Category: All About Guns
The man lived on his rural farm on the outskirts of his tiny Mississippi town. His yard was meticulously maintained, and Old Glory fluttered quietly in the breeze from an imposing flagpole set in concrete. The flag didn’t stay out overnight…ever. It had been raised and lowered every day on this pole for more than half a century.
He was the very image of a good Christian man of character. He had served as a deacon in his church and teased a modest living out of the farmland that surrounded his modest three-bedroom home. He had raised his kids well and selflessly helped his neighbors. Now well into his eighties, he had agreed to spend an afternoon with me and my young son.
The man was soft-spoken as we nursed our iced tea and soaked up every word. He looked off into nothing as his mind wandered back to very different times. Though we sat in peace, security, and comfort, his memory took him somewhere else.
This unassuming man described being a 19-year-old Infantryman heading ashore in a Higgins boat on June 6, 1944. His destination was Omaha beach. It was about 1400 in the afternoon.
He charged terrified down the open ramp into the very bowels of hell. Wrecked equipment and shredded bodies littered the sand, surf, and shale. The smell of cordite, dirty smoke, ruptured bowels, and death pervaded everything. German mortar and artillery fire still slammed into the beach as well as the advances inland.
A Steep Learning Curve
The man survived the Longest Day to advance with the Allied vanguard. A product of the Mississippi backwoods and a survivor of the Great Depression, this tough teenager found that he had a knack for soldiering. When his company needed intelligence he and a fellow Southern redneck boy would slip off into the night looking for trouble. Sometimes they came back with a prisoner. Sometimes not. The man told me he got comfortable with a knife in the dark.
By late August the man and his buddies had taken the full measure of the enemy. The hard fighting through the bocage hedgerows had brought him face to face with the Nazi superman. He found the German Wehrmacht to be a hardened professional fighting force.
He called the Waffen SS “those Gestapo men.” Decades later his hatred for these fanatical racist lunatics modulated the timbre of his conversation. He told me unapologetically, “We didn’t take many of those Gestapo men prisoner.”
He explained that the SS frequently left a couple of snipers behind when the Germans finally abandoned a position of strategic importance. The carnage they inflicted made little difference in the grand scheme. They just dealt death whenever they could.
Kill or Be Killed
My buddy’s unit was tasked to seize Orly airport outside Paris. The Luftwaffe had used Orly as a fighter and bomber base throughout the occupation of France, and the Allied air forces had pounded it into rubble as a result. In August of 1944, however, the wrecked aerodrome was deceptively quiet.
The company commander called a tactical halt. My friend and his battle buddy crept around the periphery of the wrecked airport before ascending one of the taller structures for a proper vantage. Taking cover such that they could just peer over the edge of the roof they finally saw the two German snipers. Tucked into a pile of debris on the roof of a nearby structure the two SS sharpshooters were well-camouflaged and fixated on the approaches to the aerodrome. The two Germans had no idea that they had only moments to live.
Speaking in hushed whispers my buddy and his comrade estimated the range to their targets and adjusted the rear sights on their heavy M1 rifles to compensate. My friend called the man on the left and his counterpart oriented on the one on the right. On the soft count of three, both men squeezed their triggers.
Both rifles rolled back in recoil as their 152-grain M2 ball rounds covered the distance to the pair of German snipers at 2,800 feet per second. Both of the American grunts had grown up with guns, and they knew how to shoot. Each GI center-punched the coal-scuttle helmet of his respective SS target, killing them both instantly.
The Guns
In 1936 the United States military was woefully behind those of most other major powers. The Great Depression had ravaged the American economy, and a lack of attention to military readiness had taken a horrible toll on such stuff as tanks and combat aircraft. The gleaming exception was the M1 rifle. American troops entered WW2 with what General George Patton described as, “the finest battle implement ever devised.”
Designed by a Canadian-American inventor named John Cantius Garand (properly pronounced, I’m reliably told, so as to rhyme with “errand.”), the M1 was a .30-caliber, gas-operated, 8-shot, clip-fed, semiautomatic rifle. The weapon weighed 9.5 pounds and was 43.6 inches long. By the time the M1 reached US Army troops in 1937, production at Springfield Armory was ten rifles per day. Two years later output languished at 100 per day. By the end of the weapon’s massive production run, however, some 5.4 million had been made by four major manufacturers.
By modern standards, the M1 was heavy, cumbersome, and grossly overpowered. However, at the outset of the Second World War, the M1 was a wonder weapon. Ammunition was supplied in spring steel 8-round en-bloc clips that were pressed in place from above with the bolt locked to the rear.
En bloc simply means that the ammunition clip became part of the weapon’s action during firing. When loading the rifle, the operator pressed the clip down from above and snatched his thumb clear as the bolt automatically flew home. The clip was ejected out of the top of the action after the last round fired.
An M1 rifle cost Uncle Sam about $85 during the war. That’s about $1260 today. The M1 was rugged, accurate, and powerful. I have never spoken with a combat veteran who carried one who had anything but unvarnished praise for the piece.
The Rest of the Story
There was a still a great deal of fighting left to be done after my friend and his comrades cleared Orly airport. There is no telling how many lives these two young warriors saved just in this one exchange. However, the worst was yet to come.
The Ardennes Offensive has become known as the Battle of the Bulge from the vantage of comfortable hindsight. My buddy said at the time it was pure unfiltered chaos. German Army Group B led by Joachim Peiper and the 1st SS Panzer Division slashed deep into Allied territory, shredding American defenses and scattering combat units randomly among the detritus. The US response devolved into tiny packets of troops fighting for their lives. My pal found himself leading a handful of bedraggled survivors deep behind the German spearheads.
Otto Skorzeny’s Operation Greif involved the insertion of English-speaking Germans in American uniforms to sow confusion in Allied rear areas. The effect that had on the Allied defense was outsized beyond their pure numbers. Suddenly nobody trusted anybody they didn’t already know well, and jumpy sentries shot first and asked questions later.
After a protracted escape and evasion, my buddy’s motley band finally made it back to friendly lines exhausted and spent. The first sentry they encountered covered them with a BAR and demanded to know who won the World Series in a particular year. My buddy not so gently explained that he had no idea. He expounded that while the Yankees were comfortably enjoying their baseball he was out hunting opossums in the Mississippi swamps to keep his family from starving. The sentry let them pass.
My buddy rendered his professional opinion on all of the major US small arms. He explained that there was always only one M1. The M1 Carbine was simply the Carbine, and the M1A1 Thompson was always the Thompson. Nobody used the term Garand. The standard US Infantry rifle was always just called the M1.
He said for an entire year some part of his skin was touching that rifle. Awake, asleep, shaving, eating, or defecating, that weapon was always at arm’s reach. He said that the Carbine was an effective and handy combat tool, but that it did frequently require several shots to take a German soldier out of the fight. By contrast, he said that so long as you caught him center of mass, the M1 would put an enemy soldier down instantly every single time.
We went back to the man’s barn neatly populated with tractor components and the sundry detritus of a working farm. The open building smelled like motor oil, horse manure, and dirt. Hanging obscurely in the corner was a dusty German helmet, the faded SS runes still visible. There was a .30-caliber hole running cleanly in and out both sides. How do we make such men as these?
Categories
The Stevens 107b
Lee-Enfield Rifle: The Long Arm of the British Empire and the story of Lachhiman Gurung
The Nepalese Gurkhas are legendary fighters who have served the British crown for generations.
Lachhiman Gurung seemed an unremarkable sort. He stood all of four feet eleven inches tall when he left his village to buy cigarettes for his father and ended up enlisting as a Gurkha in the service of the British Empire on a whim. However, on May 12, 1945, deep in a Burmese jungle Lachhiman Gurung proved that sometimes some of the most remarkable stuff comes in compact packages.
Gurung’s fighting position was at the foremost vanguard of his unit’s defensive emplacements standing ready against a pending Japanese attack. When the Japanese came they led with 200 seasoned assault troops. In fairly short order Gurung was alone, the rest of his mates either dead or dying.
Once the Japanese troops got within hand grenade range they began pelting Gurung’s position with grenades. Gurung picked up the first two and threw them back at his attackers. When he hefted the third it detonated in his hand, removing most of his right hand, blinding his right eye, and peppering his body and face liberally with shrapnel. Where most normal humans would have the good grace to just lay down and die, Gurung unsheathed his Kukri knife, shoved it into the ground at the lip of his foxhole, and announced to the Japanese that they would get no further than that knife. He then hefted his Lee-Enfield rifle, chambered a round with his left hand, and invited the Japanese to see what it was like to, “Come fight a Gurkha.”
At only 4 feet 11 inches tall, Lachhiman Gurung did not seem like a particularly imposing figure. However, behind a Lee Enfield rifle he wrought sheer havoc upon attacking Japanese forces despite grievous wounds.
The Japanese accepted Gurung’s offer. For the next four hours, Lachhiman Gurung ran his bolt-action Lee-Enfield rifle one-handed, setting the rifle down to work the bolt or reload with his left hand before taking it up again to kill more Japanese. When the Japanese got close enough to overrun his position Gurung would lay down, let them come in close, and then jump up to cut them down at point blank range, all the while running his bolt-action rifle with his single remaining hand.
When he was finally relieved, there were thirty-one dead Japanese soldiers in and around Gurung’s fighting position. He was heard by nearby troops shouting, “Come and fight! Come and fight! I will kill you!” in an effort at taunting the Japanese in closer. Lachhiman Gurung was awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest award for valor in combat, for his actions that night in the sweltering Burmese jungle. The fanatical defense of that forlorn combat outpost by a single Nepalese Gurkha, himself less than five feet tall, demonstrated to all involved that a single determined man with a rifle can be a formidable combat implement.
The Gun
The SMLE No 1 armed British troops throughout World War I and into World War II. Many Commonwealth soldiers used this reliable bolt-action repeater through the end of the conflict.
The Lee-Enfield rifle was first adopted in 1895, and it soldiered on through a variety of marks until it was finally supplanted by the L1A1 variant of the FN FAL in 1957. More than 17 million of the guns saw service. Possession of a Lee-Enfield rifle marks one as a warlord of distinction in Afghanistan even today. Designed by a Scotsman named James Paris Lee, the Lee-Enfield superseded the Lee-Metford rifle. Its longevity in service is exceeded solely by the Russian Mosin-Nagant.
The Lee-Enfield in its sundry guises fed from a detachable ten-round box magazine. However, in action troops were trained to charge the rifle from the top via either loose rounds or five-round stripper clips. Early SMLE (Short Magazine Lee-Enfield) No 1 versions featured a pivoting magazine cutoff plate that only allowed the weapon to be fired one round at a time. Troops who carried the SMLE referred to it affectionately as the “Smelly.” At the time it was introduced it was thought the magazine cutoff might reduce the British troops’ tendencies toward profligate ammunition expenditure. As mechanical restrictions on one’s onboard ammo supply are typically not terribly popular in combat this superfluous appendage was deleted in short order.
The Lee-Enfield sported rear-locking lugs along with a short bolt throw. In addition, the action cocks on closing while most competing designs cock when you open the bolt. This all conspired to give the Lee-Enfield rifle an exceptionally high rate of fire in the hands of a trained rifleman. British soldiers were trained to fire between twenty and thirty aimed shots per minute as part of a “Mad Minute” exercise. This maneuver was intended to apply maximum fire to an area in as short a period as possible. The current record for performance with a Lee-Enfield rifle is held a British Army rifle instructor named Snoxall who hit a twelve-inch target at 300 meters 38 times in sixty seconds.
The SMLE’s vital statistics are inscribed on the wrist of the weapon. This particular example was produced in 1914 and bears the inscription “GR” for “George Rex.”
The SMLE feeds from a 10-round detachable box magazine.
For all its remarkable performance the SMLE No. 1 was an expensive rifle to produce. The SMLE soldiered on in Imperial service throughout World War II, particularly among Commonwealth troops. It was an SMLE No. 1 Mk III that Lachhiman Gurung wielded that night in Burma. However, after Dunkirk the Brits needed something they could produce a little faster. Enter the simplified No. 4 Lee-Enfield. The No 1 and the No. 4 can be easily discerned at a glance by their muzzle bosses. The No. 1 has a stubby nose. The No 4 sports a small bit of barrel protruding out the front. Each rifle accepts a different bayonet.
Early No. 1 SMLE rifles sported sights that were graduated out to 2,000 yards.
Despite its detachable magazine, the SMLE rifle was intended to be charged from the top via stripper clips. Early models had the magazine attached to the rifle via a short length of chain to prevent its loss.
My SMLE No. 1 rifle has had a cracked forearm meticulously repaired.
The No. 4 came in several variations but most featured simplified flip-adjustable rear sights and somewhat cruder construction. Early SMLE No. 1 rifles had sights graduated out to 2,000 meters. Troops of this era were trained to use their rifles for massed volley fire as well as indirect fire over obstacles. There are numerous anecdotes of German troops in WWII believing they were under attack from machineguns when in reality they were simply being subject to the massed fire from trained British riflemen.
The No. 5 Mk 1 became known as the Jungle Carbine. This Lee Enfield rifle sported a shorter barrel, cut-down stock, and lightening cuts to make the rifle as lightweight as possible. All this conspired to enhance the Lee-Enfield’s already prodigious recoil.
The No. 5 Mk 1 (T) was the dedicated sniper version of the No. 4 Lee Enfield. Equipped with a wooden cheekpiece and a 3.5X telescopic sight, this superb sniper rifle served throughout WWII and Korea. The accuracy requirements for these rifles demanded that they place 7 out of 7 shots within a 5-inch circle at 200 yards.
Early SMLE No 1 rifles sported a magazine cutoff feature that mandated that the rifle be loaded one round at a time. This superfluous device was deleted in short order. Early SMLE No 1 rifles sported a magazine cutoff feature that mandated that the rifle be loaded one round at a time. This superfluous device was deleted in short order.
I have a friend who was shot in the chest by a Chinese sniper wielding a captured No. 5 Mk 1 (T) during the Korean War. My buddy was wearing a brand new flak jacket at the time. The round struck the 1911A1 pistol he was carrying in a shoulder holster before deflecting into his flak vest, leaving him bruised but otherwise unhurt.
The wrist of the Lee Enfield rifle typically holds the gun’s vital statistics. The “GR” marking stands for “George Rex,” the British monarch reigning during the production of most of these early guns. These rifles were produced at a variety of facilities on several continents to include plants in the US and Canada. The Lee-Enfield saw service everywhere the British fought during the first half of the 20th century.
The No. 4 Lee Enfield rifle was the definitive WWII model. It was cheaper and faster to build than the WWI-era No. 1.
The rear sight on the No. 4 is a simple flip aperture.
This No. 4 is a Canadian version built in 1943 at the Long Branch arsenal.
The No. 4 Lee Enfield sports a stubby bit of barrel out the snout. The No. 1 has a flattened nose cap. This is the easiest way to differentiate the two rifles at a glance.
The shortened No. 5 Lee Enfield included a conical flash suppressor and was called the Jungle Carbine.
The German Kar 98k cocks on opening. The Lee Enfield cocks on closing. This makes the British rifle faster in action.
Post Script
From left to right—the American .30-06, the British .303-in Rimmed, and the German 7.97x57mm Mauser.
Lachhiman Gurung’s primary complaint after the protracted night action that decimated his unit and cost him an eye and an arm was that his injured arm kept attracting flies. He ultimately healed and returned to his native Nepal as a farmer. In time he immigrated to the UK.
In 2008 the UK adopted a policy that revoked the rights of some Gurkha veterans who retired prior to 1997 and lived in the country. The actual term used was that the Gurkhas had “failed to demonstrate strong ties to the UK.” In response, Lachhiman Gurung hefted his ludicrously huge rack of medals and headed for Britain’s’ High Court. In a classic “Don’t Make-Me-Come-Over-There” moment, this rugged little half-blind one-armed man showed the members of the court the face of true dedication and got the onerous law overturned. Lacchiman Gurung died of natural causes in 2010 at age 92.
Lacchiman Gurung lived out his days in the UK as a hero. When ill-advised legislation threatening to strip Gurkha veterans of their benefits he rucked up again and made things right. I wouldn’t want this little half-blind one-armed man after me.
The Lee-Enfield rifle was the backbone of the British armed forces for more than half a century. Rugged, powerful, accurate, and fast, this classic bolt-action rifle and the rimmed .303-inch cartridge it fired expressed the will of the English people at the farthest reaches of their influence. In the hands of extraordinary men like Lachhiman Gurung the Lee-Enfield was the long arm of the British Empire.
The Lee Enfield No. 5 Mk 1 (T) was the scoped sniper version of the rifle. It saw service throughout WWII and Korea.
Technical Specifications
No. 4 Lee Enfield Rifle
Caliber .303 British Mk VII SAA Ball–Rimmed
Weight 9.06 lbs
Length 44.45 in
Barrel Length 25.2 in
Feed System 10-Round Detachable Box Magazine/5-Round Charger Clips
Sights Fixed and Adjustable Aperture Sights
Here’s a nice print of Terry hanging in Tank’s basement.
Terry Murbach was a lovable ol’ cuss! He’s been gone a few years now and I miss him, as do a lot of other folks. For the past 10 years I’d see him every June at the NRA’s Whittington Center. Words describing Terry would be cranky, cantankerous and opinionated. He reminded me of a cross between Festus on Gunsmoke, and a Tasmanian Devil, for you never knew what was going to set Terry off. It was also one of his most lovable traits.
Those who didn’t know him well weren’t quite sure how to take Terry. But like most, once he warmed up to you, you found out he was the nicest guy in the world, willing to do anything for you. I know he was bestfriends with John Taffin, and that speaks volumes. Over the years, I got to know Terry pretty well. Besides talking about guns, handloading, Elmer and Skeeter, we’d talk about old authors, particularly Russell Annabel.
Here’s the Murbach gun with some nice, easy shooting pink powder coated .38s.
Book Club
Back then, I’d recently read a few of Annabel’s books and was hooked better than a steelhead on Rusty’s stories about Alaska. I mentioned his name and Terry said he kinda’ remembered reading him as a kid in Outdoor Life and Sports Afield. So, I sent Terry a book, the first in the series of short stories by Annabel from Safari Press.
This opened the floodgates to our relationship. After he read the book, he let Judy, his wife, read it also. Terry joked it was the cause of a few arguments later on, as Judy would tell Terry to hurry up and read faster, so she could get her hands on the next book. Over time, I’d sent the whole series to him. Every year we’d talk about the different stories Annabel wrote.
Terry would ask, “Whatever happened to that Indian girl, Olinka?” and we’d stop shooting and talk and talk about the stories. Later, after some of my articles were published, I’d always get a phone call from Terry, giving pointers, praise, or opinion, in a warm manner. I looked forward to the calls. My last call from Terry, he told me about getting hit by a car and how banged up he was. It was his last.
The S&W model 14 is in perfect shape for Tank’s purposes.
Special Guns
Terry had an extensive gun collection. I knew I wanted something from my amigo. Some were out of hand, pricewise, but then I saw the perfect gun.
Terry didn’t like recoil much. None of us really do, we just tolerate it, to be quite honest. But Terry made no qualms about it. Shooting .22 LRs, or easy loaded .38 Specials were more to his liking. He could shoot, “so why would I want to ruin it with recoil?” he’d ask. Terry was full of bitterly honest statements like that.
The gun I saw was a well-worn S&W model 14 .38 Special. The price was low enough to not make too much of a dent in the bean fund, so I bought it. The fact it was well used made it even more attractive. Terry’s DNA is oozing from this gun, I’m sure, making it even more special to me. I only shoot low-recoiling loads in it, the way Terry would want, keeping wear and tear to a minimum, on both me and the gun.
This gun speaks volumes, if you know how to listen.
The Terry Load
I have a nice 130-grain RFN slug from a Lee six-cavity mold perfect for this application. My standard load is four grains of 231 with this bullet, but my “Terry Loads” use a scant three grains of Alliant Bullseye powder, for 700 FPS of recoil-free plinking perfection. It’s also a very accurate load! I’m sure Terry would approve, but I’d have to raise his hackles a bit and use pink powder coated bullets. We’d get a good chuckle from that, but he appreciated the wonderful traits powder-coated bullets provided, as I’d let him shoot some before.
Special Guns
Most Gun men/women have special guns they hold close to their hearts from special people in their lives. While hating the circumstances of obtaining such special shooters, they are indeed well appreciated. They keep memories alive, the powder burning, and the stories to be re-told, every time the pistol rug is unzipped, and someone asks, “Nice gun, where’d you get that one?