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I myself think that the man was from another Planet. As nobody from here can be that smart! Here is his story Grumpy
John Browning
| John Moses Browning BOL |
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Browning, c. 1915
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| Born | January 23, 1855 Ogden, Utah Territory |
| Died | November 26, 1926 (aged 71) Liège, Belgium |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Gunsmith, founder of Browning Arms Company |
| Partner(s) | Rachel Browning |
| Children | Val A. Browning |
| Parents |
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| Awards | John Scott Medal (1905) Order of Léopold (1914) |
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John Moses Browning (January 23, 1855[1] – November 26, 1926) was an American firearms designer who developed many varieties of military and civilian firearms, cartridges, and gun mechanisms, many of which are still in use around the world.[2] He is regarded as one of the most successful firearms designers of the 20th century, in the development of modern automatic and semi-automatic firearms, and is credited with 128 firearm patents.[3] He made his first firearm at age 13 in his father’s gun shop, and was awarded his first patent on October 7, 1879 at the age of 24.[4]
Browning influenced nearly all categories of firearms design. He invented or made significant improvements to single-shot, lever-action, and pump-action, rifles and shotguns. His most significant contributions were arguably in the area of autoloading firearms. He developed the first autoloading pistols that were both reliable and compact by inventing the telescoping bolt, integrating the bolt and barrel shroud into what is known as the pistol slide. Browning’s telescoping bolt design is now found on nearly every modern semi-automatic pistol, as well as several modern fully automaticweapons. He also developed the first gas-operated machine gun, the Colt–Browning Model 1895—a system that surpassed mechanical recoil operation to become the standard for most high-power self-loading firearm designs worldwide. Browning also made significant contributions to automatic cannon development.
Browning’s most successful designs include the M1911 pistol, the Browning Hi Power pistol, the M1917 .30 caliber water-cooled and M1919 .30 caliber air-cooled machine guns, the M2 .50 caliber machine gun, the Browning Automatic Rifle, and the Browning Auto-5 semi-automatic shotgun. Some of these arms are still manufactured, often with only minor changes in detail and cosmetics to those assembled by Browning or his licensees. His guns are some of the most copied guns in the world.
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Life and works[edit]
His father Jonathan Browning, who was among the thousands of Mormon pioneers in the mass exodus from Nauvoo, Illinois to Utah, established a gunsmith shop in Ogden in 1852. As was common in the Mormon community at that time, Jonathan Browning was a polygamist, having taken three wives. He fathered 19 children, including John Moses Browning.[citation needed]
John Moses worked in his father’s Ogden shop from the age of seven, where he was taught basic engineering and manufacturing principles, and encouraged to experiment with new concepts. He developed his first rifle, a single-shotfalling block action design, then founded his own manufacturing operation, in partnership with his younger brother Matthew Sandifer Browning, and began to produce this firearm.
Like his father, Browning was a Mormon, and served a two-year mission in Georgia beginning on March 28, 1887.[citation needed]
Arms[edit]
Production examples of the Model 1885 Single Shot Rifle caught the attention of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, who dispatched a representative to evaluate the competition. Winchester bought the design for $8,000 and moved production to their Connecticut factory. From 1883, Browning worked in partnership with Winchester and designed a series of rifles and shotguns, most notably the lever action Winchester Model 1887 and the Model 1897pump shotgun, the falling-block single-shot Model 1885, and the lever-action Model 1886, Model 1892, Model 1894, Model 1895 rifles as well as the long recoil operated semi-automatic Remington Model 8 rifle, many of which are still in production today in some form; over six million Model 1894s had been produced as of 1983, more than any other sporting rifle in history.[5]
Winchester manufactured several popular small arms designed by John M. Browning. For decades in the late 19th Century-early 20th Century, Browning designs and Winchester firearms were synonymous and the collaboration was highly successful. This came to an end when Browning proposed a new long recoil operated semi-automatic shotgun design, a prototype finished in 1898, to Winchester management, which ultimately became the Browning Auto-5 shotgun. As was the custom of the time, Browning’s earlier designs had been licensed exclusively to Winchester (and other manufacturers) for a single fee payment. With this new product, Browning introduced in his negotiations a continuous royalty fee based upon unit sales, rather than a single front-end fee payment. If the new shotgun became highly successful, Browning stood to make substantially more fee income over the prior license fee arrangements. Winchester management was displeased with the bold change in their relationship, and rejected Browning’s offer. Remington Arms was also approached, however the president of Remington died of a heart attack as Browning waited to offer them the gun. This forced Browning to look overseas to produce the shotgun. However; Remington would later produce a copy of the Auto-5 as the Model 11 which was used by the US Military and was also sold to the civilian market.
Having recently successfully negotiated firearm licenses with Fabrique Nationale de Herstal of Belgium (FN), Browning took the new shotgun design to FN; the offer was accepted and FN manufactured the new shotgun, honoring its inventor, as the Browning Auto-5. The Browning Auto-5 was continuously manufactured as a highly popular shotgun throughout the 20th century. In response, Winchester shifted reliance away from John Browning designs when it adopted a shotgun design of Thomas Crossley Johnson for the new Winchester Model 1911 SL, (Johnson had to work around Browning’s patents of what became the Auto-5) and the new Model 1912 pump shotgun, which was based in small part upon design features of the earlier Browning-designed Winchester Model 1897 shotgun. This shift marked the end of an era of Winchester-Browning collaboration.
Later work and life[edit]
Browning in his later years
John Browning was known as a dedicated and tireless innovator and experimenter who sought breakthrough consumer-oriented features and performance and reliability improvements in small arms designs. He did not retire from his career in his later years, but dedicated his entire adult life—literally to his last day—to these pursuits. On November 26, 1926, while working at the bench on a self-loading pistol design for Fabrique Nationale de Herstal (FN) in Liège, he died of heart failure in the design shop of his son Val A. Browning. Even the 9 mm semi-automatic pistol he was working on when he died had great design merit and was eventually completed in 1935, by Belgian designer Dieudonne Saive. Released as the Fabrique Nationale GP35, it was more popularly known as the successful Browning Hi-Power pistol, a favorite of sportsmen, gun collectors as well as many military and law enforcement agencies around the world.
The premium priced Browning Superposed shotgun, an over-under shotgun design, was his last completed firearm design and possibly his most elegant. It was marketed originally with twin triggers; a single trigger modification was later completed by his son, Val Browning. Commercially introduced in 1931 by FN, Browning Superposed shotguns, and their more affordable cousins, the Browning Citori made in Asia, continue to be manufactured into the 21st century, and come with varying grades of fine hand engraving and premium quality wood.
Throughout his life, Browning designed a vast array of military and civilian small arms for his own company, as well as for Winchester, Colt, Remington, Savage, Stevens, and Fabrique Nationale de Herstal of Belgium. Browning firearms have been made, both licensed and unlicensed, by hundreds of factories around the world. Browning Arms Company was established in 1927, the year after Browning’s death. In 1977, FN Herstal acquired the company.
Legacy[edit]
The M1895 Machine Gun saw action in the Spanish–American War with the United States Marines. The Colt M1911, Browning 1917/19, and the BAR saw action with US forces in World War I, World War II and the Korean War, with the M1911 going on to serve as the U.S.’s standard military side arm until 1985; a variant is still used by special operations units of the United States Marine Corps and the design remains very popular amongst civilian shooters and some police departments. The Browning Hi-Power has a similarly lengthy period of service outside the United States, and remains the standard side arm of the Australian and Canadian armed forces. The M2 Browning machine gun, the timeless .50 caliber “Ma Deuce”, which was developed in 1918, entered service with the US Armed Forces in 1921, and remains in active service for nearly a century with armed forces across the world in a variety of roles. The M4 cannon, a 37mm autocannon, was initially designed by Browning in 1921, and entered service in 1938; it was used both in aircraft and on the U.S. Navy PT boat during World War II.
Products[edit]
Several of Browning’s designs are still in production today. Some of his most notable designs include:
Cartridges[edit]
Firearms[edit]
Pistols[edit]
- FN M1899/M1900 (.32 ACP)
- Colt Model 1900 (.38 ACP)
- Colt Model 1902 (.38 ACP)
- Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammer (.38 ACP)
- FN Model 1903 (.32 ACP, 9mm Browning Long)
- Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless (.32 ACP)
- FN Model 1906 Vest Pocket (.25 ACP)
- Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket (.25 ACP)
- Colt Model 1908 Pocket Hammerless (.380 ACP)
- FN Model 1910 (.32 ACP, .380 ACP)
- U.S. M1911 pistol (.45 ACP)
- Browning Hi-Power (9mm Parabellum)
- Colt Woodsman pistol (.22 LR)
Shotguns[edit]
- Savage Model 720 long-recoil semi-automatic shotgun
- Ithaca Model 37 pump-action repeating shotgun
- Stevens Model 520/620 pump-action repeating shotgun
- Winchester Model 1887 lever-action repeating shotgun
- Winchester Model 1893 pump-action repeating shotgun
- Winchester Model 1897 pump-action repeating shotgun
- Winchester Model 1912 pump-action repeating shotgun
- Browning Auto-5 long-recoil semi-automatic shotgun
- Browning Superposed over/under shotgun
- Remington Model 17 pump-action repeating shotgun
Rifles[edit]
- Winchester Model 1885 falling-block single-shot rifle
- Winchester Model 1886 lever-action repeating rifle
- Winchester Model 1890 slide-action repeating rifle (.22 LR)
- Winchester Model 1892 lever-action repeating rifle
- Winchester Model 1894 lever-action repeating rifle
- Winchester Model 1895 lever-action repeating rifle
- Winchester Model 1900 bolt-action single-shot rifle (.22 LR)
- Remington Model 8 semi-auto rifle
- Browning 22 Semi-Auto rifle (.22 LR)
- Remington Model 24 semi-auto rifle (.22 LR)
- FN Trombone pump-action rifle (.22 LR)
Machine guns[edit]
- U.S. M1895 air-cooled gas-operated machine gun
- U.S. M1917 water-cooled recoil-operated machine gun
- U.S. M1919 air-cooled recoil-operated machine gun
- U.S. M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR)
- U.S. M2 .50-caliber heavy machine gun
- U.S. M4 37mm Automatic Gun
Selected patents[edit]
- U.S. Patent 220,271 Winchester 1885 single-shot rifle, Browning’s first patent
- U.S. Patent 306,577 Winchester 1886 and Model 71 lever-action rifles
- U.S. Patent 336,287 Winchester Model 1887/1901 lever-action shotgun
- U.S. Patent 385,238 Winchester 1890 pump-action rifle
- U.S. Patent 441,390 Winchester 1893 and 1897 pump-action shotguns
- U.S. Patent 465,339 Winchester 1892 lever-action rifle
- U.S. Patent 524,702 Winchester 1894 lever-action rifle
- U.S. Patent 544,657 Colt–Browning Model 1895 machine gun
- U.S. Patent 549,345 Winchester 1895 lever-action rifle
- U.S. Patent 580,924 Colt 1900 automatic pistol
- U.S. Patent 632,094 Winchester 1900 bolt-action single-shot .22 rifle
- U.S. Patent 689,283 Browning Auto-5 shotgun, also Remington Model 11 and Savage 720
- U.S. Patent 659,786 Remington Model 8 semi-automatic rifle
- U.S. Patent 678,937 M1917 Browning machine gun
- U.S. Patent 747,585 Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless automatic pistol
- U.S. Patent 781,765U.S. Patent 864,609 Stevens 520 pump-action shotgun
- U.S. Patent 808,003 Colt Model 1905 in .45 ACP (predecessor to the M1911)
- U.S. Patent 947,478 FN Model 1906 and Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket in .25 ACP
- U.S. Patent 984,519 Colt 1911
- U.S. Patent 1,065,341 Browning 22 Semi-Auto rifle and Remington model 24
- U.S. Patent 1,143,170 Remington Model 17 and Ithaca 37 pump-action shotguns
- U.S. Patent 1,276,716 Colt Woodsman
- U.S. Patent 1,293,022 Browning Automatic Rifle Model of 1918
- U.S. Patent 1,424,553 FN “Trombone” pump action .22 caliber repeater (Rare in USA)
- U.S. Patent 1,525,065 37 mm automatic cannons, M1 and M4
- U.S. Patent 1,578,638 Browning Superposed over/under shotgun
- U.S. Patent 1,618,510 FN and Browning Hi-Power pistol
- U.S. Patent 1,628,226 M2 Browning machine gun in .50 BMG
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- Jump up^ Pelley, Doug (July 2004). “Pictures of Headstones: John M. Browning”. Retrieved 2007-01-23.
- Jump up^ Borth, Christy. Masters of Mass Production, p. 152, 156-9, Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, IN, 1945.
- Jump up^ “By 1900, over 75% of the repeating sporting arms on the United States market, both lever and pump, were of John’s invention.” Browning Firearms Collection brochure from The American Society of Mechanical Engineers
- Jump up^ Encyclopædia Britannica online, “John Moses Browning”.
- Jump up^ Wallack, LR. “Sixty Million Guns”. 1983. In Gun Digest Treasury, Harold A. Murtz, editor, DBI Books. 1994 p.190 ISBN 0873491564
Sources[edit]
- Browning, John, and Curt Gentry. John M. Browning, American Gunmaker. New York: Doubleday, 1964. OCLC 1329440
Clay’s Guide to Urban Defense: Ep. 4 Hardening the Home
In our last episodes we covered the fun part: guns and how much ammo to feed ’em. I’m as guilty as anyone when it comes to chewing the fat on this topic; I’ve spent hours in the forums talking about caliber preference, weight vs. power, and all the like.
But now we have to get into the not so fun part, the part that resembles work. If guns are the equivalent of showing off your abs, the hardening the home part of this series is how you got those abs. It isn’t sexy, but it is important.
Clay’s Guide to Urban Defense
- Series Introduction
- Ep. 1 Rifles
- Ep. 2 Other Things That Go Bang
- Ep. 3 Ammo: The Amount You’ll Actually Need
- Ep. 4 Hardening the Home
- Ep. 5 First Aid, and Other Must-Haves
- Ep. 6 Escape from LA
My Experience
I’m going to start here with some general experience, and why I’m qualified to speak on the matter of defending an urban location. First and foremost, I did some tours in Iraq, which offers some unique insights.
Despite what the public generally thinks about U.S. Military bases and the lines of trailers many troops used, it wasn’t always like that. Especially in the early days, we took over former regime buildings and lived and worked in them.
It is pretty funny to see a bunch of grunts living in a palace with gold toilets, but it’s how it went. The bad guys weren’t shy about still trying to kill us in those structures, so we learned a lot about hardening them from both rifle fire and mortar attacks.
With the caveat that we usually had Uncle Sugar’s logistics train to help us, which provided very expensive and unwieldy things. Like Kevlar blast blankets and Hesco bastions as time went on. Blast blankets start at about $1,500 apiece, so I think we can leave those off the shopping list.
Second, Iraq had a very weird infrastructure. In certain spots at least, I remember being amazed by how similar it was to a U.S. city. Like the interstate highway system around Baghdad had green and white signs exactly like ours (only they were in English and Arabic), letting you know what exit was coming up.
This applied somewhat to buildings as well. In the cities, most structures were concrete and bore at least a passing resemblance to ours. Minus all the OSHA standards and safety features.
Third, not only did we harden buildings, so did the bad guys. It was not uncommon at all to have to fight through barricades and the like, especially if a certain neighborhood was in open revolt at the time.
That, combined with some very odd design choices, gives a man insight into how to set up a defense.
And fourth, my last job helps a lot as well. As a CQB instructor, part of the task was teaching new guys how to deal with obstacles similar to what they were likely to encounter.
But being on a timeline and a budget, the idea was to build those obstacles cheap and easy. But also in a manner that would require a lot of effort from the student to overcome or work around or breakthrough.
Suburban Defense
Much like the first article on rifles, where we divided the world into free and non-free cities, we need to divide again. The first part of this will focus on the suburbs, for a normal American house built of 2x4s and drywall.
The second will focus on the concrete and stone structures we introduced in episode one. There is obviously some overlap of what can be done, and those things I will put in the second part.
Having traveled the world, I can generally break all construction into two categories. American, and everyone else. For cities this is definitely true, Prague looks like Okinawa, looks like Cairo, in terms of things built in the last 50 years.
Maybe I lack the artist’s eye, but it’s how I see it. No one on earth has American-like home ownership, owed at least partially to our ability to build them relatively cheap but also structurally sound.
And while American homes have proven capable of lasting against the elements for 100 plus years, they do have a weakness. They don’t stop bullets worth a damn! Maybe that is also because we always play away games.
Unless you have something a little different, like a log cabin with foot-thick walls, your house is largely indefensible against rifles. It is even worse against fire, which is a concern I often see ignored in preppier circles. Your back fence will burn, your shingles will burn, and the outside of your house will burn with very little effort.
We have largely mitigated this problem in civilized society by having good fire departments and enforcing suburban burn bans, but it is a different animal when Mad Max rules are in play. In short, I would not want to ever try and defend my house from teeming hordes equipped with Molotov cocktails and long guns.
Sandbags And Fighting Positions
But you might not have a choice. So you can still do some things to tilt the odds in your favor. A lot of this is construction specific, which also varies from region to region. One thing that has been brought up in the comments section is sandbags.
Plausible option and it would help stop bullets at least. The downside here is the number of sandbags you would need to secure a perimeter around your home, and the labor required to fill them. Having done some sandbag filling, it is not a fun chore.
Some suggested sandbags in the context of hardening only one room, but that has downsides too. Even to protect an interior room is going to require a lot. And if you can only defend that room, you are ceding enough ground to attacking forces to get within 4 feet of you before you have a clear shot.
If you are built on a concrete foundation, you can actually take a shortcut. It’s extreme, but we are talking about extreme circumstances. If you cut holes in your floor for fighting positions, you would lower your needed sandbag count by a lot.
Because you have walls to hold the dirt up, you could actually get by without any sandbags at all. You will still want a wheelbarrow, but you could actually build “range berms” three feet high the entire way around your house. Inside or outside, depending on the direness of the situation.
I have a full basement, so my options are more complex. The smartest thing I could do is build parapets to my needed perimeter positions, and then cut firing ports in the walls to the outside. That cedes my entire first floor, but the surprise would be nasty. Imagine running up the driveway for an easy score, then taking rifle fire at knee height. Ouch!
While we are talking about the typical neighborhood set up, the direness of the situation directly influences the level of heavy-handed response from you. For instance, have you thought about fields of fire?
Most of the places I have lived, my best course of action would be extreme. I would have to huddle the neighbors in my own home, while I burned theirs to the ground.
Otherwise, the avenues of approach would be many. You can stop saboteurs at 50 meters. At five meters, they are likely to win or at least complete their task.
Plywood
What else is a high priority? The next step we can take directly from our friends in hurricane country. While plywood window coverings won’t stop bullets, they do stop bricks and Antifa goblins (FYI: half-inch plywood won’t even stop handgun rounds, much less rifle fire).
I suggest a slight variation from the full coverage of windows, leaving an 8-inch gap at the bottom. This prevents your house from being totally dark while also creating airflow. Since you bought a pile of guns from episode 1, it also gives you space to see and shoot back.
Won’t the gap make the window coverings easier to rip off? That is a valid criticism, and yes, a little. But two things. One, as they said in Rhodesia, “An obstacle is only an obstacle if it’s covered by fire.”
If someone is sticking a crowbar in your barricades, you should be sticking bullets in them. And two, trying to remove a sheet of plywood held in by a dozen three-inch deck screws is no easy feat. With your F-250 maybe but not with just your hands or hand tools.
Won’t the gap allow snipers to shoot into your house? Possibly. Walking in front of a lit window does create a signature that could get you shot. But it is also kind of the point of the gap. That ribbon of light should serve as a reminder not to walk in front of it. Because in terms of rifle fire, your house might as well be made of paper mache.
Doesn’t the plywood create a fire risk all its own? Yes, it will burn, no question. But if it keeps a Molotov from landing in your living room/inside perimeter, it has still done its job. Which brings up the next subject.
Fire Extinguishers And Screws!
Aside from all the standard prepper food and water, you are going to need some other things for home defense. Right up there with bullets should be fire extinguishers. A million dollars in guns and ammo is worthless to you if it burns up. When you calculate the spots in your home that need to be covered by a sentry, calculate 2x fire extinguishers for each as well.
Next, you need at minimum a full contractor box of either nails or deck screws. I prefer deck screws, but only if I have a cordless drill. Nails are easier to install with manual labor but are also easier to pull out. You can make some creative barricades with just that and materials laying around your garage or basement. In the absence of plywood, I could barricade all my windows with fence planks.
For our suburban neighborhood defense, I will close with this. You are going to have to think outside the box. One of the other specific suggestions I have is to plant a large bush or bamboo in a spot you have no windows, 3-4 feet off the wall. The thicker the better. If I was planning to siege a suburban house, and I had numbers on my side, what would my plan be? The same as any Old West movie. Cover the doors and windows with guns, and set it on fire. Shoot anyone that comes out. It is a mistake to assume goblins have never watched an old Western or can’t fathom that simplistic line of reasoning. If you find yourself in that spot, the weakness of sheetrock walls can work to your advantage for once. The bushes are to cover your emergency escape hatch, that you are cutting on the inside from day one of the crisis. If you ever need it, cut the last bit of exterior wall you have left in place, and the ground cover buys you precious seconds of surprise. It’s little things that often give you a tactical advantage, and you have to shift your thinking.
Tune in next week, when we cover the specific defense of concrete buildings for our brethren stuck at the city center.
Categories
List of bullpup firearms
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NO NOT THAT KIND OF COUGAR!!!
This kind, geez!
I think I would want a firearm, or at the very least, a large knife. Cougar attack suspected in hiker’s death near Oregon’s Mount Hood, officials say.
But that advice is beyond the pale for CBS in Oregon. Or maybe Oregon, in all its liberal glory forbids weapons in parks. (Why would you need to be armed in nature? Read this article.)
But that advice is beyond the pale for CBS in Oregon. Or maybe Oregon, in all its liberal glory forbids weapons in parks. (Why would you need to be armed in nature? Read this article.)
If in the very unusual event that a cougar attacks you, fight back with rocks, sticks, tools or any items available.
This is the sad story of a hiker killed on Mount Hood, by a wild animal. Or maybe it is a cautionary tale.
While this is the first fatal attack in Oregon, there have been fatal attacks in other states.
Although this is Oregon’s first documented fatal cougar attack in the wild, other states with large cougar populations have seen fatal attacks.
Three people have died due to cougar attacks in California, and 10 people have been attacked and suffered non-fatal injuries, according to state records. Colorado also has had three fatal cougar attacks.
Humans are only apex predators when we are armed. Fighting off a wild animal with rocks and sticks ignores millennia of our history. (Though we did start with sticks and rocks, that was a very long time ago.)
If a person like me. was to ever get a chance to either buy, steal , borrow & or get to shoot one of these all Time Classics from the Past. I know that I would have an extremely hard time saying no. Just saying that is. Grumpy
he five standard calibers of the Shooting Master:
Barrel Markings:
Shooting Master .455 Eley:
Shooting Masters in nickel:
.45 ACP
.45 Colt
Engraved Shooting Masters:
S/N 328185 given to Ed Langrish by Fitz and enscribed as such:
“C” Engraved Shooting Master
All that I know is that if and when I win the lottery Big. Getting my hands on any of these Beauts.
Will be on the extremely high part of “what to do my to do with my newly won loot! list”
H&H by the way, in my book at least. Does not stand for Holland & Holland. But in true, it means Hurt & Hurt some more!
Somebody went out and got themselves a mighty nice piece of tree here!
It looks to me that all this lion tamer needs is a good scope with rings. That & some good quality ammo to feed it!
Nice Tip on it too!
That Gentlemen is one mighty big hole there!
“The .375 H&H often is cited as one of the most useful all-round rifle cartridges, especially in shooting large and dangerous game.
With relatively light bullets in the region of 235 to 270 grains (15 to 17 g), it is a flat-shooting, fairly long-range cartridge ideal for use on light to medium game. With heavy bullets of 300 grains (19 g) and greater, it has the punch necessary for large, thick-skinned dangerous game.
In many regions with thick-skinned dangerous game animals, the .375 H&H is seen as the minimum acceptable caliber, and in many places (primarily in Africa) it is now the legal minimum for hunting such game.
African game guides, professional hunters, and dangerous game cullers have repeatedly voted the .375 H&H as their clear preference for an all-round caliber if they could have only one rifle. Alaskan game guides have expressed a similar preference for brown bear and polar bear country”.
This is part of my series of articles that I have written in the past about postwar Germany right after the end of WWII and before Germany was formed as a republic in 1951.
The surrender didn’t happen immediately, there were cases of German U-boats that didn’t know of the surrender until weeks later.
It’s easy to imagine that once World War II officially ended, the defeated Germans forces were so anxious to get home that they dropped their guns where they stood, stripped off their uniforms, and quickly surrendered from exhaustion, hunger, and stress.
Not quite.
Many German soldiers were caught by surprise when Hitler’s second in command, Karl Donitz, signed the instrument of unconditional surrender in Berlin in 1945.
By then, as we know, Hitler himself was dead of a self-administered cyanide dose in his bunker, along with his mistress, Eva Braun.
But trying to stop a war in its tracks is a little like coaxing a hippo into doing a pirouette: impossible. In reality, it took months for the war to end. In some cases, Germans were terrified of surrendering to the Russians, from whom they feared the worst treatment. In total, the surrender took four months to go fully into effect and halt all skirmishes.
When the fighting ceased on the Russian front, many German soldiers raced to reach Allied forces, fearing the Soviets would be merciless in their treatment of POWs.
Along the coast of Gdansk, they fought not for Hitler anymore, but for their very lives. Finally, they had to surrender to the Red Army in early May.
Captured German battle Standards displayed on Red Square after the Surrender.
As the Germans retreated, brief but fierce battles broke out on the Balkan and even on some occupied Greek Islands.
As news of the Allied victory spread, men serving on the German U-Boat 234, loaded with half a ton of uranium intended to aid the Japanese, headed for America instead.
Its captain, Johann-Henrich Fehler, was terrified of being caught by the British or Canadians and felt the U.S. would be less harsh in its treatment of his crew. Two Japanese men on board killed themselves, rather than face detention in a POW camp.
Another incident that took place rather slowly was the British recapture of the Channel Islands. Churchill was in no rush to round up the Germans, who had occupied the islands since their invasion in 1940, saying “let them starve.” Eventually, there was a peaceful surrender in mid-May.
The bloodiest incident that took place after Germany’s defeat was a mutiny on the Dutch isle of Texel.
Germany had forced some Georgian citizens into service during the war, as part of its Atlantic Wall Defence Force.
However, on April 5th, the Georgians launched a mutiny in an effort to shed themselves of Germany’s control. Resisters killed 800 German soldiers while they slept.
This infuriated the Germans, who sent 2,000 troops to the island to squash the rebellion. And squash it they did, at the cost of 565 Georgian men, 120 Dutch citizens, and 812 German soldiers. The long-awaited Allied invasion finally happened on May 20th.
Perhaps the best-known individual from the war’s conclusion is U-Boat Captain Heinz Schaffer, who wrote a book about his exploits, “U-977 – 66 Days Under Water.”
Schaffer was given the unappealing assignment of steering his sub to Britain in a suicide mission designed to destroy all the British boats he could before he himself was destroyed.
But when he got word that Germany was defeated, he headed instead for Argentina, where he hoped to find asylum. Unfortunately for him, the Argentine government immediately turned him over to the Americans, who kept the sub as a kind of macabre war memento.
Last but not least is Japanese operative Hiroo Onoda, who must be included in any round up of the final events of World War II. Onoda was sent to the Philippines to hinder the enemy in any way he could. He heard about his country’s defeat in a timely fashion but decided he wanted no part of it. Instead, he chose to keep undermining the Allies and so he headed for the hills to escape. He managed to hide there until 1974 when a Japanese official finally went to the Philippines to retrieve him.
When a New Mexico hunting guide reportedly found himself the target of a bear, he dropped his phone and reached for his pistol. It would turn out to be one of the best decisions he ever made. An earlier decision, though, threatened to cost him his life.
He’d been working out his dogs in preparation for the upcoming hunting season when they’d struck a bear’s trail.
The only way to put an end to that was to catch up with his dogs, so he pursued, with family members following. As he approached the fight, he grabbed his not-fully-loaded pistol as he left his UTV.
He’d been working out his dogs in preparation for the upcoming hunting season when they’d struck a bear’s trail.
The only way to put an end to that was to catch up with his dogs, so he pursued, with family members following. As he approached the fight, he grabbed his not-fully-loaded pistol as he left his UTV.
As an afterthought, he took the GLOCK 20 10mm pistol from his vehicle and shoved it in his waistband behind his cowboy belt.
It was loaded with 175 grain Hornady Critical Duty FlexLock loads. The magazine only had 10-12 rounds in it.
A few months earlier, he had heard the theory of “spring set” and decided not to keep the magazine fully loaded.
He approached the melee, expecting the bear to run at the sight of him. And when he spotted the bruin, he grabbed his phone to take some video of its unusual cinnamon coloration. But the bear had other ideas.
Bridger’s first thought was to get video. It would be an incredible image. Big cinnamon bears aren’t common. The bear would run at any moment, once he saw or smelled the man. Bridger grabbed his phone.
That bear never read the rule book. It didn’t run.
The bear saw Bridger, turned toward him, and flattened its ears back along its head. Its eyes had locked on Bridger.
He’d watched hundreds of bears in similar situations and he knew he’d been targeted. He dropped the phone and snatched the GLOCK from his belt.
A lot happened very fast, but for Bridger, everything slowed down as he went into tachypsychia.
It’s a common occurrence in high stress life-or-death situations. The mind speeds up and events appear to be happening in slow motion. In reality, the person is acting faster than they ever have before.
The bear was coming for him. Bridger elected not to aim for the head. He didn’t want to hit one of his dogs.
He triggered two or three shots aimed at the bear’s body. The bear started to spin, snapping at the wounds, about six feet away.
Bridger decided to retreat. He turned and hopped to the next boulder, then the next. He was mid air to the third when he saw dogs moving past him.
In his fast mind-state, he realized this was bad. As he landed and turned, the big GLOCK in his hand, and saw the bear coming at him like an over-sized NFL linebacker with claws and big, pointy teeth.
Before he could fire again, the bear hit him. They went over the edge of the shelf together, tumbling down a steep, rocky slope in mortal combat.
Although he has no memory of shooting as they fell, empty shells were later found along the path of their descent.
Bear and man stopped down slope, wedged into brush and boulders.
Bridger could feel the bear and frantically attempted to disentangle.
The bear reared erect, jaws ready to strike. Bridger shot him again, in the front of his chest before falling/sliding further down the slope.
The bear pursued him. He screamed at Janelle to stay away.
Bridger tried to kick the bear away from him as it tried to get at his upper body. He couldn’t shoot for fear of hitting his own legs.
The bear dodged a kick, and grabbed Bridger’s right inner thigh in its jaws, lifting him like a dog lifting a rabbit.
Bridger shoved the muzzle of the GLOCK against the bears neck, trying to shatter its spine and shut the bear down. He fired.
The bear released his lower thigh, then grabbed his calf, just below the knee.
The shot missed the spine. Man and bear are still moving fast, but in Bridger’s hyper-aware state, time slowed. He saw an opportunity for a head shot and pressed the trigger on the GLOCK.
Click.
Later, Bridger found bear hair between the guide rod and the slide of the G20 pistol. The hair prevented the slide from returning into battery.
Bridger knew he should still have ammunition left in the magazine, so he racked the slide and saw a live round eject in slow motion.
Fractions of a second later, another opportunity for a head shot presented itself.
The bear ripped at his leg. As the bear tried to tear off his calf muscle, Bridger saw his chance and pressed the trigger.
Blam!
Man and bear went down together, rolling and sliding a bit further down the slope.
Although the bear was dead, its teeth were still hopelessly tangled in Bridger’s calf muscle. When rescue personnel arrived — quickly, thanks to his family’s close proximity at the time of the attack — they struggled and failed to free the meat from the fangs.
Only after cutting the bear’s head off with a pocket knife could they transport Bridger and his now-gray leg muscle.
Which was another problem. After seeing the aftermath of a helicopter crash months before, Bridger had sworn never to ride in a chopper. But that was his only choice…
As he heard the rescue helicopter come in, Bridger started saying “I am not going on that thing!”
The helicopter landed asd [sic] shock was setting in. Bridger started convulsing. Bridger told one of the flight paramedics from the helicopter, a lovely young woman, that he couldn’t ride in that machine.
She hooked up an intravenous drip as they transferred him from the mountain litter to a gurney. “Let me help you get more comfortable,” she said. She reached across and fastened the chest strap, leaned over, lips close to his ear, and said, “Honey, you don’t have a choice.”
The morphine started to hit. The world changed, and Bridger said, “Lets go!”
Surgery took more than 4 hours, and he received more than 200 stitches.
The article says Bridger is “thinking about heavier, deeper-penetrating bullets in 10mm cartridges designed for bear defense, to carry in his GLOCK.”
I’d say that’s not a bad idea… although a revolver chambered for a more powerful round might be a better one.
________________________________ Myself am a fan of the Sig 220 with some GI 45 acp 220 gr FMJ in the magazine. None the less this man put up one hell of a fight! Grumpy