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World of Guns – SIG P228
8,000 miles South of the UK and 400 miles east of Argentina lie the Falklands Islands. The UK has held possession of the Falklands since 1833, and the islands are liberally populated with British subjects, some three thousand or so by 2006.
Starting with British Captain John Strong in 1690, various despots, regents, and tin pot administrators alternately claimed, occupied, or stole this desolate piece of dirt. At 4,700 square miles, the Falklands enjoyed a fair amount of space. However, its brutal Southern latitude made it an inhospitable sort of place. One of the first commercial endeavors back in the early 19th century actually involved the exploitation of feral cattle.
Now fast forward to 1982, and the nearby Argentines had their sights set on the windswept rocks of the Falkland Islands. The British had long since passed the apogee of their remarkable empire. Perhaps they wouldn’t notice if Argentina’s military junta government dispatched a few thousand troops to snatch up the Falklands. Sadly, Argentina’s Leopoldo Galtieri woefully underestimated the Iron Lady’s resolve. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was having none of that.
Buildup for War
With 8,000 miles of open ocean across which to stage a proper response, the Brits knew that air superiority during the upcoming amphibious counter-invasion was going to be critical. British Sea Harriers would bear the brunt of the air-to-air responsibilities. However, every Argentine airplane that could be neutralized was one less that the Harrier drivers would have to burn out of the sky.
On the Northern aspect of the western Falklands chain lies Pebble Island. This forsaken spit of dirt was home to some twenty-five English subjects and another 2,500 very English sheep. Since the Argentine invasion, the Pebble Island Aerodromo Auxiliar Calderon airfield also housed six FMA IA 58 Pucara twin-engine turboprop ground attack aircraft, four T-34 Turbo Mentor counterinsurgency attack planes, and a single Coast Guard Skyvan transport. Servicing, supporting, and defending these eleven aircraft were about 150 Argentine Marines and aviation personnel.
The Plan
22 Special Air Service Regiment was the foundation of the world’s modern Special Operations units. 22 SAS hearkens back to the Second World War and its first flamboyant commander, LTC Archibald David Stirling. Stirling’s mob of misfits tormented the Nazis from North Africa across Italy and occupied France. Subsequent generations of SAS men were shooting and scooting back when special operating wasn’t cool. In 1982 D Squadron 22 SAS Regiment stood ready to visit their own unique brand of chaos upon the Argentines.
The plan was audacious. After an eyes-on recce conducted by Boat Troop of D Squadron 22 SAS via Klepper canoe, it was determined that there were severe headwinds near the target area. This would ultimately limit the amount of time the commandos could spend on the objective. The operational objectives were therefore reduced from the destruction of the garrison to simply neutralization of the aviation assets.
The Mission
On the night of 14 May 1982, forty-five SAS D Squadron operators inserted via two Westland Sea King HC4 helicopters under cover of darkness. A single HC4 has the capacity to lift up to 28 combat-equipped troops. Members of the aforementioned Boat Troop provided approach navigation.
The SAS strike force landed six clicks from the airfield and unloaded some one hundred L16 81mm mortar bombs, demo charges, and a buttload of L1A1 66mm LAWs (Light Anti-tank Weapons). The SAS operators carried American-made M16 rifles along with a disproportionate number of M203 grenade launchers.
SAS operators are notorious for their simply breathtaking capacity to tab. Tab is short for Tactical Advance to Battle. This is British slang for a forced march across hostile terrain. The SAS assault force successfully infiltrated the airfield, avoiding the Argentine sentries on duty. They eventually set charges on seven of the Argentine aircraft without being detected.
On cue, the SAS operators blew the charges and opened up on the parked aircraft with small arms and LAW rockets. At the same time, naval gunfire from the British destroyer HMS Glamorgan joined in targeting the nearby fuel stores and ammo dump. The preponderance of their ordnance expended, the SAS raiders exfilled to the PZ (Pickup Zone) where they were extracted by the waiting Sea Kings to the HMS Hermes.
The Weapons
The standard British Army rifle at the time of the Falklands War was the L1A1 SLR (Self-Loading Rifle). This Anglicized FN FAL was used across Her Majesty’s armed forces. However, the SAS opted for the US M16 for its lightweight and high-capacity magazines. Today’s SAS operators wield Canadian-made versions of the M4 Carbine made by Diemaco.
The M16 has served in sundry guises for more than half a century in the US military and should be established dogma to anybody frequenting GunsAmerica. The M203 was the only component of the US Army’s long-running 1960’s-era Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) program to see adoption. Pronounced “Spew,” the SPIW had to have the coolest acronym in modern military history.
First adopted in 1969, the M203 fired the same 40x46mm grenade as did the standalone M79 break-open grenade launcher. The M203 mounted underneath a standard M16 and allowed the grenadier ready access to an automatic rifle in addition to the single-shot grenade launcher.
The 40mm grenades fired by these weapons operate on the High-Low Propulsion System first developed by the Germans during World War 2. The Germans referred to this concept as the “Hoch-und-Niederdruck System,” and it allows a relatively-heavy, low-velocity round to be safely fired via a handheld weapon.
The L1A1 LAW is a single-shot disposable 66mm unguided antitank weapon. Originally an American contrivance, the US designation was the M72. The solid rocket motor was developed in 1959 at Redstone Arsenal, and the M72 first saw service in 1963. The M72 replaced both the M31 HEAT (High Explosive Antitank) rifle grenade and the cumbersome M20A1 Super Bazooka.
The L1A1 LAW consists of a telescoping aluminum tube within an external fiberglass cylinder with pop-up front and rear sights. When collapsed and sealed the LAW is waterproof. A percussion cap firing mechanism ignites the rocket, and a mechanical setback safety built into the warhead does not arm the piezoelectric detonator until the rocket has accelerated out of the tube.
To fire the L1A1 LAW you pull the safety pin and remove the spring-loaded back cover. This allows the front cover to drop away as well, while the rear cover pivots down to serve as a shoulder brace. Grip the front and back of the weapon and extend it briskly. This movement releases the spring-loaded front and rear sights to deploy. Put the weapon on your shoulder, pull the striker handle forward to arm the mechanism, point the thing at something you dislike, and squeeze the trigger bar.
Firing the LAW is nothing like the movies. The entirety of the solid rocket motor is consumed prior to the rocket’s leaving the launch tube, and the open back of the tube makes the LAW essentially recoilless. The backblast, however, is subsequently ferocious.
Once the weapon is fired, six folding fins deploy to stabilize the rocket in flight. Muzzle velocity is 475 feet per second, and the thing makes a simply incredible racket.
Max effective range is 200 meters, and later versions of the standard HEAT warhead will burn through about 12 inches of rolled homogenous steel armor. The LAW rockets used in the Pebble Island raid weighed about 8 pounds and cost about $750 apiece. Though augmented in US service in 1987 by the Swedish AT-4, the LAW remains in use around the world today.
The Rest of the Story
As a result of intense shelling by the HMS Glamorgan the defending Argentines remained under cover for the most part throughout the raid. Presuming the attack to be the opening salvoes in a general invasion, the Argentine commander ordered the runway destroyed. The Argentines detonated prepositioned area denial charges underneath the runway and cratered it. Shrapnel from these charges injured one of the SAS operators. The Argentinian commander was subsequently killed by British small arms fire during the attack.
The original plan had the assault force redirecting their fire on the Argentinian garrison after ensuring the destruction of the attack aircraft. However, after exfilling the wounded man the ground force commander made the decision to return to the Hermes. This on-the-spot decision no doubt ultimately saved a great many lives.
The Pebble Island raid accounted for all eleven aircraft as well as the ammo and fuel dump and was considered a rousing success. Considering that destroying airfields full of Axis aircraft during WW2 was considered a bit of an SAS specialty, the Pebble Island raid seemed fitting.
Sadly, CPT Gavin John Hamilton, the ground force commander, was killed three weeks later while on a covert reconnaissance mission some forty miles behind Argentine lines. Colonel Juan Ramon Mabragana, the commander of the Argentine Commando unit that killed CPT Hamilton, later described him as “the most courageous man I have ever seen.”
Who Dares Wins.
It’s tough for the modern mind to appreciate how bad the Great Depression actually was. It’s not that Americans did without cell phones, the latest sneakers, or Netflix, American citizens back then knew true hunger. Those that had work did OK. However, there wasn’t a great deal of work to be had. If you didn’t work, you just went hungry. In 1933 the national unemployment rate hit 24.9%. By contrast, on the heels of the worst planetary pandemic in a century US unemployment hovers around 6% today. We really have no idea.
These extraordinary economic trials catalyzed a series of watershed changes to the very fabric of our great republic. In the guise of battling the Great Depression and organized crime, President Franklin Roosevelt undertook unprecedented social reforms. The consolidation of power with the central government, the manipulation of the sundry branches to further his agenda, and the country’s first solid taste of gun control all arose under FDR’s leadership.
Franklin Roosevelt was an undeniably enigmatic figure. FDR ultimately served twelve years through some of the nation’s darkest history. His was the longest tenure of any American President in history.
In the summer of 1921 at the age of thirty-nine, FDR developed a severe form of migratory paralysis. While his symptoms were attributed to poliomyelitis at the time, there has been some subsequent conjecture that it might have actually been Guillain-Barre Syndrome. Regardless, from that point forward FDR could stand and walk only short distances and that only with extreme difficulty. However, great pains were taken to avoid photographing him in his wheelchair out of concern for portraying an image of weakness during WW2.
FDR’s New Deal consisted of two separate legislative overhauls that consolidated unprecedented power within the federal government. The Civilian Conservation Corps, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the Public Works Administration, the Social Security Administration, and the Federal Emergency Relief Administration were but a few of the massive new government agencies birthed underneath the umbrella of the New Deal. FDR was the initial architect of the Big Government solutions to societal problems so championed by the Left today. It all started here. However, that was a very iffy thing indeed.
On February 15, 1933, President-Elect Roosevelt, the fifth cousin to former President Theodore Roosevelt, was seventeen days shy of his inauguration as the 32d President of the United States. He was in Miami, Florida, anticipating a cruise to clear his head prior to assuming responsibility for the country. Briefly detouring to the Bayfront Park neighborhood for a quick address to an assembled crowd of some 25,000 supporters, FDR gave an impromptu speech from the back of his green Buick. Surrounding the President-elect were ample straphangers to include Anton Cermak, the mayor of Chicago.
The Shooter
Giuseppe “Joe” Zangara was a man simply cursed. Born in Italy in 1900, Zangara fought in World War 1 before immigrating to the United States in search of a better life. He had worked at hard labor from childhood starting on his father’s hardscrabble Italian farm.
Zangara toiled as a bricklayer to make ends meet in the US and did well for himself through extreme frugality. He made $15 per week laying bricks and had by 1933 accumulated some $3,000. However, in the days and weeks leading up to February 15th, he lost his job and gambled away most of his savings betting on dog races.
Additionally, Zangara suffered mightily from chronic belly pain beginning around age six. He had his appendix removed prophylactically, but that just made it worse. Post-mortem evaluation placed the blame on gallbladder adhesions. However, given the primitive state of the medical arts at the time, there was little to be done about that. He was therefore a chronically bitter and broken man.
Giuseppe Zangara stood but five feet tall, and he blamed all of his myriad problems on capitalists and politicians. Though he apparently knew little about FDR, he held the newly-elected President responsible for his sordid state. A few days before the President’s visit, Zangara bought a five-shot .32-caliber revolver made by the United States Revolver Company from a local pawn shop for $8. That’s about $159 today. Zangara was later quoted as having said, “I don’t hate Mr. Roosevelt personally. I hate all elected officials and anyone who is rich.”
The Shooting
Zangara was in the third row some thirty feet from where FDR was speaking. However, given his diminutive stature, he was unable to see above the crowd to get a clear shot. As a result, he found an old rickety chair and mounted it to gain a better vantage. He teetered atop the chair behind a woman named Lillian Cross. Zangara then shouted, “Too many people are starving!” produced his tiny pistol, and opened fire.
After the first shot, Ms. Cross struck Zangara’s arm, throwing his aim wide. The Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak caught a round to the lungs. Another shot hit Mrs. Joseph Gill, wounding her badly. Follow-up rounds struck Russell Caldwell, Margret Kruis, and a New York Detective named William Sinnott. President-elect Franklin Roosevelt was unhurt.
The Gun
Zangara’s .32-caliber handgun was likely an inexpensive 5-shot top-break design. The United States Revolver Company was a subsidiary of Iver Johnson. Johnson was a Norwegian-born gunsmith who started the Iver Johnson Gun Company in 1871. The company operated out of Fitchburg, MA, and employed O.F. Mossberg. Mr. Mossberg ultimately went on to form a familiar gun company of his own.
These little pocket pistols were known for their top-latching mechanism and the “Hammer-the-Hammer” ignition system. This was an early transfer bar safety system that prevented the gun from firing accidentally without the trigger having been pulled. Similar designs are commonplace among revolvers today.
The sights on this pistol are uselessly small. Breaking the top latch free allows the gun to open up and kick out its empties via an automatic ejector. My copy is indeed compact, handy, rugged, and comfortable.
The Rest of the Story
The crowd threw themselves on Zangara, threatening to dismember him on the spot. Only through personal intervention by Roosevelt were they prevented from beating him to death. A nearby policeman smacked Zangara with a sap, and he was taken into custody.
The Secret Service transported Mayor Cermak to the hospital in the green Buick, Roosevelt cradling him as they sped along. Cermak purportedly stated, “I’m glad it was me instead of you.” This is inscribed on his tombstone today. However, modern scholars suspect the report of such terminal gallantry to have been apocryphal.
The wheels of justice were a bit better lubricated back then. Zangara pled guilty to four counts of attempted murder at the Dade County Courthouse and was immediately sentenced to 80 years in prison. He taunted the judge as he left the courtroom suggesting perhaps it should be an even hundred. However, on March 6, 1933, two days after FDR’s inauguration and twenty-one days after the shooting, Anton Cermak died of sepsis. The charge against Zangara was then upgraded to murder in the first degree. He pled guilty to this as well and was sentenced to death in the electric chair.
At this time folks didn’t linger awaiting their appointment with Old Sparky. However, there was already one man ahead of him in Florida. As such prison officials expanded the single pre-execution holding cell to create the state’s first Death Row to house the two condemned men. Zangara languished there an aggregate of ten days.
On March 20, 1933, a mere thirty-three days after the shooting, Joe Zangara was strapped into the chair. His final words were, “Viva l’Italia! Goodbye to all poor peoples everywhere!… Push the button! Go ahead, push the button!” Witnesses said the words came out as “Pusha da button!”
Conspiracy Theories
Despite not having the Internet to feed the inevitable lunatic fringe, then as now folks’ imaginations occasionally got the better of them. As mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak naturally had a nexus to organized crime. The exploits of Chicago gangsters captured the imagination. It was then postulated that Zangara might actually have been in the covert employ of Chicago mob boss Frank Nitti who had staged the whole assassination attempt as a cover to waste Mayor Cermak.
Subsequent scholarship stretching into the 21st century reliably indicates that Joe Zangara’s story was actually just as simple as it seems. He was poor, down on his luck, and angry. FDR was apparently just a handy target upon whom to vent his frustrations.
Giuseppe Zangara died in the electric chair just one month after he pulled the trigger. The average stay on death row in America today is fifteen years. Unlike today, the expeditious death penalty back then was an effective deterrent to crime.
It is thought-provoking to imagine how the world might have been different had Giuseppe Zangara connected with his intended target that day. On June 26th of the following year, FDR signed the National Firearms Act of 1934. This legislation established the National Firearms Registry and Transfer Record, subjecting machineguns, short-barreled weapons, and sound suppressors to registration and a $200 transfer tax. FDR also laid the foundation for most of the Left-wing big government that was to follow. AOC is his heir apparent today. FDR’s inspirational leadership also ably carried America through World War 2. However, sometimes the most profound stuff turns on the smallest things, like an old wobbly chair and a really short angry man.
