Yesterday's Weapons Forums

Here’s the (Dutch) story on the JAR, the Johnson Automatic Rifle.
In 1940 the Army Commander in the Dutch East Indies was ordered to check the world market for semi-automatic rifles.
The possibilities were limited.
Only three models were in full production at that time.
They were the model R75 and R80 made by the Colt Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company and the M1 Garand.
Then there was the Peterson rifle, but this rifle only existed on paper.
Last but not least the Johnson rifle of which only a few were produced.


Drawing of a JAR

Both the Colts were to heavy and the American war Dept wouldn’t sell a single Garand to the Dutch.
So…the new KNIL semi-automatic rifle for the KNIL units became the JAR.
Production started from scratch.
Between November 1941 and February 1942 4025 rifles were sent to the Dutch East Indies.
In total 1999 rifles reached the Dutch East Indies on time.
By buying these rifles, the KNIL army(together with the US Army) was among the first armies to issue a semi-automatic rifle to their troops.
It didn’t help much though.
The KNIL army surrendered to the Japanese on March 8th 1942.


Picture of right and left side of a JAR with a R(otary) magazine as used by the KNIL.

Some technical info on the JAR:

- Caliber: 30-06
- Length: 1.165 meter (about 46")
- Barrel length: 0.558 meter (about 22")
- Weight: 4.4 kg (a little less then 10Lb)
- Magazine type: Rotary or Box magazine
KNIL army was issued with the Rotary magazine.
- Magazine capacity: 10 rds


Picture of two KNIL soldiers.
The soldier on the left side of the picture carries a JAR.

Just a story on a less well known rifle I wanted to share.
The only time I saw such a rifle was in the KNIL museum in Arnhem.
BTW, KNIL stands for "Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch leger" or in good English "Royal Dutch East Indies army".

Met vriendelijke groet,

Martin

id love to have a JAR, and/or one of these, i suspect you will tell me they were all destroyed by the japanese when captured?

I've seen a few at gunshows here in the states, but not very many. the U.S. Marines issued these for a while at the beginning of ww2, along with the light machine gun version.

IIRC, some of these were sold to a country in south america in 7x57mm also. just can't remember which country or if it was after the war.
y'all have a good day, Keith

_________________


██ █ ████ everything ███ █████ is █████ ████ ████ fine ████ ███ █ ██████ love. █████ ███████ ███ your █████ ████ government.

Keith - the country in South America was Chile IIRC

_________________
Hunde, wallt ihr ewig leben?

Political Correctness is intellectual fascism
NRA life member
583rd ORD Co/59 ORD BDE
Handorf FRG 1988-1990

pete , thats what ive seen $3500-5000 , lotta cash for one rifle

i think ill end up looking for a nice refurb M1917 with a JA bbl , close as im gettin

_________________


██ █ ████ everything ███ █████ is █████ ████ ████ fine ████ ███ █ ██████ love. █████ ███████ ███ your █████ ████ government.

wow , that has aspects of a number of other rifles would love to handle one of those

Martin,

I have also read KNIL used some of the Marlin United Defense 9mm SMGs. Marlin made around 15,000 of the model UDM '42 SMGs which were mostly bought by the Dutch. The OSS used a few in Europe, and some were parachuted into France for partisan forces there... the account went on to say collaborators ratted the drop out & all the SMGs & other supplies were captured by Germans.

Post war, there was still a little interest by the Dutch and also from Argentina but not enough to resume production.

I saw one for sale a while back, but $14,000 would have burst the piggy bank... and spoiled cordial relations with wifey for a bit! SW

_________________
Slava Ukraini!!

Boy you all got my heart pounding with this rifle, I was looking at this and my father-in-law looks at it and tells me one of his old timer friends has one and still does as far as he knows!!

I'm begging him to check for me

_________________
Mark

Resident of the Northern Republic of Free California

"People should not be afraid of their Government, the Government should be afraid of the people." - V

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote" - Ben Franklin

I saw one earlier this month at a gun show not far from Vancouver, Canada. The asking price was $4000.