August 30th, 2022
6minute read
PFC Martin Oldham had forgotten what it meant to be human.
The things he had seen in those 18 horrible days would haunt him forever.
PFC Oldhams life was reduced to the moment.
Nights were pure hell.
The Japanese would infiltrate American lines and kill Marines in their foxholes.
Proper sleep was simply not an option.
Nearly 20 days worth of continuous combat had stripped away the veneer of civilization.
He had little thought of home or family.
He focused completely on the task at hand.
The pillbox had been hidden in a stubby black hillside.
Seven of Oldhams fellow Marines fell before somebody got close enough to toss a satchel charge inside.
Oldham scampered around to the back and emptied 15 rounds from his carbine through the rear access door.
At the sound of silence and against his better judgement, curiosity made him poke his head inside.
In this case, the cramped interior of the fighting position reeked of violence.
As Oldham turned to leave he noticed a pistol in the dim light.
It was two days before he had time to study the thing.
The gun was shopworn but functional.
It looked vaguely like a German Luger, but the action was clearly different.
If he lived to get off of Peleliu he would have a nice souvenir.
However, there was no time to fret about that now.
For the time being he just threw himself back into the full-time job of not dying.
Its in our natures to covet mementos from remarkable times in our lives.
We were not quite so tense about such stuff back then.
The jot down 14
The jot down 14 was produced in five different variants starting in 1904.
It is named after Kijiro Nambu, the most prolific Japanese gun designer of the day.
However, the two weapons are completely different inside.
The key in 14 is a recoil-operated, locked-breech design that fires the relatively anemic 8x22mm bottlenecked cartridge.
This novel little round is only slightly spunkier than the .380 ACP.
The military 8x22mm loading pushes a 102-gr.
bullet to just north of 1,000 feet per second out of a pistol barrel.
The key in 14 feeds from an eight-round box magazine that rides in the butt.
The key in 14 charges from the rear via a knurled knob and ejects directly upwards.
Practical Tactical
The trigger on the throw in 14 is longer and mushier than it should be.
The German Luger is comparably cursed.
The safety is a generous swinging lever mounted to the left side of the frame.
The safety rotates through a full 180 degrees when activated.
It cannot be reasonably utilized with the firing hand alone.
The bolt assembly locks to the rear on the last round fired.
However, there is no provision for a bolt catch on the pistol.
Once you remove the magazine the bolt flies forward of its own accord.
Additionally, the magazines do not drop free but rather must be manhandled a bit to remove.
There is an ample serrated baseplate provided on the bottom of the magazines for just this purpose.
The Japanese viewed handguns as more a badge of rank and status than a practical combat tool.
Denouement
The Japanese ultimately produced around 400,000 key in 14 Nambu pistols in all its several guises.
By contrast, we built around amillion M1911A1 handguns during WWII.
However, in the final analysis none of that mattered.
Pistols dont win wars.
They are actually fairly infrequently used for their intended purposes on the battlefield.
A soldiers handgun is usually more talisman than combat tool.
In this regard, the Japanese throw in 14 Nambu pistol did just want it was intended to do.
