Armed Citizen Corner: British Pistol Use During World War I

Here’s an interesting piece of research, done in 2010 by one David Thomas as part of a degree in British First World War Studies:

The Pistol in British Military Service During the Great War (pdf)

This is a well-footnoted 38 pages, covering the British procurement of handguns, the different types of handguns use, and the training methods used with them. To me, the most interesting part was those training methods – I had not realized British training was nearly as elaborate as it really was.

The influence of [Captain Charles] Tracy is as the bringer of pistol fighting technique. In 1915 he wrote a simple instructional handbook for more advanced training, drawing attention to his skills and knowledge. He advocated the use of instinctive shooting at close ranges and using the sights for longer distances.Tracy’s stated “War Shot” standard was the ability of a man to hit a 12” by 16” rectangle, with one pistol shot at ten yards, in one second. He is acknowledged as the writer of the 1916 Addendum to Musketry Regulations, which improved pistol training enormously.

…Issued with Army Orders as a separate 15 page close-typed document, it was intended to be enclosed with Musketry Regulations. It included a much more advanced and demanding set of practices and tests than before the war.

These cover grouping, rapid and snap shooting, at a variety of ranges, and engaging targets whilst advancing on foot. Shooting is to be conducted with both right and left hand, single and double action, to tight timings. One practice involves firing at targets whilst moving down a trench. There are mounted practices for those for whom they were appropriate.

The Boer War had involved relatively little use of handguns, and their training and procurement lapsed between the end of that conflict and the beginning of World War I. At that point, though, it seems that the British really put in serious work to improve handgun shooting skills with their troops. Handguns were used extensively by officers of course, but also by naval troops, aviators, tank crewmen, and machine gun crewmen. As the author says,

From a somewhat simple and unsuitable procedure at the start of the War, British pistol technique developed along parallel but complimentary official and private lines, to a sophisticated level. Safe use, allied to skilled tactical methods produced first class combat shots. Anyone passing out from a revolver instructional course in the latter half of the War would have been better trained with a pistol than all but special forces personnel in the modern army.

Definitely worth a read!

Read the Original Article at Forgotten Weapons

World War I History: Australia And The Battle of Fromelles

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Interpreter, which is published by the Lowy Institute for International Policy, an independent, nonpartisan think tank based in Sydney. War on the Rocks is proud to be publishing articles from The Interpreter weekly.

Fromelles, fought one hundred years ago this week, is now one of the most famous battles in which Australians fought during World War I. It is routinely remembered as the greatest disaster in Australian military history: 5533 casualties in 24 hours, all for an operation that manifestly had no strategic value.

But Fromelles was not always central to Australian memory of war. In the inter-war years, the battleground became the site of one of the thousands of cemeteries created by the Imperial War Graves Commission. Here, at VC Corner, the remains of 410 unidentified Australian dead were interred and the names of the 1299 Australian missing from Fromelles inscribed on the memorial walls. In Australia, meanwhile, survivors of Fromelles would gather every year on July 19, while families who had lost men in what they called Fleurbaix would also insert “In Memoriam” notices in newspapers.

However, Fromelles was not then a “national memory,” in the sense of being a battle that was honored in prominent national rituals of commemoration. Perhaps this was because it was soon eclipsed by other costlier battles on the Western Front, such as Pozieres on the Somme and the Third Battle of Ypres in Flanders in 1917. Perhaps it was because survivors of World War I preferred to see themselves as heroes, not victims, as is the vogue in war commemoration of the early 21^st century. The 5th Division, for instance, when asked in 1919 where it wanted to install the memorial celebrating its wartime achievements chose not Fromelles but Polygon Wood, the site of one of the more successful actions during the Third Battle of Ypres.

All of this changed in the 1990s. As the extraordinary resurgence of interest in war memory occurred not only in Australia but around the globe, Fromelles was rediscovered. This was the result of both government intervention and individual initiatives. In 1998, the Australian government opened a memorial park at Fromelles on the 80^th anniversary of the end of World War I. At its heart was a statue of a man staggering under the weight of a wounded soldier draped across his shoulders. Called Cobbers, it immortalizes a Victorian farmer, Sergeant Simon Fraser of 57^th Battalion, who in the days after the Fromelles battle joined small groups scouring the battlefield for the wounded. It was a story of compassion and mateship waiting to join other icons of Australian war memory:Simpson and his Donkey, and “Weary” Dunlop. Indeed, the sculptor of Cobbers, Peter Corlett, had already created the statues of these two iconic figures that stand now outside the Australian War Memorial.

Read the Remainder at War on the Rocks

World War I History: The Best Sniper of the Great War – Francis Pegahmagabow

I, for one, and am pleased to see the steady expansion of The Great War’s video library. It goes to show the power of Patreon campaigns and crowd-sourcing to back up and support great content creators who might otherwise not being able to afford producing. As a result of this, The Great War has been steadily expanding their content including a great series titled “Who Did What in World War 1?”

Their latest entry covers the “best” sniper of World War 1, a Canadian trooper by the name of Francis Pehahmagabow, who ultimately became the most decorated aborigonal soldier from the war.

Francis joined the army a scant nine days after Germany declared war on the United Kingdom. Raised in an adopted family (the story is that he was found next to his dead mother from childbirth), Francis played in  band and worked on Great Lakes freighters.

Identified as an exceptional soldier, he was used for extremely dangerous missions (which he rather enjoyed) including running messages and as a sniper. He took huge risks such as actually going to the German trenches and cutting off souvenirs while the Germans were sleeping.

He is credited with 378 sniper kills, the most of any sniper from any country in the war.

Pegahmagabow lived a stored life post-war.

Read the Original Article at The Firearm Blog

Military History: The Tank Turns 100 Years Old

Last Friday, July 1, marked the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme in WWI. The Battle of the Somme, also known as the Somme Offensive, was several months long. It began with 18 (!) French and  British divisions going “over the top” and was the largest battle of the First World War. Over a million casualties were suffered; 60,000 of them were British on that first Saturday alone.

“…a series of extended lines of British infantry were seen moving forward from the British trenches. The first line appeared to continue with end to right and left. It was quickly followed by a second line, then a third and a fourth…

‘Get ready!’

“…Red rockets sped up into the blue sky as a signal to the artillery, and immediately afterwards a mass of shells from the German batteries in the rear tore through the air and burst among the advancing lines. Whole sections seemed to fall, and the rear formations, moving in closer order, quickly scattered. The advance rapidly crumbled under this hail of shells and bullets. All along the line men could be seen throwing their arms into the air and collapsing, never to move again. Badly wound rolled about in their agony, and others less severely injured crawled to the nearest shell-hole for shelter.

The British soldier, however, has no lack of courage, and once his hand is set to the plough he is not easily turned from his purpose. The extended lines, though badly shaken and with many gaps, now came on all the faster. ”  Matthäus Gerster, Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 119

Today is July 4, the 100th anniversary of the death of the American poet Alan Seeger (author of ‘I have a rendezvous with death‘) one of many thousands of Americans who volunteered to fight on behalf of the French long before the United States entered the war. The Somme Offensive was unlike anything the world had seen before — 19th century tactics employed in the face of 20th century weaponry, resulting in the worst casualty rates in the history of warfare. One of the results of this battle — the first ever deployment of tanks (also something never before seen) to the battlefield, though that did not actually happen until September.

That makes 2016 the centenary of the tank.

Read the Remainder at Breach Bang Clear

World War I Era Weapons: Japanese Arisaka Type 30

Read the Original Article at Forgotten Weapons

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