The WWII Silenced Luger Pistol

See also: the WELROD SILENCED PISTOL for WWII and after Special Forces use.

This moderated P08 Luger with claimed Special Operations Executive (SOE)

history is held in the Combined Services Museum, Maldon, Essex.

It is part of a collection now residing there that was passed from the Military Collection at Donnington

when that facility was closed a few short years ago.

The exhibit is captioned as being a 7.65mm version of the Luger pistol '08.

"It is believed that this is one of two weapons prepared for Operation Foxley,

a proposed attempt to assassinate Hitler, in late Summer 1944.

A two man team was to be parachuted into Bavaria, dressed as SS soldiers.

The plan was to snipe Hitler on his lone morning walk at Berchtesgarte.

The Lugers were intended for personal protection for the team.

The plan was abandoned as it then became considered that Hitler

was causing more damage to Germany alive that he could dead."

A similar Parker-Hale moderator can be seen on a Colt Woodsman .22RF pistol,

attached with their special barrel-adapter that permitted the use of their silencers

on many pistols without the necessity to machine a thread on the barrel's muzzle.

Below: a 1942 Mauser "BYF" manufactured P'08 standard issue Luger for comparison.

The next image can be rotated and zoomed,

either as initially loaded or full-screen for higher definition.

As well as covering unusual adaptations of many service arms,

this site affords details of a number of adapter units for such weapons.

Not least amongst these are the .22 rimfire conversion units for economical small-bore practice.

Such an adapter was produced for the P'08 Luger,

and we are able to show a flip-page document of the German language manual for such a unit.

Below is a flip-page facsimile of the manual, may take a few moments to display. N.B. The search magnifier may need to be clicked twice.

Below: facsimiles of two-pages of a 1950s English pamphlet for the ERMA adapter unit.

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A small number of diiferent manufacturers produced .22RF

and other sub-calibre conversion units for the Luger in its working lifetime.

Erma even introduced a specific toggle arrangement and special barrel

to fire either the 4mm Übungspatrone or .22RF cartridge.

In the 1920s, Star produced a similar conversion for their 9mm Largo and .45 ACP pistols.

See also the Colt Ace conversion unit for the Colt 1911 pistol;

and the 4mm air adapter unit for the Swiss Schmidt- Rubin Rifle.

We also hold in our archives a1942 dated Swiss language manual that includes pages for the P'08 Luger.

This is shown below as a flip-page facsimile of the relevant section of the document,

may take a few moments to display. N.B. The search magnifier may need to be clicked twice.

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