Bought a small batch of photographs (for 99p). Sold as 'Gurkha officer's', but I have no special reason for believing that's true. All I have to go on in a inscription of 'Malaya 1948' on the group picture and a dedication of love from 'Bill' on one of the two single figure shots (same man? I'm erring towards 'not'). My judgment says that the hat-badges in the third shot are Royal Signals (friends? relatives?), but I'd like a second opinion. Most of all, I'd like to confirm or deny that the last shot depicts Gurkhas and have a stab at the location (click to enlarge and do a kukri hunt with me--I see only two bayonets). My gut feeling is that the fancy edifice in the background of the second shot could be in Singapore--opinions?
On the declaration of the Emergency in June 1948, the following units were on hand. I'm going with one of the two battalions of the Malay Regiment, which conveniently puts that last picture in North Sub-District. Off to check the shape of their cap badges.
Forgive my dimness, but is this remarkable in some way I haven't grasped? Or are you just hinting at their notoriety? That probably makes those Number 5 Bayonets being carried, correct?
I just like them. I think they are one of the two best looking military rifles ever. The other one is the .30-40 Krag carbine. They both look like hunting rifles. Were No 5s ever used in Europe?
From what I've read that might be an apt comparison; apparently they were somewhat overpowered for purpose with a brutal kick.
You are right, Charley. Terrific muzzle flash too since the ammo wasn't designed for short barrels. Here's my No 5 that I got about 25 years ago. I'd love a Krag carbine but they are very rare and expensive
Very nice. As you have the real thing, what's your opinion on this controversy about the difficulty of keeping them sighted correctly?
I have only fired it once so I can't really comment on it. The older I get the more I enjoy .22s for actual shooting I think it might be typical of light barreled rifles which tend to change their point of impact as the barrel heats up after repeated firing. The No 5 has groves cut into the receiver ring to save weight so that can't help. I know about them because that is one of the ways to spot an authentic No 5 from fakes. I took the hand guard off of mine before I bought it to check for them. So called featherweight barrels aren't an issue in big game rifles since hopefully they will only be fired once or twice before they cool down again.
Hi CF, Second photo is almost definitely Bombay. Many of my Chindit 1 soldiers had their photos taken outside the same building in November 1942. Check out this thread for hopefully confirmation: Going to Mumbai
I'm convinced that's the same building--I can't find any points of discrepancy at all. Very well done, Steve.
Thanks CF, As I said, it appears in many photos of my boys, Bombay was extremely popular with soldiers on leave in India, not least possibly because they knew thats where they might return home from.
So given that there were not many rank and file knocking around Bombay after independence, that will be earlier than the Malaya 1948 photo. I'm thinking this man could be from one of the units that liberated Malaya and stayed on into the Emergency.
Here's another nice image of The No.5 ("Jungle Carbine") in Malaya, 1950. I think it shows well how much length you've lost in human terms--it looks really rather delicate.
On the subject of rifles, there's an interesting report I've been looking at: WO 291/1729: Weapon analysis of patrols and ambushes (1953) It praises the M1/M2 as outstanding weapons, most often carried by the lead man in a patrol, but includes this telling section which might accurately be titled 'They Don't Get Back Up'
I think the shotgun info above is a little misleading. I'm pretty sure the 140 ft. lbs is for a single 00 buckshot pellet, which is about the same as a .32 ACP pistol round, but there were about eight of them in each round. It does say "one SG shot" but it might have been helpful to also say "x 8" I like how it shows how powerful the .30 carbine was relative to 9mm.