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Dusk luger definition3/21/2024 ![]() The action of the Sauer 38H was an otherwise uninspired straight blowback not unlike the Walther PPK and Mauser HSc, two of the gun’s contemporary competitors. The Sauer 38H strikes a good balance between small size and proper ergonomics. The H stood for “hammerless.” While this was not technically accurate, as the hammer rotated within a steel shroud inside the gun, the name nonetheless stuck. Chambered for the 7.65mm/.32ACP cartridge and feeding from an 8-round detachable box magazine, the 38H was frequently just called the “H” by the German soldiers who wielded it. The Sauer 38H pistol carried by our fictional Leutnant Neumann was a truly remarkable design. This was just one pathetic little drama that played out among countless others that made up the global hemoclysm that was the Second World War. The combat was close-quarters, hand-to-hand, and pitiless before the two units got themselves untangled and moved out on their separate missions. In the dim light, the unique parachutists’ helmets worn by both sides appeared identical. The odds against such a coincidence were astronomical. In violation of all expected norms, on the evening of July 13, 1943, both the 1st German Parachute Division and the Red Devils of Brigadier Gerald Lathbury’s British Parachute Brigade both jumped onto the same Sicilian drop zone at the same time. The aforementioned vignette is fiction, but the mission was historically accurate. Three months later, the man lost the German gun to an American GI in a card game, and it eventually made its way to me. The British Para checked the German unsuccessfully for maps and then twisted the compact Sauer pistol from his grasp, dropping it into a voluminous pocket in his own jump smock. Though it fired an underpowered cartridge through a fairly uninspired direct blowback action, the “H”, as the German soldiers called it, incorporated several advanced features that would shape the world of combat-pistol design to this day. The Sauer 38H was a remarkably advanced battle implement for its day. The dead Fallschirmjager’s eyes glinted sightlessly in the moonlight. The young British paratrooper who took the man’s life replaced the magazine of his Sten gun with a fresh box and stepped over to Neumann’s body. There was a staccato yellow flash, and 9mm bullets from a British Sten gun tore into the German officer. The figure stopped, and the helmeted head turned to face Leutnant Neumann. Leutnant Neumann waited until the dim figure got close and whispered, “Hast du meinen machinenpistole gesehen?” (“Have you seen my machine pistol?”) No matter how dire the circumstances, having a comrade close by always seemed to multiply his strength. His heart jumped at the prospect of company. By the dim moonlight, he could just make out the characteristic round helmet of one of his fellow Fallschirmjagers. To his right, he heard footfalls in the leaves. He pulled in the sweet, cool, Sicilian air and let his ears acclimate. Otto pushed back the panic and leaned heavily against a tree. ![]() Despite vigorously groping about in the darkness, he could find no other members of his unit. His only weapons consisted of a Sauer 38H pistol and a standard-issue gravity knife. He wore his “bone bag” jump smock, abbreviated paratrooper helmet, and scant personal equipment, but his MP40 submachine gun was lost someplace in a weapons canister. Neumann, like all German Fallschirmjagers, hit the ground naked. Everything else seemed to be random, disorganized, flawed, or broken. That was, however, the only thing about this mission that had gone as intended. ![]() He had flown more than 300 miles aboard a Junkers JU-52 transport plane and hit the drop zone at dusk, as planned. It was the evening of July 13, 1943, and Leutnant Otto Neumann was lost. ![]()
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