Smith would task Major Waller and his battalion of 315 Marines to march across the island, destroying any and all opposition.
Public outrage and comparisons to General Custer’s defeat at Little Bighorn led to President Theodore Roosevelt’s orders for the island to be pacified. In total, forty-four soldiers would either be killed or die of their wounds, twenty-two would be wounded, and just four would escape unharmed. Samar Island had always proven difficult to US forces, but it would become a nationally recognized place with the Balangiga Massacre, when Insurrectos would ambush the soldiers of C Company, 9th Infantry Regiment while they were eating breakfast in their mess hall. The M1884 Trapdoor, M1895 Lee Navy, and M1898 Krag were all present in the fray, with the later two the most common (Tim Plowman collection).īy far the most intense combat environment Krag armed Marines would see would take place during Major Littleton Waller’s infamous march across Samar Island in the Philippines in late 1901. The Boxer Rebellion saw an amalgam of Marines engaged, and they carried an eclectic mix of primary weapons. “The Solder’s Song,” a popular ballad sung amongst the American troops who fought in the Philippines. When ladrones would steal and lie, and Americanos die, Then you heard the soldiers sing this evening song: Damn, damn, damn the insurrectos! Cross-eyed kakiac ladrones! Underneath the starry flag, civilize ’em with a Krag, a nd return us to our own beloved homes.” “ In the days of dopey dreams - happy, peaceful Philippines, When the bolomen were busy all night long. Following further action in China, Waller and the rest of the First Marine Regiment men would return to the Philippines, where significant combat awaited in the following years. This action would see Smedley Butler given a brevet promotion to Captain for his heroism. Fierce combat would meet Waller’s battalion at Tientsin, where one of his handpicked officers and friend Lieutenant Smedley Butler would be wounded as he helped a wounded man to safety. The Cavite detachment would be armed with older Springfield Armory M1884 Trapdoor rifles, complicating the logistical situation. Upon arrival in China the elements of the First Marine Regiment would combine with a newly arrived Marine detachment from Cavite to form a hasty battalion under the command of Major Littleton Waller. Not long after the combat in Noveleta, part of the 1st Marine Regiment would be ordered to China to aid Captain Johnathon Twiggs Meyers and his embattled Marines at the American embassy in Peking who were under siege from the Chinese “Boxers” in what would be known as the Boxer Rebellion. The Marines in the Philippines did comment they preferred the stopping power of the Krag to that of the Lee Navy, as the Lee Navy tended to over-penetrate targets at close range, an issue immediately recognized as a potential problem in a Bureau of Ordnance report from 1895.
#Springfield 1898 3040 krag knife trial
These Marines were armed with Krag rifles according to historian and Marine Colonel Brooke Nihart, and it is likely that these early actions would have been the first where Marines put their M1898s through trial by fire. In 1899, the First Marine Regiment would see limited combat in the Philippines against insurgent forces known as “Insurrectos” in the town of Noveleta.
M1898 Krag documented to the US Marines (Tim Plowman collection). 30-40 Krag cartridges, and the US War Department would take notice, beginning the search for a new design with the beginning of the 20th Century. Combat against Mauser-equipped Spanish forces in the end of the decade would show weaknesses in both the. The Marine Corps, falling under the Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance, would be equipped with James Paris Lee’s straight pull M1895 Winchester Lee-Navy Rifle for most of the 1890s, not adopting the “Krag” until the implementation of the M1898 variant. The rapid arms development of the late 19th Century saw tremendous improvements to the standard issue service rifle in a very short period of time, and competing designs would run the gambit in style of operation. 30” would be produced by Springfield Armory for the US military beginning with the Model of 1892. A bolt action, internal magazine rifle designed by Norwegians Ole Herman Johannes Krag and Erik Jørgensen, the “United States Magazine Rifle, Caliber.