Bataan and Corregidor History Students

[jimmyj]

Hi:
I have often wondered what the Japanese did with the captured American small arms after
the fall of Bataan and Corregidor?
Thanks,
Jimmy

 

[jimmyj]

Hi:
I have often wondered what the Japanese did with the captured American small arms after
the fall of Bataan and Corregidor?
Thanks,
Jimmy

 

[29aholic]

Probably used some and blew the others in place like we would.

 

[jimmyj]

Hi: 29holic:
I was considering with the number of captured superior american weapons that another Japanese Army could have been equipped.
At that era the Japanese were using 6.5 Arisaka Rifles and Nambu machine guns.
Jimmy

 

[S/W - Lifer]

I understand that the Japanese small arms powder was smokeless, while ours was not. That supposedly was a big advantage. They may not have picked up as much of our stuff as we think. I also heard the .45 pistol was a sought after trophy by the Japanese. I'm not surprised. We took their swords and Nambu pistols.

 

[n4zov]

Good site for more information on Corregidor:

http://corregidor.org/chs_2esb/2ndesb.htm

 

[JohnK]

I understand that the Japanese small arms powder was smokeless, while ours was not.

Sorry, but absolutely wrong............

 

[klondike]

Some krag collectors at the Jouster forum claim that after the war more than a few Krag rifles were found in Japanese armories. These most likely were captured in the Philippines and sent to the homeland for future contingencies.

 

[Texas Star]

Originally posted by JohnK:

I understand that the Japanese small arms powder was smokeless, while ours was not.

Sorry, but absolutely wrong............

Sounds as if he is thinking of US .45/70 Springfields vs. Spanish Mausers in 1898...Even then, our first line battle rifle, the Krag, used smokeless powder.

Some M-1's were surely examined by the Jap ordnance people, who tried to copy it. It was beyond their abilities, and the experimental rifles never reached troops in the field.

They captured a P-51B Mustang and the pilot in China, and the Japs marvelled that the engine didn't leak oil, as theirs did. They were also impressed with the performance!

T-Star

 

[jimmyj]

Hi:
I could be wrong but I think there were a lot more M1903s and M1917s than M-1s captured by the Japanese. Also the Japanese did not have a decent Submachine gun in any numbers and They had to have a great deal of captured Thompsons and Bars.
Jimmy

 

[Igiveup]

I, too, doubt there were many M-1's to be captured. It was early in the war, and our soldiers had been there quite awhile before the war. I imagine there were also a lot of trap doors and Kraigs in the Phillapines, issued to them by our govt. for their army. By then we had switched to the M1903.

 

[cmort666]

Originally posted by Texas Star:
They captured a P-51B Mustang and the pilot in China, and the Japs marvelled that the engine didn't leak oil, as theirs did. They were also impressed with the performance!

T-Star

The Japanese were never able to successfully build (or even copy) a decent inline engine like the Daimler-Benz or the Merlin/Packard. They could never achieve the required quality or quantity, causing chronic unavailability of deployed aircraft and a perpetual shortage of power plants to aircraft manufacturers like Kawasaki. In fact, the problem became so bad, that a huge backlog of Ki-61 Hien (Tony) fighters built up at the factory, complete except for the Daimler-Benz copies they needed. An engineer at Kawasaki suggested replacing the inline engines with a much larger radial. Nobody thought it would work, but in fact, it worked VERY well, leading to the Ki-100 fighter. Fortunately, between the engineering delays, US bombing and several earthquakes, the Ki-100 came too late to make any difference in the war.

 

[cmort666]

Originally posted by Igiveup:
I, too, doubt there were many M-1's to be captured. It was early in the war, and our soldiers had been there quite awhile before the war. I imagine there were also a lot of trap doors and Kraigs in the Phillapines, issued to them by our govt. for their army. By then we had switched to the M1903.

1. Like the Germans, the Japanese captured and used a lot of foreign weapons, mostly taken from the Chinese. Their Type 96 and Type 99 light machineguns were inspired by the ZB26 guns they captured from the Chinese in the 1930s. They distributed a lot of captured materiel to their puppet forces in China, the former Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines.

2. The Japanese captured enough Garands to be impressed enough to try to copy the M1. The Japanese Navy manufactured a modified copy of the Garand in 7.7x58mm. It had a fixed 10 round magazine. The war ended before the IJN could make it reliable enough to issue. They probably had no production capacity for it when the war ended anyway. I saw one at the Ohio Gun Collector's Association Show ten or fifteen years ago. I think back then the asking price was in excess of $30,000.

 

[n4zov]

Here are some sources with more information on the Japanese version of the Garand as well as what happened to the Bataan/Corregidor small arms:

http://search.pbase.com/search...b=Search+Photos&c=sp

http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=6375

http://forum.axishistory.com/v...ic.php?f=33&t=139569

 

[walnutred]

Originally posted by jimmyj:
Hi: 29holic:
I was considering with the number of captured superior american weapons that another Japanese Army could have been equipped.
At that era the Japanese were using 6.5 Arisaka Rifles and Nambu machine guns.
Jimmy

There was nothing wrong with the 6.5 Arisaka in it's intended environment. The Nambu light was considered superior to the BAR by many of the Marines who faced it. The 6.5 Arisaka carbine and the Nambu light MG, also in 6.5, are probably the only Japanese small arms deliberately carried in combat by US Marines.

I suspect that most of the captured US small arms were recycled and made into other arms.

 

[Texas Star]

Originally posted by cmort666:

Originally posted by Texas Star:
They captured a P-51B Mustang and the pilot in China, and the Japs marvelled that the engine didn't leak oil, as theirs did. They were also impressed with the performance!

T-Star

The Japanese were never able to successfully build (or even copy) a decent inline engine like the Daimler-Benz or the Merlin/Packard. They could never achieve the required quality or quantity, causing chronic unavailability of deployed aircraft and a perpetual shortage of power plants to aircraft manufacturers like Kawasaki. In fact, the problem became so bad, that a huge backlog of Ki-61 Hien (Tony) fighters built up at the factory, complete except for the Daimler-Benz copies they needed. An engineer at Kawasaki suggested replacing the inline engines with a much larger radial. Nobody thought it would work, but in fact, it worked VERY well, leading to the Ki-100 fighter. Fortunately, between the engineering delays, US bombing and several earthquakes, the Ki-100 came too late to make any difference in the war.

Yes, I know. The Ki-100 was probably the best Jap fighter of the war. Better than the Ki-84 Frank, which got the Alies to sit up and take notice. Probably better than the George 12.

The Japs never made fighters as fast as the Mustang, the Thunderbolt, or the Mark XIV Spitfire, but they were sure manueverable.
And the latest ones were faster than the Hellcat, almost on par with the P-38 Lightning. Even the Zero was faster than the Wildcat and the Hurricane. Later ones were as fast as the P-40, too. They wouldn't outdive a US fighter, but climbed better than most. The Zero had an exceptional climb rate.

An article in the American Rifleman a few years ago quoted MacArthur saying that both the early "gas trap" and the later Garand rifles were satisfactory, and should be issued in greater numbers as soon as possible. He based these comments on seeing the rifles in use in the Phillipines.

T-Star

 

[dd698]

Thank God the Nips didnt come up with the Kamikaze earlier in the war. They really raised hell with our fleet.

 

[cmort666]

Originally posted by Texas Star:
Yes, I know. The Ki-100 was probably the best Jap fighter of the war. Better than the Ki-84 Frank, which got the Alies to sit up and take notice. Probably better than the George 12.

I think the Ki-100 was a good plane (much better than the Ki-61, anyway), but I think it was overall, inferior to the Ki-84 and the second model of the George. It was still stuck with the basic Ki-61 airframe, which had very little room for development, being so small, and tightly packed. Still, a bunch of Ki-100s, a lot earlier could have made the invasion of the Philippines a lot harder than it was. Of course as typically stupid as Japanese strategy (and often tactics) were, they could have had F-22s and still lost.

The United States has always been blessed by having enemies with an unerring aim for their own foot.

 

[dd698]

Thank God the Nips didnt utilize the Kamikaze plane earlier in the war. They really raised havoc with our fleet.

 

[cmort666]

Originally posted by dd698:
Thank God the Nips didnt utilize the Kamikaze plane earlier in the war. They really raised havoc with our fleet.

By the end of the war, they were left with little else. Due to our signals intelligence superiority and their own deficits in logistics, strategy and tactics, they had few skilled and experienced pilots left. Most of the kamikazes either failed to reach their targets or failed in their attacks. Had these untrained lambs to the slaughter used conventional tactics, they would have achieved even less at similar cost.