I forgot to ask...If mine was made for the Chinese, but was never delivered to them...who got them???? I wonder why it took the Canadian Army so long to issue them? I'm thinking they were a better pistol than the issue Webly??
I see that your questions remain at least partially unanswered .....
As for who got the 1944-made No. 1 pistols which couldn't be delivered to China - those that were finished or still in production were diverted to use by Canada and Britain. Manufacture of the "Chinese model" was effectively terminated early in September of 1944, I understand, but over 500 of that model were still produced in September and October, i.e. finishing pistols already in production and using up slides and frames already made. Seems like they must have had more frames than slides because at least a few T-numbered No. 2 pistols were put out with slotted frames, such as the one Canuck posted a picture of ......
As for why it "took so long" for the Army to issue them ....
Production of the Inglis High Power didn't begin until February of 1944 and got off to a rather slow start with only about 4,000 units of both types completed by the end of May. In fact, the Inglis pistol was not officially adopted for issue to the Canadian Army Overseas (CAO) until 3 September 1944. The logistics of getting the pistols shipped to the European theater and distributed with suitable holsters and ammunition were fairly involved, but they began making their way into the hands of front-line troops prior to the end of 1944.
By the way, no Webley revolver has
ever been standard issue for Canadian military forces ..... nor, for that matter, was a Webley revolver primary issue for British forces during WWII, either. The official British service handgun from the late 1920's was the .380 Enfield No. 2 revolver. As far as Canadian forces are concerned, only the RCAF adopted that model (and only had a few, relatively speaking - maybe 3,000 or so in total. The handgun officially adopted in 1939 for Canadian army issue was the .38 Smith & Wesson Military & Police model revolver ..... with over 118,000 of them acquired in total, according to Clive Law's
"Canadian Military Handguns, 1855-1985". Here is the rather nice example in my collection - it is the "commercial quality' type acquired early on .... later, they got progressively plainer and roughly finished, ending up essentially the same as the "Victory models" used by the American armed forces ....
