Marine destroying Japanese rifles.

[A. F Medic]

Note muzzle cover on rifle. Looks like he is enjoying it!

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[Bill Hollinger]

What a shame!

[A. F Medic]

Can't tell if he is wearing gloves. If not, he will have a good case of contact dermatitis from the shellac!

[Bill Hollinger]

No gloves from what I see.

You know instead of destroying captured weapons the US government should warehouse all of them and sell them to collectors to help pay down the deficit

[ireload2]

One of the US Marines campaign books showed a different version.
They had Higgins boats with about 4 rifle stacks about 5 feet high (ten rifles across then 10 at 90 degrees)
The rest of the floor of the Higgins boat was loaded with ammo.
They were getting ready to give it a one way boat ride into the bay.
I was only about 13 or 14 then. Still made me sad.

[DRB]

Yep that is a type 44 with muzzle cover on it. Probably brand new. IN 1945 when the Japanese surrendered there was big concern they may change their mind. There was a big rush to make sure the forces in Japan were disarmed ASAP. There was no time to wharehouse guns there were millions to be accounted for.

[Milsurp Collector]

Here is another picture from that session



After the Occupation authorities realized it would take forever to destroy a million Japanese small arms one at a time, they just loaded them up on a landing craft and dumped them into Tokyo Bay

[Calif-Steve]

The US dumped all of this stuff into Tokyo Bay. The Russians equiped Mao and his army with the surrender weapons. Over a million Japanese troops surrendered to the Russians. Huge pile of very good equipment.

[doncb]

Destroying the guns wasnt as bad as destroying the japanese swords. Some of the swords were family treasures handed down through generations and worth a fortune. don in fl.

[Oxmix]

One of the family members, USMC, had some Officer's swords with jeweled handles. He was wounded, and by the time he got out of the hospital someone had taken the swords. He did come back with a couple plain Jane swords though.

Regards

Ox