Top: Webley Mark VI .455. Bottom: Enfield No. 2 .38.
The British have never been ones to march in lockstep with the rest of the world, and a little evidence of that is their choice of handguns in World War II. While most of the world’s major military forces had by that time converted to one sort or another of autoloader, the British decided to stick with revolvers.
Mostly they used four types of double action revolver, although in 1940 the British government even bought some Colt Single Action Army revolvers to help arm their home guard. (Today collectors refer to those as “Battle of Britain” guns.) Issued to regular British forces, however, were their domesticly manufactured Enfield No. 2 .38 and Webley Mark VI .455. The Webley Mark VI .455 had been adopted in 1916, and although it had been officially replaced about 1928 by the Enfield No. 2 .38, it was still in common use.
Top: S&W Hand Ejector No. 2 .455. Bottom: S&W Military & Police .38.
Not having enough of either Webley or Enfield to go around, they also bought many thousands of S&W K-frame Military & Police revolvers chambered for the .38 S&W cartridge. And furthermore, they still had and consequently used many S&W N-frame (Hand Ejector 2nd Models) which they had purchased from 1915 to1917 for World War I.
Duke’s S&W Hand Ejector #2 .455 factory letters to the Canadian Government in 1916.
Left to Right: .38 S&W with 190 gr. lead RN, .455 Webley Fiocchi load with 262 gr. lead RN bullet and .45 ACP Black Hills load with 230 gr. FMJ bullet.
Their choice of cartridges for these revolvers also seems strange. The .455 Webley had been with them since the 1870s as a black powder cartridge, but their Mark II version of it introduced about 1897 was loaded with smokeless propellant. By American standards, it would be considered “barely loaded.” That’s because it was rated with 265 gr. bullet at only about 600 fps. In the 1920s the British military determined a .38 caliber 200 grain bullet at about 630 fps gave about the same muzzle energy, and that’s what they converted to. Actually the case they chose to use was a twin to the .38 S&W round. That company had been chambering guns for it since the early 1870s, so when the Brits needed S&W to help them out with revolvers in the 1940s.
I’ve been told by a knowledgeable shooter/collector that prior to WWII the Brits had to reduce bullet weight on their .38s to 178 grains in order to make them full metal jacketed. Otherwise they would have been in violation to the Geneva Convention.
The Brit .38s and .455s barely dented. The big caved-in spot was done with a .45 ACP.
No Common Sense
For some strange reason, probably related to my lack of common sense, my gun trading forays these last few years have netted me samples of the four above mentioned British military revolvers. Two have some minor noteworthiness. The Enfield No. 2 .38 is marked “RAF” (Royal Air Force) and “1936,” while the S&W .455 factory letters to the Canadian government in 1916. I was even able to find a 12-round box of FMJ .455 military loads of Canadian manufacture dated 1943 to go with it. British military .38 loads have evaded me completely. For shooting I bought some of the Fiocchi .455 Webley factory loads with a 262-gr. lead bullet and handloaded some Lyman #358430 cast bullets weighing 190 gr. in the .38. Powder charge was only 2.2 grains of Bullseye. The Fiocchi .455s chronographed at 619 fps, and my .38 handloads were 10 fps faster.
So did I “test-fire” these revolvers for accuracy as any self-respecting gun’riter would do? No way. What I did was spent nine bucks at an Army surplus store for an old GI issue steel helmet. Then I set it on a fence post and fired my British WWII revolvers at it from 10 paces. The .38s wouldn’t have even given its wearer a headache. They didn’t dent it and hardly made it wobble. The .455s did dent it and it wobbled some. Admittedly these were lead bullets and not military FMJs, which might have given more penetration. For comparison, I fired a 230 grain FMJ .45 ACP factory load from a Colt 1917 revolver. It didn’t penetrate either but caved in the side of the helmet, and not only knocked it off the fence post but rolled it 20 yards down the road!
Somebody probably knows why the Brits stuck to revolvers in the years leading up to WWII, and even perhaps why they liked such pee-dunkler cartridges — I don’t. But they’re still interesting handguns, albeit only minor historical footnotes to WWII.
Behold a true World War 2 hero. Major Sepp Gangl gave his life fighting alongside American forces against the Waffen SS in the closing days of the war.
Josef Gangl was born September 12, 1910, in Obertraubling, Bavaria. The son of a Royal Bavarian State Railways official, young Josef aspired to a career as a professional soldier. However, post-WW1 Germany was not the ideal place to pursue such aspirations. The Reichswehr was limited to a roster of 100,000 troops by the Treaty of Versailles. However, Gangl made the cut and was assigned to Artillery Regiment 7 in Nuremberg.
Josef Gangl enjoyed a distinguished career in the Wehrmacht as an artillery officer.
In 1935 Josef Gangl was reassigned to the 25th Artillery Regiment in Ludwigsburg. That same year he also married a local woman named Walburga Renz. Gangl began WW2 as an Oberfeldwebel. The American equivalent would be a Sergeant First Class. He was wounded in the opening salvoes of the war and spent six months recuperating in hospitals. In May of 1940, he returned to service as commander of a reconnaissance unit in the Wehrmacht’s 25th Infantry Division. By 1941 he commanded a battery of 105mm tube artillery assigned to Army Group South on the Eastern Front. By the spring of 1942, Gangl had earned the Iron Cross First and Second class and taken command of a Nebelwerfer unit.
The Nebelwerfer was a simple and relatively low-cost rocket artillery weapon.
The Nebelwerfer was a fearsome bit of rocket artillery that Allied troops called the Screaming Mimi. A relatively low-cost, saturation weapon, the Nebelwerfer could be launched from Sdkfz 251 halftracks or from standalone launchers. The word “Nebelwerfer” means “fog thrower.” This was part of a German disinformation campaign to keep the Allies from categorizing the weapon as an artillery piece.
Gangl’s rocket artillery unit was slaughtered alongside the 12th SS Hilterjugend Division during the bitter fighting in Normandy.
By March of 1944, Gangl was serving with a Werfer-Brigade in France. Assigned to the 12th SS Hitlerjugend Division, Gangl’s Nebelwerfer unit was cut to pieces during its escape from the Falaise Pocket after D-Day. Following a reorganization and resupply with fresh equipment and troops Gangl’s unit participated in the ill-fated Ardennes Offensive in December of 1944. This gory mess earned Josef Gangl the German Cross in Gold.
Don’t let the adorable mini-fraulein prop fool you, Heinrich Himmler was a full-bore psychopath.
By April of 1945, the fate of the Third Reich was irretrievably sealed. Gangl and what remained of his men were posted to Worgl in the Austrian state of Tyrol to defend Heinrich Himmler’s Alpine Redoubt. This far-fetched scheme imagined a protracted guerilla war fought in the mountains after the fall of the Nazi government in Berlin. At this late stage, however, only the most ardent fanatics held out any hope of success. The pragmatists, Sepp Gangl among them, just wanted to get his troops home safely.
Major Gangl’s orders were to defend the town of Worgl to the death.
Gangl’s immediate superior was a Wehrmacht Lieutenant Colonel named Johann Giehl. Giehl’s orders were to defend the town of Worgl against the approaching Americans to the last man. Josef Gangl, however, had other ideas. He contacted Alois Mayer, the leader of the local Austrian resistance, and provided him with weapons and tactical information. Gangl was ready to be done.
When the Americans got tooled up we rolled over Western Europe like a tidal wave.
Meanwhile, the American juggernaut rolled inexorably on, backed up by apparently limitless supplies of tanks, trucks, and men. As the US forces got closer, locals began posting Austrian flags or white bedsheets outside their homes to signify their willingness to capitulate. The SS under orders from Himmler dragged the male residents from these homes and executed them. Violating fresh orders to withdraw, Gangl and ten of his remaining troops stayed behind in Worgl to defend the residents against rampaging SS fanatics.
Itter Castle
Before the Waffen SS blew it to hell, Itter Castle was quite the picturesque place.
Nearby Itter Castle was used by the Germans as a prison for high-ranking French captives. Command of this fortress dungeon fell to the Dachau administration. Incarcerated therein were such dignitaries as former French Prime Ministers Edouard Daladier and Paul Reynaud as well as several French Generals and the acclaimed French tennis star Jean Borotra. Sundry trade union and resistance leaders were also held there along with Marie-Agnes de Gaulle, Charles de Gaulle’s older sister.
The 17th SS Panzer was out for blood.
On May 4, 1945, Sebastien Wimmer, the prison commander, fled the castle along with his contingent of SS Totenkopfverbande guards. The liberated prisoners seized the few abandoned German weapons that remained and prepared for the coming assault by troops of the fanatical 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division “Gotz von Berlichingen.” A Czech cook named Andreas Krobot bicycled into Worgl with the news that the Waffen SS was staging an attack against the castle. Everyone expected a bloodbath.
American CPT Jack Lee seized the initiative and joined forces with Gangl and his men against the SS.
In desperation, Gangl affixed a white flag to his Kubelwagen and drove 8 km to nearby Kufstein. There he encountered the lead elements of the American 23d Tank Battalion of the US XXI Corps under the command of CPT John C. “Jack” Lee. Gangl explained the situation and requested assistance. In what was one of the most bizarre episodes of the war, CPT Lee joined Major Gangl in his Kubelwagen for a quick recce of the castle and its surrounding area. Lee then fell in alongside Gangl and his 10 remaining Wehrmacht artillerymen to defend the castle against the approaching SS troops. Included among this motley band was also an SS Hauptsturmfuhrer who had grown a conscience named Kurt Siegfried Schrader.
CPT Lee made it to the castle with but a single Sherman tank.
CPT Lee had four Sherman tanks under his command. After the recon, he returned, stationed two Shermans in defensive positions, and requisitioned five more along with support troops from the 142d Infantry Regiment. After fighting through SS roadblocks and attempting to traverse rickety bridges CPT Lee’s relief force had been whittled down to a single Sherman and fourteen US troops. CPT Lee’s tank was christened “Besotten Jenny.”
The Fight
The German high velocity 88mm Flak 36 was one of the most effective weapons of the war. The 17th SS kampfgruppe arrived with three of these monsters.
On the morning of May 5th, CPT Lee positioned his Sherman on the approaches to the castle and organized the defenses. The kampfgruppe from the 17th SS then attacked with a force of between 100 and 150 troops backed up with automatic weapons and three heavy flak guns. Their first move was to take out the Sherman with one of the 88’s.
The German 88 made short work of CPT Lee’s Sherman.
Fortunately, the tank crew was outside the vehicle at the time. The only occupant was a radio repairman attempting to get the tank’s communications systems operational. He escaped the burning tank with minimal injuries.
This frisky rascal actually sprinted out of the castle under fire to try to get help during the assault by SS troops.
The subsequent assault went on for hours. Locals described heavy machine gun fire ongoing throughout much of the day. As German weapons chewed into the 19th-century structure the French tennis star Jean Borotra volunteered to vault the wall and run for help under fire. As the incoming fire became overwhelming, former French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud found himself exposed. Sepp Gangl tackled the French politician, moving him to safety. In the process, Gangl caught a bullet from an SS sniper.
The Weapon
The scoped K43 rifle was the most advanced Designated Marksman Rifle in the German inventory at the end of WW2.
The specific weapon used to kill Sepp Gangl has been lost to history. However, the 17th SS would have been equipped with the most advanced equipment available to the Reich in 1945. The state of the art in optic-equipped battlefield rifles at the time was the scoped K43.
The K43 was the German answer to the American M1 Garand. The krauts never had enough of the guns.
The Gewehr 43 was also known as the G43, the Gewehr 43, the Karabiner 43, the Kar 43, or the K43 rifle. A gas-operated semiautomatic design, the K43 drew inspiration from both the previous German G41(W) as well as the Russian Tokarev SVT-40. The primary strength of the K43 was that it was designed from the outset to take advantage of modern mass production techniques.
4X Zf4 scopes were serialized in the field to their host K43 rifles. One of these retention screws is a replacement.
The 7.92x57mm K43 weighed 9.7 pounds and was fed from a detachable ten-round box magazine. The original intent was to equip each grenadier company with nineteen K43 rifles and ten detachable 4x Zielfernrohr 43 (Zf4) scopes. Unit armorers would then identify the most accurate examples and fit them with optics. Mounts and rifles were therefore locally serialized with an electro pencil to keep track of what accessories went with which rifle. In this configuration, the scoped K43 served in the role occupied by the Designated Marksman Rifle today. Roughly 400,000 copies rolled off the lines during its two-year production run, but supplies of K43 rifles never kept up with the insatiable demand.
The Rest of the Story
Castle Itter took a pounding during the assault.
Reinforcements eventually arrived from the American 142d Infantry Regiment and routed the attacking SS troops. Around 100 SS soldiers were subsequently taken prisoner. Castle Itter was successfully liberated, and the French prisoners returned to their official positions. Sepp Gangl was the only friendly casualty of the operation.
The French dignitaries liberated from Castle Itter went on to play critical roles in the complex recovery operation in France after the armistice.
In retrospect, the troops from the 17th SS were almost assuredly moving on the castle to exterminate the high-value French prisoners housed there. However, these political and cultural leaders ultimately played an outsized role in the post-war recovery in France. Had the SS been successful and killed this nucleus of leadership it could have taken the historical arc of post-war Europe in an entirely different direction.
Sepp Gangl is viewed as a hero today in Austria where he died fighting alongside the Americans.
Josef Gangl was 34 when he died. He left behind a widow and two young children. However, through his bravery and sacrifice, he helped build a foundation of freedom in Europe that is enjoyed to the present day. One of the main streets in Worgl is named in his honor. Tyrolians in Austria revere him as a hero of the Austrian resistance today. The Battle for Itter Castle was the only time during the war that Wehrmacht and US troops fought side by side against a common enemy.
Young ideologically naive men always make the best soldiers. WW2 stole life on an unprecedented scale. Major Gangl’s heroic sacrifice was swallowed up in the carnage.
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