![]() The history of the Owen gun’s development aptly begins with Evelyn Ernest Owen, who was born on May 15, 1915, and hailed from Wollongong, a seaside city located in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia, just over 50 miles south of Sydney. ![]() The very expensive Thompson was extremely effective at close quarters but could not withstand the punishment of a jungle environment and was prone to jamming, necessitating almost constant field stripping and cleaning. Prior to the Owen gun’s introduction, each Australian infantry section commander carried a Thompson 1928A1 SMG. The firearm’s developmental history, however, had some political hurdles and obstacles, which delayed its implementation to frontline Australian infantrymen combating the tenacious Japanese, who were on the defensive by the time the Owen gun appeared in combat. It reached service with the Australian Army in 1943 and fired the 9mm (.35in) Parabellum cartridge fed by a 32-round detachable magazine.”Įventually, about 50,000 Owen SMGs were produced, primarily for jungle use. It was the Owen submachine gun (SMG) or Owen machine carbine, and the Australian infantry often favorably referred to it as the “Digger’s Darling.” According to historian Michael Haskew, the “blowback-operated Owen was the only weapon of its type developed in Australia and used in World War II…. A casual observer of World War II photographs after 1943 will often notice slouch hat- or beret-wearing Australian “diggers,” or armed Melanesian natives in the Australian Constabulary battalions, slogging through the muck and jungle of New Guinea, Bougainville, New Britain, and Borneo carrying a rather odd-looking weapon with a vertical top-mounting magazine.
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