross-Enfield" rifles.

Many of the foreign weapons were chambered in 7.92x57, but whether they went to the front or were kept back for second line and POW duties I cannot say.
 
I've heard this story but it was the French Resistance doing it, not German guards.

I suspect there is some truth in the story, where someone probably tried, but given that max pressure for 38 S&W is under 15,000PSI, I would guess that it would have caused some problems for the revolver.
 
Recall hearing about someone who tore down a vintage cycle motor and found one wooden piston. Necessity!

If we only had a way to make wooden primers…
 
Totally unrelated, but in the old “Hogan’s Heroes” TV comedy, Sgt Schultz always carried a .30-40 Krag rifle, not a K98.
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That was actor John Banner's doing. He was Jewish and thus hated the Nazis. He only accepted the role of Sergeant Schultz because the show portrayed the Germans as stupid and incompetent. Likewise, he refused to carry a german rifle and used the Krag instead.
 
Interesting. I had always assumed that the Krag was just what the prop people had available, and they figured that no one would know the difference between a K98 and a Krag anyway.

I never thought much of the series as it was so stupid, and I doubt that I saw more than a handful of episodes when it was running in prime time.

There was a movie made about Robert Crane’s murder about 20 years ago called Auto Focus. It is one of the most depressing movies you will ever see. Crane was nothing but filthy slime. If anyone deserved to get murdered it was him.
 
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I am a cartridge collector but have not heard of this conversion. Not saying I am an expert in any sense but saying in my decades I had never encountered an example or article about the conversion. However, weirder conversions have been made. We have all shot 22 long rifles in 22 magnum chambers by either design or accident. For years a man around Carbondale, CO would shoot 303 Savage ammo in his 303 British. Another man around there would shoot 300 Win Mag ammo in his 300 Weatherby because it was cheaper to purchase. Read that during archeological research that at least 1 native American was shooting captured 45/70 ammo in his 50/70. Read about an old Alaskan sourdough using 38/40 ammo in his 44/40. He would wrap thin layers of wet leather around the bullet till it fit the chamber of the bigger space. Necessity may be the mother of invention however poverty is the father.
 
I have heard this practice of using 9mm rounds in .38 revolvers attributed to German police usage in the immediate postwar period. The AR ran an article a few years back about the 1000s of .38 revolvers issued to German postwar police agencies. Possibly an old wife's tale, a German cop was unable to procure the correct .38 ammo and peened the rims of 9mm rounds so they would headspace in his Smith revolver. Sounds plausible...

Kaaskop49
Shield #5103
 
Grayfox said:
That was actor John Banner's doing. He was Jewish and thus hated the Nazis. He only accepted the role of Sergeant Schultz because the show portrayed the Germans as stupid and incompetent. Likewise, he refused to carry a german rifle and used the Krag instead.
Click to expand...

I always thought that story about him not carrying a k98 was urban myth. After all, why wear a German helmet and uniform, but refuse the rifle? I'd say it was just what the prop guys gave him, but in real life a German prison guard could have had a Danish Krag. I know the Germans used a lot of non K98 weapons for second line troops and they did capture several thousand Krag rifles.
 
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diyj98 said:
I always thought that story about him not carrying a k98 was urban myth. After all, why wear a German helmet and uniform, but refuse the rifle? I'd say it was just what the prop guys gave him, but in real life a German prison guard could have had a Danish Krag. I know the Germans used a lot of non K98 weapons for second line troops and they did capture several thousand Krag rifles.
Click to expand...

That's interesting and makes sense that German prison guards carried small arms from captured enemy soldiers to keep their standard issue weapons for their front line troops. So the Krag rifle was possibly a period correct gun for that time and many have always thought it was a Hollywood screw up. Oh well those cheezy Command Arms .45 acp guns that sort of look like a Thompson SMG the German Guards carried in many scenes, weren't fooling anybody.
 
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