Dutch Luger

[dandypoint]

I have been trying to find info on a Dutch Luger. It was made by DWM, has no date on the barrel, three diget serial number, no sufix to the serial number, has safety (RUST) with the arrow pointing down, has a crown over an N, no grip safety. I am not sure how to post pictures with this post as I am new to the forum. There is also K.M. on the underside of the grip. Maybe the initials of a previous owner?
And help would be appreciated. I have looked at probably hundreds of pictures of Lugers and never found one with my configuration. Some come close but the RUST arrow points up not down, or they have a date on the barrel.

[Ron Wood]

Don,
You are very fortunate to have a Dutch Luger. They are not easy to find. I would be interested in the story of how you acquired yours.

You have a 1928 contract Dutch Navy (I gather you suspected it was navy since you posted it in the Navy Lugers topic). The serial numbers of this contract were 1 to 1484, and it was the last DWM Dutch (actually it was manufactured by BKIW, Berlin Karlsruher Industrie Werk, as DWM was renamed after WWI). The next Dutch Navy Luger contract in 1930 was fulfilled by Mauser.

The safety arrow points down since, as you have indicated, it does not have a grip safety so it is in the Model 1914 Luger configuration, which also includes a stock lug. The earlier Dutch Army Lugers did not have a stock lug and had grip safeties so the thumb safety worked in the opposite direction.

A barrel date on a Dutch Luger indicates the date of the last overhaul/repair/modification. Since your gun lacks a barrel date, it has never been repaired or modified. The K.M. marking on the grip stands for, not surprisingly, “Koninklijke Marine” or Royal Navy.

You have what appears to be a very nice Dutch Luger, much better than average. I am sure that I am not the only one that would appreciate more pictures, particulaly showing the whole gun. Thank you for posting a very interesting item.

[dandypoint]

Ron,
Thanks for the info! My dad was a Marine in WWII. He fought on Guam with the 4th Marines. All the guys in his squad were from the 4th Marine Raider Battalion. You may know that the "new 4th" Regiment was formed in honor of the "Old 4th" who were the last holdouts on Bataan and Corregidor. My Dad also fought on Okinawa, where he earned the Purple Heart. He was also in the first outfit to "invade" Japan. I learned about that watching the Victory at Sea on TV series many years later. It was while in Japan that one of his buddies found some weapons. I think he said in a cave. In any event his buddy offered him his choice and my dad picked the Luger. I can only imagine how it got to Japan. Since 1945 I know the rest of the story! I will post some more pictures.

[Vlim]

Hi,

The Dutch had a large colony in the East-Indies and a naval and army presence as a result. The Japanese captured the Dutch colonies, the start of a horrific period for those who were interned in Japanese POW camps. Many starved as a result of abuse, malnutrition and the diseases associated with these bad conditions. The equipment was seized by Japanese troops and the pistols would have found their way across the pacific theatre as a result.

Dutch KNIL and Navy contracts are very well documented, so if you have a serial number we can determine the timeframe in which it was made.

[dandypoint]

The serial is 625

[Vlim]

Hi, that would make it a mid-1929 delivery.

[dandypoint]

Wow! Thanks for the info. I assume one of the books about Lugers must have most of the information I have been looking for but I have not been able to find one in person to buy it. Could you recommend one that would have info on my version of Luger?
Thanks again to you both.
Don

[Ron Wood]

"The Dutch Luger (Parabellum) A Complete History" by Bas J. Martens and Guus de Vries. Ironside International Publishers, Inc., 1994, Alexandria, Va 22314. ISBN 0-935554-07-6. This is an outstanding reference for Dutch Lugers with lots of history, data and illustrations. I have spent hours enjoying reading it.

[PhilOhio]

Dandypoint,

It's interesting that the arrow on your Dutch Luger was incorrectly stamped to point down. Mine points up. Mine is from the last of three installments delivered to the Dutch, and stamped for ownership by what translates as the "Department of the Colonies", according to Vlim.

Mine was unexpectedly presented to me on a very sentimental occasion by a gentleman who was a former Asian guerrilla fighter. He captured the Luger around 1943, without firing a shot, from the Japanese commander of a small coast watch unit near Surabaya, now a major Indonesian port on the Indian Ocean.

He and the small group of men he commanded stalked and captured the outpost, where the Japanese commander got down on his knees and begged my friend for his life. He got to keep it, and nobody died or committed hari kira that day. The Japanese also got to keep their Indonesian girlfriends, toddlers, and most of their provisions, but not their guns or ammo. I wonder how they concealed all this, next time their supply ship came? They had to, or all would have been summarily shot. "Surrender? Who, us?"

Over the next 30+ years the Indonesian, later an army officer, killed 11 people with the Luger. That didn't put any wear on the bore at all, it appears. I'd like to think these events were unfortunate necessities; that after I was able to call the shots, there weren't any more; because the genuine need did not arise...at least as I saw it, although there were several differences of opinion on this...which I think I won.

So this nearly 80-year-old Dutch Luger will remain special during my lifetime, as do the memories surrounding it.

This one is retired, as I am, and I have no plans to fire it again, although years ago, and half a world away, I made sure it worked and could be trusted; I did have to slightly modify the safety, to be sure it would never go off under my belt and blow away some critical components. Yes, I took some carry risks then, which I would not take now, with any Luger. This one served its purpose and did some useful things...hopefully. It is in unusually fine condition, despite having not been cleaned much during a 30 year span and being carried daily in several belts, under batik shirts, against several salty and sweaty bellies at different times(my friend's and mine) in the tropics, close to the equator.

Jungle weather is hard on guns, but those Germans used really good steel. Because of my personal Luger experience with heat and sweat and no opportunity to always take care of a gun the way it deserves, I really respect what DWM did. When I see a rusted and busted Luger, I know that gun has seen abuse far beyond what any of you might imagine, and I don't want it. To produce a deeply pitted and permanently damaged Luger, you have to really work at it. Think about that, next time you see one of these on a table at a gun show while the brazen owner, with straight face, tells you he won't take a dime less than $1500.

All you younger collectors of Luger pistols, think about stories like this, next time you look at all those guns in your collections. Most of them never fired one deadly shot. They were badges of office for young soldiers who also never fired a shot at anybody. But some Lugers were different, and with most, there is no way of knowing which is which. I don't know whether that is the good news or the bad news. But the past is the past, I guess.

[Vlim]

It's interesting that the arrow on your Dutch Luger was incorrectly stamped to point down.

It was not incorrectly stamped to point down, actually.

The KNIL models with grip safety have the arrow pointing UPWARDS as SAFE is in the upwards position.

The NAVY models without grip safety have the arrow pointing DOWN as SAFE is in the downwards position.

[PhilOhio]

Vlim,

That's very interesting. In the pictures, I could not tell whether there was a grip safety, but assumed there was one, since it is a Dutch Luger. I incorrectly thought they were all the same.

Dandypoint,

From the pictures, it looks like that pistol is in unusually fine condition, if it has not been reblued. You are fortunate to have it.

Something else occurred to me. Japanese officers bought their own pistols. In Japan, they had the option of buying Type 14 Nambus, etc., at sort of a military provisions store. Many officers also bought foreign made pistols, which they preferred.

So I wonder how that worked in Indonesia? The Japanese captured the whole Dutch logistics system and its armament warehouses. Maybe they had some local system for selling or otherwise distributing pistols to officers.

My understanding is that there was little bloodshed when the Japanese took over the colonies. Most of the Dutch military and civilian population was evacuated to Australia, so there would have been few "captures" of pistols carried by Dutch military or police officers or navy personnel. It seems like the guns subsequently carried by Japanese personnel in-country, or returned to Japan, most likely came from Dutch storage facilites.

Vlim, would you have some insight on this?

[Vlim]

Phil,

Although many Dutch were evacuated in time, a lot of people were rounded up and placed in concentration camps, where they remained for the duration of the war. Men were kept separate from the women and children, but all were interned. Many did not survive the harsh conditions and a lot of women were forced to 'work' in Japanese army brothels.

The way the Japanese behaved in the Dutch colonies is one of the darkest pages in the Dutch and Japanese history and it is still very much a painfull part of the common history of both countries as Japan has not shown that much remoarse nor offered official apologies for years. Not a lot of Dutch people felt bad when the US nuked Japan twice.

So there would have been quite a few captures, although most were indeed taken from storage in arsenals, etc..

[dandypoint]

Here is another picture I took of my Luger on a captured Japanese Flag. Also in the picture is a picture of my Dads squad on Guam. Of the 10 men in the picture, 8 received the Purple Heart, one was later killed in action on Okinawa. He was awarded the Navy Cross. There also was one Silver star and one Bronze star awarded to two of the group. The man on the left in the back row in the picture found my Luger and gave it to my Dad (back row far right).

[lugerholsterrepair]

Dandy, A very cool story and pistol! You make no mention of the type or number of the magazine?
Jerry Burney

[dandypoint]

The magazine shown in the picture is a reproduction. I have the original (at least the one that was in it in 1945) but the wooden bottom is broken.

[Ron Wood]

Don,
Could we see a photo of the wood base of your original magazine? Early Dutch magazines had an unusual spring catch in the base and it would be interesting to see if yours was so made.
I particularly enjoy Dutch Lugers and have a few of them. The discussion about the Japanese capture and use of Dutch Lugers is a known bit of history. One of my favorite Dutch Lugers came in an original holster that had seen some time in the possession of a Japanese soldier. It is marked on the back with the previous owner's name, "Okamoto", written in both scribbled Kanji (岡本) and painted Katakana (ヲカモト).

[Vlim]

Ron, I don't think it will (or should) have the spring catch, as that was a KNIL requirement and not a navy one, as far as I'm aware.

[Ron Wood]

Gerben,
I don't think it would have one either, but I am always curious. If it did turn out to be a spring catch type and not too badly broken, it might be worth repairing.

[Vlim]

Ron, I'm with you on that one. Any Dutch spring catch mag deserves restoration.

I found my example on a local table, as a bunch of parts without the bottom piece. Tom set me up with a correct bottom piece, which had seen as much action as the rest of the mag, so a good fit

[dandypoint]

My Luger's original magazine is missing the wood base and spring. It is possible it may still be in a drawer at my Dad' house. I remember seeing it about 50 years ago. All I can remember is it was wood and was broken.