[James K]

The Type I Japanese rifle had a Carcano action but used a Mauser-type magazine; they used the 6.5 Japanese cartridge and loaded from standard Arisaka stripper clips. It was the product of one of Hitler's ideas about mutual support among the Axis powers. Italy being the "poor cousin" of the alliance, he persuaded the Japanese to buy Italian-made rifles. The Japanese really didn't want them, considering them inferior to their own rifles, and they were foisted off on the Navy. Some seen here obviously were used and show wear and the effects of a tropical climate, but others appear to be nearly new and unissued. Unlike the Japanese-made rifles, they never had the "mum" imperial seal.

60,000 were made with production divided among government factories at Gardone and Brescia and the private Beretta factory. Terni made all the barrels.

The ones that saw combat were presumably in the hands of Navy landing parties, commonly called "Japanese Marines" by Americans . But the Imperial Navy had no equivalent to the USMC; the troops were sailors, distinguished from Army troops by their collar insignia and the anchor on their helmets. They were seldom deployed in any great numbers, but sometimes turned up in early Japanese takeover of small islands* and of course in the defense of navy bases.

*The first Japanese ashore on Guadalcanal, before the Americans even recognized its importance, were members of a small landing party under the command of a Lt.Cmdr. Their heaviest weapons were two small howitzers and three machineguns.

Jim

Edited to add: There is a picture in the latest Shotgun News of a Japanese Naval Landing Party clearly showing the helmet with the anchor and the Naval flag (the "rising sun with rays" as opposed to the plain red disc on the national flag).

Jim