WWII weapons in Shanghai: VJ Day to 1949

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, Shanghai was famous as China’s international city, a busy trade port with notorious underworld . During the latter part of the 20th century, the city languished through Mao’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, before once again becoming a world-class city leading in finance, technology, and culture at the turn of the millennium.

There was a very brief time after WWII, only four years, when the city was under the Kuomintang (KMT), or nationalist Chinese government. What makes this period interesting militarily, was the unusual combinations of WWII weaponry fielded there, and a now largely-forgotten American military presence in China.

(Officers of the Shanghai Police Department monitor a political protest in 1948. Equipment includes a stahlhelm M35 helmet and Arisaka Type 38 rifle.)

(An abandoned Mitsubishi Ki-21 “Sally” bomber sits opposite American C-46 Commando, C-54 Skymaster, and C-47 Skytrain transports at a former Japanese airbase near Shanghai after WWII.)

(Soviet-made T-26 and American-made M3/M5 Stuart tanks of the nationalist army together in Shanghai during 1949. An irony of this last battle is that the nationalists were partially equipped with Soviet gear and the communists were partially equipped with American gear.)

Cleaning up after WWII

Since starting wwiiafterwwii, I receive from time to time suggestions for topics. These are wide-ranging but two in particular seem very popular: WWII weapons in the Vietnam War, which has been touched on several times; and a general question of how the world “cleaned up” WWII battlefields after the war. For the latter, I was surprised at how very little is written about it so perhaps this will be of interest.

One of the reasons WWII battlefields did not remain littered with vehicles for long was that, with the lone exception of the USA, all of the major warring powers made some official level of combat usage of captured enemy arms during WWII. The most formal was Germany’s Beutewaffe (literally, ‘booty’ or ‘loot’ weapon) effort, which encompassed everything from handguns to fighter aircraft with an official code in the Waffenamt system; for example FK-288(r) (the Soviet ZiS-3 anti-tank gun), SIGew-251(a) (the American M1 Garand rifle), and Sd.Kfz 735(i) (the Italian Fiat M13/40 tank). Captured gear was assembled at points called Sammelstelle and then shipped back from the front lines for disposition.

MP 41/44 submachine gun: post-WWII use

Some items designed or built during WWII were “gifts that kept on giving”; having long successful careers after the war. Examples might include the Soviet T-34 tank, the American Gearing class destroyer, and the British Meteor fighter.

Neutral Switzerland’s MP 41/44 submachine gun was the opposite side of that coin, a military item developed during WWII which was not successful, but, that the nation was then saddled with after the war nonetheless.

(The MP 41/44 submachine gun.)

WWII equipment of the Bundesgrenzschutz

The Bundesgrenzschutz (BGS / “Federal Border Guard”) was the first national-level armed service established in West Germany after WWII. It utilized a number of WWII items during the Cold War.

(New BGS troopers take their service oath in 1963.)

(BGS border troopers disembark from UH-1 Iroquois helicopters in 1976. The combination of stahlhelm helmets and hueys makes an interesting mixture of WWII and Vietnam War items.)

In 1945, the Allies decreed that any future German nation would be permanently disarmed. During the 1945-1949 occupation, the three western Allies (UK, France, and the USA) did not allow anything more than local police armed with light small arms. West German sovereignty was restored in 1949. In May 1950, the Allied Joint Chiefs Of Staff proposed a West German armed force of 5,000 men to patrol the new nation’s borders. In January 1951 Konrad Adenauer, the first postwar Chancellor, ordered the formation of a 10,000 man armed border guard to be placed under civil control of the Interior Ministry. On 16 March 1951 the Bundesgrenzshutz officially came into existence.

The stahlhelm in Latin America after WWII

Forever associated with the WWII Wehrmacht, the stahlhelm (literally, ‘steel helmet’) enjoyed surprisingly long use in Latin America after WWII, up until the present time.

(Bolivian soldiers with stahlhelm M35 helmets and M16 assault rifles.)

(Chilean soldiers in 2009 wearing the stahlhelm M35.)

(Late 1950s Dominican Republic soldiers with stahlhelm M53 helmets, NATO-standard FN FAL assault rifles, and American M1936 belts from WWII Lend-Lease.)

Rearming Austria: WWII weapons

It is often forgotten today that, like defeated Germany, Austria was split up into four occupation zones after WWII. Just like Berlin in Germany, the capital Vienna was split up four ways as well. When the country reunified in 1955, it’s new army was equipped with an interesting mix of WWII weapons; both Allied and Axis, and both Soviet and American.

(A 1945 US Army map showing the four occupation zones, with the American zone highlighted.)

(A WWII-veteran M3 half-track of the Austrian army. The bumper plate states that it is a driver instructional vehicle.)

WWII gear in Afghan use: Part III – tanks and artillery

Long isolated and neutral, Afghanistan before 1973 used an amazing assortment of WWII-era tanks, artillery, and fighting vehicles. In many cases, they remained in Royal Afghan Army use long after they had faded elsewhere in the world.

(An Afghan FT-17 tank, built by Renault in the 1910s. The AK-47 in the soldier’s hand dates this photo to the 1980s.)

WWII gear in Afghan use: Part II – uniforms

Prior to the 1973 revolution which overthrew the king, and then the December 1979 Soviet intervention, the Royal Afghan Army’s personal gear was a mixture of German and British influences.

(Order Of The Sun, a pre-1973 medal of the Royal Afghan  Army.)

WWII gear in Afghan use: Part I – Firearms

The country of Afghanistan, in it’s present borders, has existed since 1880. At that time it’s independence was guaranteed by the end of the Second Afghan-British War. The country remained a monarchy until the 1973 revolution, which was followed by the 1979 Soviet invasion, the 1980s war, the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, and the 2001 American invasion.

For most of the 20th century, the Royal Afghan Army’s equipment was a generation behind the rest of the world. A great deal of WWII-vintage (and even some pre-WWII) equipment saw use.

(Flag of Afghanistan before the 1973 revolution.)