Re: "German" Small Arms Weapons in Korea

I noticed that Swastika-like symbol on Chinese Mausers in a book and looked further. It was the mark of Jinling Arsenal in Nanking. See link,

http://www.chinesefirearms.com/history/jinglin.htm

Scrolling down there are examples where it appears almost by itself, or with the year of manufacture (counting from 1911) in Arabic numbers, other times the year's in Chinese numbers, or the swastika is part of the cartouche where the three characters read "Generalissimo type". The Generalissimo type rifle was a copy of the Mauser Standard Modell, similar to the Kar98k though not the same.

Oft times Chinese Mausers have a double diamond mark instead, meaning made at Kunghsien Arsenal.

Someone mentioned no Brit weapons but remember just a few months ago a veteran here gave a head stamp of a cartridge he found on a Chinese position and it was a .303 round made in the US for Britain in WWI, so perhaps lend lease SMLE's, of which UK gave the Nationalists a few 10k in WWII, also showed up in Korea.

Joe

----- Original Message -----

From: John Baker

To: Korean-war-L

Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2003 2:42 PM

Subject: "German" Small Arms Weapons in Korea

Dear List:

I 'm following the discussion of "German"-type weapons captured, during the Korean War. Someone mentioned that Nazi Germany furnished advisors, etc. to the Chinese Nationalist government, prior to 1939. Production documentation &, perhaps, some engineering assistantance, allowed the ChiNats to manufacture copies of the Mauser 1898K Rifle/Carbine & the Maxim M1908 Heavy[water-cooled] MG, in 7.92mm. Post-WWII US assistance gave the ChiNats tooling for the M3 SMG & the 57mm RR, among other things. The ChiNat arsenal symbol, stamped on the HMG receiver, was, I believe, a REVERSE swastika. The casual observer would interpret this to be a Nazi symbol. When the ChiComs took over Mainland China, in 1949, they continued to manufacture all the weapons, then in production, plus adding copies of certain Soviet weapons. All of these weapons were captured, at some point, during the Korean War. Best regards, jb