Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on forgottenweapons.com, I'm Ian
I'm here at the RIAC taking a look at some of the guns that they are going to be selling In their upcoming February of 2018 regional auction
Today, we have a Browning Hi-Power pistol, made in Canada and sent to China
This is, I think, a really interesting story of very much a lesser recognized and lesser-known aspect of WW2, namely China
What was going on in China?
So, there is a long and interesting story about these pistols
I figure since you can only see a little bit of this thing from back there, we're gonna go ahead and zoom in
And I'll tell you the story while we take a look at it up close
So let me tell you a tale of an interesting pistol, this actually starts with the John Inglis company
Which was a Canadian industrial conglomerate started in 1859 as a metal smithing shop in Ontario
During WW2 it got to the point where just the ordnance division had over a million square feet of floor space
These pistols are one of these smallest things they made, they also made Bren guns
They made Boys anti-tank rifles, they made 20 millimeter Polsten cannons, Brownings, they made a whole lot of different things
In June of 1941 a Chinese delegation arrived to visit the Inglis Factory
and look at placing some orders for all sorts of equipment and war materiel
During this visit one of the Chinese officers inquired if it would be possible --
-- Well when they were looking for guns
They specifically were interested in Bren guns
And they were also interested in getting Browning Hi-Powers, now Inglis didn't make Hi-Powers at that point
But the Chinese had ordered a small number from FN before the war and they liked them
And they really wanted to get more, this was one of the most modern pistols available at that time
This order kind of puttered around for a couple years until 1943, in February the Mutual Aid Board
Authorized $100,000,000 of war loans to China
The Mutual Aid Board was an organization set up by the Canadian government to basically provide
Loans, to foreign countries, for war materiel the idea was the Canadian government
Would provide the actual money, pay it to Canadian companies to manufacture stuff
for various other combatants to use, and then after the war those other combatants would repay the loans to the Canadian government
So in total this accounted for something like 3.7 billion dollars worth of
loans and war materiel during the course of the conflict and a hundred million of that went to China
So when that hundred million came through the Chinese came back, and they reiterated their interest in getting these pistols
In total they actually ordered 180,000 of these pistols which was a pretty monumental order
Inglis was all for this. They also ordered Bren guns and a bunch of other things as well, but
Inglis went about getting the money and setting up and started to tool up. They talked to FN in Belgium
Or rather, the representatives of FN in exile, they got a limited license to produce the guns for China
They actually got two of FN's main engineers Rene Lulu (?) and Dieudonné Saive, who was actually the designer of the Hi-Power.
He was John Browning's...
Not apprentice, but he took over where John Browning left off when Browning he died
And finished the Hi-Power from Browning's original prototypes
At any rate both of those guys actually came over to Canada to help work on the production
They got the whole technical package from FN
They went ahead and actually fired up production
Now what's interesting is at this point the British military was using and issuing Webley .38 revolvers
And when the British Special Operations Executive heard that a Commonwealth nation
Was going to start major production of a 9mm service automatic
They were very interested because this was a pistol that would make a lot more sense
To use in sneaky, SOE...
You know, aid to resistance and underground movements, it made a lot more sense than the revolvers
Because 9mm ammunition was readily available in Europe as opposed to .38/200 British revolver ammo
So they chimed in and they placed an order for fifty thousand of them at the same time
So this gave Inglis a pretty substantial contract for these guns
It takes a little time to set up production and in January of 1944 the first pre-production guns went through trials
And they were good and production...
The first delivery was actually in February of '44 with a subsequent delivery in June of '44
There is still this question of how do these guns get to China
Well, the answer was that the Allies were working with India, India also being part of the British Empire
So these guns were actually shipped to Karachi in India along with other war materiel and food and aid
From Karachi they had to actually be airlifted over what was called the Hump, over Burma into China
By C-47 pilots, and that was a major...
Clog in the system, that was a choke point in the supply system. There's only so much that you can airlift
You know, there's a big difference between sending over a freighter full of crates
And then having to load all of those crates a few at a time into
Relatively small aircraft and fly them through dangerous places to actually provide the aid and that proved to be a problem
So 4,000 of these guns were actually delivered to the Chinese
Another fourteen and a half thousand were completed
And basically put in Canadian depots awaiting shipment to Karachi and at that point
People started to have doubts about this whole
Chinese military aid thing at all
Military figures, government figures started looking at this and and recognizing that, you know what?
The Chinese aren't actually really using these against the Japanese and they don't...
The idea with this was: we provide the money because the Chinese would use them to fight our enemies
And take pressure off our soldiers, and that wasn't really happening
So debate started up about whether to even continue this project or not?
This all led to the actual cancellation of the contract
With about 20,000 pistols having been made
So of that 14,500 or so that were sitting awaiting shipment, about 6,000 of them were taken by SOE
And the remainder were actually basically paid for and procured by the Canadian military
They had been looking at this gun with quite a lot of interest, it seemed much better than their revolvers
The Canadians actually began testing and ultimately would adopt the pistol in late 1944
As the Canadian military standard and this also
Prompted the British to take a serious look at it and the British would later adopt the gun as well
Production would pick back up...
Later, you know in the mid point of 1945 once Germany was defeated
the Chinese were still interested in the guns
And since the war was no longer a pressing necessity. You know the...
Canadians and the British weren't depending on Inglis for a lot of other war materiel anymore
The company was allowed to restart the contract and production really actually got into high gear in late 1945
The majority of the pistols made, like another 40,000 of them were made
And shipped to China before once again problems came up
It became clear that the nationalist Chinese were losing to the Communist Chinese
And the British Empire and the Canadians weren't interested in equipping the Communist Chinese forces
They ended up cancelling the order once again, in total just under 70,000 of these guns were manufactured
With most of them going to China, but there were about 15,000 that were procured by the British and the Canadians in the middle
So a couple detailed things that we can look at
These serial numbers are quite distinctive because they all have a CH prefix in them that is
Actually for China, now, the number at the front
if you take out the CH you basically have the full serial number of the gun so the first ones were just
CH and four digits and when they got to ten thousand they added a 1 in front of the CH, so
These went up to the six series
6 CH and it's like
6700 so sixty six thousand seven hundred total
Those will be marked on, as you can see right here, the barrel, the slide and the frame
on the opposite side you have
Basic Inglis markings here as well as a couple Chinese characters indicating Chinese possession of the guns
Like the very first four thousand guns had a pantograph
Chinese inscription up here the basically said property of the Chinese National Army but that was dropped fairly quickly
These guns all have long range tangent sights, they go out to five hundred meters
Which is rather optimistic, but it is distinctive of these guns
Interestingly when the the guns that were being manufactured in this contract for for the British for SOE
Did not have the tangent sight they just had a plain notch rear sight and those will have T prefixed serial numbers instead of CH
There is of course a slot in the back of the grip for the shoulder stock attachment
A couple things to point out on the stocks themselves, they are marked S.A Ltd, that's Small Arms Limited
That was the subcontractor that made them for Inglis, and they'll be dated 1944 and 1945
There are Chinese made versions of these stocks as well, you can identify the original
Canadian ones by these lighter colored wood inserts
On the hinge and the latch, that's pretty distinctive
You'll also find a piece of felt at the bottom to pad the muzzle
That's not hard to to find in a reproduction one or a fake one
but you'll only find this lighter coloured insert on authentic stocks
In addition to serving as a shoulder stock. They also serve as a holster for the gun
There is typically a cloth, a snap and a belt loop that attaches to this so that you can hang the gun on your belt
Well, I don't know about you, but I think it's a pretty cool
story that through many twists and turns goes from basically an offhand Chinese request for a pistol
to well, kind of to the British Army adopting them as standard
The other cool thing about these particular guns on a practical note is
They are the most affordable pistols
You can get that can have attached shoulder stocks without having to be registered as short-barreled rifles in the US
Normally, that would be required
however a bunch of
early guns that were produced with shoulder stocks have been exempted from that requirement by the ATF
now, a lot of these are very uncommon
pistols, are very expensive pistols
You know, things like early Bergmans with shoulder stocks, early Mannlichers with shoulder stocks, early Colts with shoulder stocks even
however, these are exempted and the price point on these is far below a lot of those more exotic pistols
And this is about the most modern of the guns
That has that sort of exemption, the Browning Hi-Power is a double stack 9 mm, parts are easily available. It's a reliable gun
It's a great shooting gun, so if you're looking for something that has
Cool historical value and also is a really practical gun to shoot, the Inglis Hi-Powers are a pretty cool
Example that might suit your fancy, so if you do want this particular one take a look at the description text below
You'll find a link there to Rock Islands catalog page on this guy
you can see their price estimate, their pictures, their description and so on and
There are actually a couple other of these in the auction as well, so if you browse through the catalog you can find those also
Thanks for watching