p14? on active service in ww2

while watching an old documentary i was very surprised to see a very quick shot of an unscoped p14/m17 being used in a jungle setting...

World War II Snipers - YouTube at 42.03 for anyone interested

judging by the helmet the user was from a commonwealth country so it's more likely a p14.

how much front line service did the p14's see during ww2, both scoped and unscoped?

who was the main user/s?

does anyone know much about the story of the lithgow p14 sniper conversions, aka when and how many were made. plus where/for how long they were used?

thanks.

My guess would be that the photo is from somewhere in the Philipine Islands and that it is from around the time of the Japanese invasion which would mean it is a Model 1917.

Latvia was given a lot of P.14s. They probably still used them in WWII.

The P14, in standard, and the scoped sniper version, are both listed in Skennertons "Australian Service Long arms". There is also the more familiar No1 Mk111 heavy barrelled version, which is listed in some detail. Skennerton states that the P14 was the "Standard sniper rifle" for Australian forces in ww2, which presumably would include the pacific war, but it appears to share this role with the Lithgow produced SMLE. He does not specify if the P14 was modified or set up for sniper use by the Lithgow SAF, and I would only be guessing that the sniper version of the P14 was sourced from England. The D^D makings on the stock only indicate if it was Australian issued. Maybe getting in touch with the Historical section of the Lithgow SAF would bring this to light???

I was watching a WWII series narrated by Charlie Sheen. In the episode about the D-Day landings and the campaigns in the Med, one part discussed French troops landing on the southern coast of France. In the film clips of the troops coming ashore, all of them are carrying either P14s or 1917s. Since I could only see the muzzles over their left shoulder, not much to indicate which one it was.

Keith

The Free French had something like 167,000 M1917 given to them prior to the dragoon invasion in August of 1944. They were used through the end of the war, you see shots of the 1st French army in the crossing of the Rhine in march/April of 1945

The Free Dutch army had something like 40,000 P14 rifles allotted to them in the UK, though other than a few propaganda photos of them with P14 rifles I very much doubt they ever used them in any quantity in late 1944/early 1945. Post war the Dutch were reequipped with half US and Half Canadian No4 rifles. That said there are shots of Dutch troops supposedly plinking at Germans in the winter of 1944/45 with what are clearly Pattern 14 Enfield rifles that have gone though Weedon rebuild. The pictures look like posed propaganda shots.

In the UK the AA batteries were initially equipped with Pattern 14 rifles in 1940 (post Dunkirk) through around 1942/43, when the rifles were gradually replaced with No 4 rifles, at least those units intended for the Normandy invasion. Some of the AA units that were sent to North Africa in 1941/42 were equipped with the P14, there are pictures of British AA units practicing infantry drill with P14 rifles around the time of the summer 1942 battles in June to August 1942 time frame.

Same was true of Canadian AA units and Forestry battalions sent over to the UK in 1940/41. I have seen Canadian marked P14 rifles that were through Weedom rebuild standards, and the likely went to one of those two units.

In a book written by a RAF Typhoon pilot he mentions there initial RAF arms training in 1942 was done with P14 rifles. So it seems the RAF and units associated with them might have used a lot in the home defense period from 1940 to 1943. In the time period from 1940 to 1943 a lot of the training divisions in the UK used the P14 for drill and field activities that were rough on rifles. I have seen pictures of troops from "young soldier battalions" doing river crossing/water exercises equipped with the P14, dated around 1943.

Many Home guard units had the P14 on issue until dissolved shortly before the end of the war (forgot the exact date).


When on a business trip to Singapore back around the year 2000, I visited Percival's headquarters bunkers. In a display that had a recovered P14 rifles that was found near the "battle box". It was not a P14 T pattern, just a regular P14. The staff knew nothing about arms, but at a short film on the Malaysian campaign directed towards the chines population there was short clip of the local Chinese militia being armed with greener shotguns and other secondary arms so it is possible a small number of P14 rifles were issued in the final days to police or other irregulars.

A significant number of the P14 rifles in India were supposedly used by training units in India, such as the OTC. Edwards in his book on India makes reference to that, actually one of the mysteries of the P14 is as India had 100,000 Remington's (either REM of ERC), what ever happened to them? Only verified use was with the OTC in WWI and WWII, also likely used for frontier troops but very little is written on this.

South Africa had some, as they made bayonets for the P14 in WWII, but as to what use they were put to I cannot say, as I have never seen a picture of a P14 in SA WWII use. Likely issue was to the RAF units, like was done in the UK. I have noted the dominions generally followed the Home country patterns of use.

The only significant post war combat use I can recall was the 1961 campaign in GOA, when the Portuguese were thrown out of GOA by the Indian army. The boarder guard/customs forces of Portugal were equipped with P14 rifles. There are a lot of pictures of those troops with the P14 rifles just prior to the conflict. Regular colonial troops in GOA were equipped with the M917 rifles (Portuguese designation), which as nothing more than a No1 MK III rifle. All were surrendered when Goa fell to the Indian army.

My past father-in-law was issued an M 1917 while stationed in Fredericton NB during WW2. He was a driver and never left Canada. Told me they'd go to a field across the road on Saturday or Sunday for a half day for battle drills...