They laughed at his rifle… and he responded by taking down 11 snipers in 4 days.

At 9:17 a.m. on January 22, 1943, Second Lieutenant John George, 27, Illinois state champion with zero confirmed kills, crouched among the ruins of a Japanese bunker west of Point Cruise.

He was observing a banyan tree 240 yards away through a scope that his fellow officers had criticized for six weeks. The Japanese had 11 snipers operating in the orchards of Point Cruise, and in the previous 72 hours they had killed 14 men from the 132nd Infantry Regiment. George’s commanding officer had called his rifle a toy.

The other platoon leaders called him their male mailman candy. When he unpacked the Winchester Model 70 with its Leman Alaskan scope and Griffin and How mount in Cam Forest, Tennessee, the gunsmith wanted to know if it was meant for serfs or Germans. George explained that it was for the Japanese. They left before the rifle even arrived.

George spent the voyage to Guadalcanal watching other men clean their Garant rifles while his own sat in storage in Illinois. He requested that it be sent through military mail. Six weeks later, in late December 1942, a supply sergeant delivered a wooden crate marked “fragile.” Inside was the rifle for which he had saved two years’ pay from the National Guard. The rifle weighed nine pounds.

The scope added another 12 ounces. The Garant issued to each man in his battalion weighed 9.5 pounds without magnification. George’s rifle was a five-round bolt-action. The Garant was an eight-round semi-automatic. Captain Morris ordered him to leave his home rifle in his tent and take a real gun.

George took him anyway. The 13th Infantry had relieved the Marines on Guadalcanal in late December 1942. The Marines had been fighting since August. They had taken Camp Anderson, held it, but had not taken Mount Austin and had not cleared the Japanese from the coastal groves west of the Metáica River.

Mount Austin was 1,514 feet high. The Japanese called it Gefu, meaning 547 bunkers. George’s battalion attacked on December 17. They fought for 16 days. They lost 34 men killed and 279 wounded before finally taking the western slope on January 2.

By then, George had fired his Winchester exactly zero times in combat. The jungle around Point Cruise harbored soldiers who had retreated west from Camp Henderson and taken cover in the enormous trees. Some of those soldiers were snipers; they had rifles—Arsaka Type 98s with scopes. They knew the jungle; they knew what to expect.

On January 19, a sniper killed Corporal Davis while he was filling canteens at a creek. On January 20, another sniper killed two men from Elk Company during a patrol. On January 21, three more men were killed.

One of them was shot in the neck from a tree the patrol had passed twice. The battalion commander summoned George that night. Japanese snipers were killing his men faster than malaria. He needed someone who could shoot. He wanted to know if that mail-order rifle could actually hit anything. George explained his credentials: Illinois state champion at 1,000 yards in 1939.

He was 23 at the time, the youngest winner in state history. He shot 6-inch groups at 600 yards with iron sights using the LAN Alaskan. Five shots within 4 inches at 300 yards. The commander gave him until morning to prove it. If you want to see how George’s civilian rifle performed against Japanese snipers trained for jungle warfare, please hit that like button.

It helps us share more forgotten stories like this, and please subscribe if you haven’t already. Back to George. George spent the night checking his rifle. The Winchester had been packed in Cosmolin for the ocean voyage. He cleaned it again. He checked the scope mounts. He loaded five rounds of home-packed .36 caliber ammunition that he had packed in Tennessee.

The same military ammunition the Garant fired. At dawn on January 22, George took up position in the ruins of a Japanese bunker. His battalion had captured it three days earlier. The bunker overlooked the coconut groves west of Point Cruise. Intelligence indicated that Japanese snipers operated from the large banyan trees in that area.

Some of them reached 90 feet in height with trunks eight feet thick. A sniper could climb one of those trees before dawn and stay there all day unseen. George hadn’t brought a spotter or a radio operator, just his rifle, a canteen, and 60 rounds of ammunition on belts.

He settled into the bunker and began observing the trees through his scope. The Liman scope had a 2.5x magnification, not much, but enough to see movement in the branches that the naked eye couldn’t detect. The jungle was never silent. Birds, insects, the distant sound of artillery. George had learned to filter out the noise and focus on the movement.

He looked at the trees slowly, from left to right, from top to bottom. At 9:17 he saw it. A branch moved even though there was no wind, just a slight movement. Eighty-seven feet away, on a banyan tree 240 yards away, George watched. The branch moved again. Then he saw the profile at a fork where three branches met.

The Japanese sniper was facing east, watching the trail where George’s battalion had been moving supplies. George adjusted his sight, two clicks to the right because of the wind. He controlled his breathing. The Winchester’s trigger was as smooth as 3-and-a-half-brass glass. He had spent hours fine-tuning it at Camp Perry before the war.

Now he would find out if a civilian target rifle could kill a man trained to kill it first. George squeezed the trigger. The Winchester struck his shoulder. The sound echoed through the jungle. 240 yards away, the Japanese sniper shuddered and fell. He fell through the branches. His body dropped 90 feet and hit the ground near the base of the banyan tree.

George manipulated the bolt. The spent cartridge was ejected. He loaded another round. He kept his sight on the tree, watching for movement. Nothing. The sniper’s partner would be nearby. Japanese snipers worked in pairs. One shooter, one spotter. If George had just killed the shooter, the spotter was somewhere in that tree or in the nearby trees.

George examined the surrounding banana trees. The two-and-a-half-power magnification of the scope forced him to search slowly. Each tree could conceal several men. The jungle canopy created shadows that made shapes impossible to distinguish without careful observation.

At 9:43, he found the second sniper in a different tree, 60 yards north of the first. This one was lower, perhaps 50 feet up. The Japanese soldier was moving backward along the trunk. He had heard the shot and knew his position was compromised. George took aim, directed the movement, and fired. The second sniper fell backward from the tree.

His rifle crackled through the branches in front of him. Both men fell to the jungle floor within seconds. Two shots, two deaths. George reloaded his Winchester with a sniper’s magazine. His hands were steady, his breathing controlled. This was no different than shooting at Camp Perry, except the targets were firing back.

At 11:21, a Japanese bullet struck the sandbag six inches from George’s head. The impact splattered dirt across his face, and he twisted to the left and pressed against the bunker wall. The shot had come from the southwest, a different direction than the first two snipers.

George waited three minutes before moving, slowly retreating to his firing position and scanning the trees to the southwest. The shooter would have moved after firing. That was basic sniper doctrine: shoot and reposition. But in the jungle, repositioning options were limited. George found him at 11:38. Third tree from the left. In a group of five banyan trees, 73 feet tall.

The Japanese sniper had repositioned himself to a different branch, but was still in the same tree. A mistake. George placed the reticle on the dark shape and fired. The third sniper fell silently. By noon, George had killed five Japanese snipers. Word spread through the battalion. The men who had mocked his manly rifle now asked if they could see him in action.

George refused. The onlookers drew attention. Attention attracted fire. The Japanese snipers adapted after the fifth kill. They stopped moving during the day. George spent the afternoon watching the trees and saw nothing. At 4:00 p.m., he returned to battalion headquarters.

Captain Morris was waiting. The mockery was gone from his voice. He wanted George back at his post by dawn. January 23rd began with rain, an intense tropical downpour that turned the jungle floor to mud and made the trees invisible beyond 100 yards.

George sat in the bunker and waited for the weather to improve. The rain stopped at 8:15. By 8:04, visibility had returned sufficiently for work. George spotted the first sniper of the day at 9:01. The Japanese soldier had moved into position during the rain. Clever. The sound of the rain masked his movement.

This sniper had chosen a tree 290 yards away, a greater distance than yesterday. He was also cunning. They were learning his capabilities. George compensated for the distance and fired. The sniper fell. The sixth kill provoked a response George hadn’t anticipated. At 0957, Japanese mortars began impacting the area around his bunker. They had triangulated his position based on the muzzle flash or sound.

The first rounds fell 40 short yards. The second attack fell 20 short yards. The third attack would hit the Cintas Bunker. George grabbed his rifle and ran. He ran north along the tree line and dove into a crater after the third bombardment. The bunker he had occupied moments before disappeared in explosions and flying debris.

He moved to a different position, a fallen tree 120 yards north of the destroyed bunker. The tree provided cover and a clear view of the woods. George settled in and resumed his watch. The Japanese sent in more snipers that afternoon. They knew George was hunting them. Now they were hunting him.

The dynamic had changed. It was no longer target practice. This was a duel. At 4:23, George killed his seventh sniper. At 3:41 p.m., he killed his eighth. This one had climbed 94 feet high in a banyan tree. Good concealment, but the height created a silhouette against the sky when the angle of the sun changed.

At 5:00 p.m., Captain Morris sent a messenger to bring George back. George had been in position for nine hours. Morris wanted numbers. George reported eight confirmed kills over two days. Twelve rounds were fired: eight kills, four misses. Morris assigned George to continue sniper operations, beginning at dawn on January 24.

That night, George cleaned his Winchester and did the math. Eleven Japanese snipers operating in the woods of Point Cruise, eight now dead, three remaining. Those three would be the best, the ones who had survived the longest. And now they knew exactly what George looked like and exactly what rifle he carried.

George loaded his Winchester with five fresh rounds and tried to sleep. At 030 he gave up and sat down in his .415. By 0530 he was heavy enough to delay dawn operations. George used the time to move to a new position.

Neither the bunker nor the fallen tree in a place the Japanese wouldn’t expect. He chose a spot 70 yards south of his previous position, a cluster of large rocks the Marines had used as a machine-gun nest in December. The position offered good cover and overlapping fields of fire toward the woods. He settled in and waited for the rain to stop.

At 7:43, the rain lessened to a drizzle, improving visibility. George began scanning the trees. At 0817 on January 24, he located sniper number nine. The Japanese soldier was positioned in a palm tree 190 yards away, only 40 feet high. Unusual.

Most snipers climbed high for better lines of sight. This one had chosen camouflage over elevation. The palm fronds created a natural hiding place that would be invisible from ground level. But George wasn’t at ground level; he was perched high on the rocks. The angle gave him a view down into the fronds.

He could see the dark outline of the sniper’s shoulders in his head. George aimed, controlled his breathing, began to squeeze the trigger, then stopped. Something was wrong. The position was too obvious, too easy. George had been hunting snipers for three days. He had killed eight men.

The remaining three wouldn’t make elementary mistakes; they wouldn’t position themselves where an elevated sniper could see them unless it was a trap. George lowered his rifle and scanned the surrounding trees. If the sniper in the palm tree was a decoy, the real shooter would be positioned to cover him, watching anyone who fired, waiting for the muzzle flash, ready to return fire.

George methodically scanned the trees from left to right and top to bottom. He checked every tree within 300 yards of the palm tree. It took him 11 minutes. At 0828, he found the real threat: a banyan tree 80 yards northwest of the palm tree, 91 feet tall. The Japanese sniper was positioned in perfect concealment.

Branches and vines concealed him on three sides. He had a clear line of sight to George’s previous position in the fallen tree. He was waiting for George to appear there or to try to reach the bait in the palm. George had two problems.

First, the real sniper was looking in the wrong place. If George shot him, the sound would reveal George’s actual position. The sniper would reposition himself before George could even cycle the bolt and load another round. Second, if George did nothing, the sniper would eventually realize George wasn’t in the fallen tree and start looking for him.

George decided to use the decoy against them. He aimed at the decoy sniper in the palm tree, adjusted for the wind, and fired. The decoy sniper jerked and fell from the palm. George immediately turned his rifle toward the banana tree 91 feet up. The real sniper would react to the shot. He would turn toward the sound. That turn would create movement.

George saw it. A slight shift. The sniper was repositioning himself to aim at the dark outline and fired before the real sniper could fully turn. The real sniper fell. His rifle rolled behind him. Two shots, two kills. But George had given away his position to anyone watching. He grabbed his rifle and ammunition and ran.

He moved east along the line of rocks and dropped into a drainage ditch 40 yards away. He pressed himself into the mud and waited. At 0834, Japanese machine gun fire raked the rocks where he had been positioned 6 seconds earlier. The bullets kicked up dust and stone fragments.

The firing lasted 17 seconds. When it stopped, George counted to 60 before moving. He repositioned himself again, this time to a location 100 yards to the east, a shell crater partially filled with rainwater.

George settled himself in the crater, the water up to his chest, propped his Winchester against the rim, and resumed scanning the trees. Ten confirmed kills, one remaining. The eleventh sniper would be the best, the smartest, the most experienced. He had seen ten of his comrades die in three days. He knew George’s tactics. He knew George’s rifle.

He knew George’s approximate location. And somewhere in those trees, he was watching, waiting, planning. George scanned the jungle through his scope. Elan, Alaskan, and Magnification made distant, but unidentifiable, shapes visible. Each dark patch could be a branch or a man. George had to study each one carefully.

At 9:47, he realized his mistake. The tenth sniper wasn’t in the trees; he was on the ground and moving toward George’s position. George saw the movement at the edge of his peripheral vision, 60 yards to the south, crouching, a shape moving through the undergrowth, parallel to the tree line. The Japanese sniper was using the jungle floor vegetation as cover—hele, vines, fallen branches. He was crawling toward George’s last known position on the rocks.

He lay motionless in the water-filled crater. The Winchester was already at his shoulder. His breathing was controlled, but the angle was wrong. The crater’s rim blocked his view of the approaching sniper. George would have to stand up to get a clear shot. Standing up would expose him.

The Japanese sniper stopped moving at 0952. He had reached a position 40 yards from the rocks. George watched through his scope. The sniper was studying the rocks, looking for any sign of movement from his target. George waited.

Patience was the primary skill of a sniper’s job—the ability to remain still, let time pass, and wait for the right moment instead of forcing a bad shot. At 9:58 AM, the Japanese sniper began to move again. He crawled forward to 35 yards from the rocks, 30 yards, 25 yards.

He was approaching from the south, the side George had used when he evacuated under machine-gun fire. George understood the tactic. The Japanese sniper had observed the machine-gun attack. He knew George had moved east from the rocks. Now he was advancing along the most likely escape route, hunting George, just as George had been hunting him.

At 10:03, the Japanese sniper reached the rocks, entered the machine gun nest, and took up a position facing east, toward the drainage ditch, toward the area where George should have relocated. The sniper was now 38 yards from George’s actual position in the water-filled crater, but he was facing the wrong direction. His back was exposed.

George had a clear line of fire to the center of the torso at 38 yards. An easy shot, even without a scope. But George hesitated. This sniper had survived 10 days of U.S. operations in the Point Cruz area. He had outlived 10 other snipers, men who had been killed because they made mistakes. This man would not make any mistakes.

The position on the rocks was too exposed, too vulnerable. No experienced sniper would stay there for more than a few seconds. This had to be another trap, another ambush. George kept his sights on the sniper on the rocks, but his awareness expanded to encompass the surrounding area.

If this was a sniper, the real threat would be positioned to cover it somewhere with a line of sight to anyone firing. At 10:06, George found him. A second Japanese soldier, 70 yards northwest of the rocks behind a fallen tree trunk.

This soldier didn’t move, didn’t reposition himself, just watched, waiting. His rifle was pointed toward the drainage ditch where George should have been hiding. Two men, not one. The eleventh sniper had brought backup. Or perhaps these were the last two snipers, numbers 10 and 11, working together. George made his decision.

He couldn’t shoot both men before they reacted. The bolt-action Winchester required him to manipulate the mechanism between shots. That gave them time to locate him and return fire. He needed a different approach. George slowly submerged himself deeper in the water.

He climbed in until only his eyes and the top of his head remained above the surface. He kept the Winchester pointed skyward to keep water out of the canyon. Then he waited. At 10:13, the Japanese soldier on the rocks stood up. He had spent 10 minutes watching the drainage ditch and hadn’t seen anything. He believed George had moved farther east.

He turned and signaled to his partner behind the fallen tree. Both men began moving east, parallel to each other, about 70 yards apart. They were conducting a sweep, planning to flush George out or locate his position. George remained motionless in the water. The two Japanese soldiers passed by his crater.

Now they were between George and what was exposed. George got up from the water slowly and silently. He put the Winchester on his shoulder. Water dripped from the barrel, from his uniform, from his face. He aimed at the nearest soldier, the one who had been on the rocks, now 42 yards away. George fired. The soldier fell.

George manipulated the bolt, reloaded another round, and aimed the rifle at the second soldier behind the fallen tree. The man was turning, raising his rifle. George fired first; the second soldier fell. Eleven shots were fired in three days. Eleven Japanese snipers were killed. George had cleared the Point Cruise area of ​​the threat that had killed 14 Americans in 72 hours.

But when George climbed out of the crater and retrieved his spent cartridges, he heard a sound that made him freeze. Voices, Japanese voices. They were coming from the tree line, multiple men moving toward the fallen soldiers. George had killed the snipers, but the snipers hadn’t been working alone. George fell back into the crater. The water was cold and muddy.

He lowered himself until only his eyes remained above the surface. He held the Winchester upright to keep the barrel clear. The Japanese voices grew louder. At least six men, maybe more. They were moving toward the two dead snipers. George heard branches snapping. Equipment clanging.

They weren’t snipers; they were infantry, a patrol, or a recovery team sent to collect the bodies. George counted the seconds. The voices stopped at the site of the first body, 42 yards from its crater, close enough to hear them clearly, even without understanding the words. Then the voices moved to the second body. More talking. Urgent tones.

At 10:28, the voices began to move again, not toward the tree line, but toward George’s crater. They had found his footprints, boot prints in the mud leading from the rocks to the crater. George had been careful with noise and movement. He had not been careful with footprints.

George had five rounds in his Winchester, at least six Japanese soldiers—bad odds for a bolt-action rifle. He considered his options: stay hidden and wait for them to pass, or fight. The voices were getting closer. 30 yards, 25 yards, 20 yards. At 10:31, a Japanese soldier appeared at the edge of the crater. He was looking down directly at George. Their eyes met.

George fired from the water. The soldier fell backward. George manipulated the bolt while still submerged. He loaded another round, stood up. Two more soldiers were on the crater’s edge. George fired, manipulated the bolt, fired again. Both soldiers fell. Three bullets left. George could hear shouts. More soldiers were moving toward him. He climbed out of the crater on the north side, away from the approaching voices.

He ran 20 yards and ducked behind a fallen tree. Japanese rifle fire erupted through the jungle. Bullets hit the ground around the crater and beside the fallen tree. The soldiers were firing at movement, at sound, not at confirmed targets. George stayed crouched. He scanned the area through a scope. He saw movement.

Two soldiers advanced toward the crater, 50 yards away. George aimed at the soldier in front of him, fired, and the soldier fell. The second soldier took cover. Two bullets remained. George heard more voices behind him. The Japanese were flanking. One group was approaching from the south, another from the east. George was about to be surrounded. He made his decision.

He couldn’t win a firefight with a bolt-action rifle against several soldiers with semi-automatic weapons. He needed to break contact, fall back toward the American lines. George grabbed his rifle and ran north. He sprinted through the jungle undergrowth. Vines caught his boots, branches whipped him in the face.

The Japanese rifle fire followed him. Bullets whizzed around him, hitting trees, kicking up dirt. George ran for 90 seconds before diving into another blast crater. This one was dry. He pressed himself against the crater wall and listened. The Japanese voices were distant. They hadn’t chased him this time.

They were regrouping around their dead. George checked his rifle. Mud on the stock, water still dripping from the barrel. He had two bullets left and no disposable magazines. The clips were in his backpack. The backpack was somewhere near the water-filled crater.

At 10:47, George began to move again, not running, but walking, keeping low, using the terrain for cover. He moved northeast toward the American lines. The jungle was silent, without voices or movement, only the sound of his own breathing and the distant rumble of artillery. At 11:13, George reached the American perimeter.

A Marine sentry challenged him. George identified himself. The sentry led him away. George walked to the battalion headquarters and reported to Captain Morris. Morris wanted a full report. George provided it. Eleven Japanese snipers were killed in four days. Twelve rounds were fired at the snipers, eleven hits, then a firefight with infantry, three more deaths. Five rounds in total in that engagement.

Morris inquired about the condition of the ammunition. George had only two cartridges. Morris asked about the rifle. George said it was functional, but needed cleaning. Mud in the mechanism, water in the barrel. Morris told George to clean the rifle and rest. There would be no operations tomorrow.

The battalion was moving east. The Point Cruise area was no longer a priority. The Japanese were evacuating Guadalcanal. Intelligence suggested they would complete the withdrawal in two weeks. George returned to his tent, disassembled the Winchester rifle, and spent two hours cleaning every component with Cosmolane and gun oil.

The patches were passed over the barrel until they came out clean. He checked the sight mounts, adjusted the air release, and loaded five fresh rounds. At 2:00 p.m., information arrived from division headquarters. The battalion commander wanted to see George.

George walked ahead into the barracks, wondering if Morris had submitted the negative report. Unauthorized engagement, excessive expenditure of ammunition, operating alone, without support. Instead, he found Morris and two other officers waiting. One of them was Colonel Ferry, the regimental commander. Ferry had a question.

Could George train other men to do what he had done? George said he could try, but it would require time, rifles with optics, and men who could already shoot. Ferry said the division had 14 Springfield rifles with Unertel scopes, sniper rifles left behind by the Marines, and Ferry had 40 men in the regiment who had qualified as expert snipers before deployment.

Ferry wanted George to create a sniper section, train the men, and develop tactics to eliminate any remaining Japanese snipers from American operational areas. George agreed, but with one condition: he wanted to keep his Winchester rifle. Ferry approved the request. George kept his Winchester Model 70. The 14 Springfield rifles with Unertle scopes were given to the men George would train. Training began on January 27.

George had gathered 40 men at a makeshift camp two miles east of Henderson Field. The men were skilled marksmen on paper. They had qualified with iron sights at distances up to 500 yards, but none of them had combat experience as snipers.

None of them had killed a man since going into hiding. George started with the basics: breath control, trigger pull, reading the wind, the rifles. Springfields weighed 11 pounds with Unertall scopes, heavier than the Garant, heavier than George’s Winchester.

The weight of the rifles made them stable, but tiring to hold for long periods. George taught them to use any available support: rocks, logs, sandbags. The jungle rarely offered perfect firing positions. The snipers had to adapt to the terrain and create stable platforms with whatever materials were available. The shooting training lasted three days.

George had the men fire at stationary targets from 100 to 400 yards, then at moving targets, and finally at targets partially obscured by vegetation. By January 30, 32 of the 40 men could consistently hit man-sized targets at 300 yards under field conditions. George divided them into 16 two-man teams, each consisting of a shooter and a spotter.

The spotter carried binoculars and a grenade. His job was to locate targets and provide security while the shooter fired. After each kill, the roles could be switched. This kept both men competent and avoided the single point of failure that arose from relying on a single shooter. On February 1, George took four teams to the field.

Their mission was to clear the Japanese positions west of the Matanicau River. Reports indicated that small groups of Japanese soldiers were still operating in that area. No snipers, just infantry—those fighting on who hadn’t yet evacuated. The four teams took up positions at dawn.

George teamed up with a spotter named Corporal Hay. They positioned themselves on high ground overlooking a trail the Japanese had been using for resupply. At 0720, a Japanese soldier appeared on the trail. Hay confirmed the target through binoculars. George fired. The soldier fell. George cocked the bolt and searched for more targets. None appeared.

Over the next six hours, George’s team engaged seven more Japanese soldiers on that trail. Seven shots fired, six kills, one missed due to wind. The other three teams reported similar results. Twenty-three Japanese soldiers killed that day, zero American casualties. The sniper section continued operations into early February. By February 9, the section had killed 74 Japanese soldiers.

The number was conservative; only confirmed deaths where the body could be observed were counted. The Japanese evacuation accelerated during this period. Destroyers arrived at night to collect troops from Cape Esperance at the western tip of Guadalcanal.

American forces advanced westward to anticipate the evacuation, but the Japanese carried out effective rearguard actions. George’s sniper section was tasked with eliminating Japanese soldiers covering the retreat routes. On February 7, George was operating near the Tanambogo River when a Japanese sniper shot him.

The bullet struck George in the left shoulder. The impact spun him around and knocked him to the ground. Ha dragged George to safety and called for a combat medic. The wound was serious, but not life-threatening. The bullet had passed through the muscle without hitting any bones or major blood vessels. George was evacuated to a field hospital near Henderson Camp. The medics cleaned and stitched the wound.

George was told he would recover, but that he needed rest. There would be no combat operations for at least three weeks. George spent two weeks in the field hospital. During that time, the Japanese completed their evacuation of Guadalcanal.

On February 9, U.S. forces reached Cape Esperance and found it deserted. The campaign was over. George’s sniper section had operated for 12 days with 74 confirmed kills and zero friendly casualties during sniper operations. The section was officially recognized by division headquarters.

Colonel Ferry recommended George for a Bronze Star, but George’s war wasn’t over. While he was recovering in the field hospital, orders arrived from Pacific Command. The army needed experienced combat officers for a new mission, something in Burma, something classified. George volunteered.

By March, George was on a transport ship heading west across the Pacific. His Winchester Model 70 was packed in a waterproof case in the cargo hold. The LAN Alaskan scope was wrapped in oily cloth. George didn’t know the specifics of the Burma mission. He only knew it involved jungle warfare, long-range patrols, and operations behind Japanese lines.

The type of mission where a man with a rifle capable of hitting targets at 600 yards could prove useful. The transport arrived in India on April 3. George and 200 other officers were briefed on their assignment. They would be joining a new unit, a total of 3,000 men. The unit did not yet have an official designation.

The men called themselves something else. They called themselves Marauders. Composite Unit 57 was officially designated on May 28, 1943, but the men had been training since April. Long-range penetration tactics, jungle survival, operations without supply lines. The unit was modeled after the British brigadier or Wingate’s Chinits.

Small mobile forces that could operate deep behind enemy lines for extended periods. George was assigned to the second battalion. His role wasn’t officially listed as that of a sniper. The army didn’t have formally established sniper positions in its organizational chart.

George was appointed rifle platoon leader, but Colonel Ferry’s recommendation had followed him from Guadalcanal. Battalion command knew what George could do with a rifle. The training took place in central India. The terrain was different from Guadalcanal, but the principles remained the same.

Heat, humidity, dense vegetation, limited visibility. The Burmese jungle would be worse: steeper terrain, heavier rains, and an enemy that knew the terrain better than any American force. George modified his equipment for the Burma mission. The Winchester Model 70 had performed well on Guadalcanal, but that had been in short-range operations with regular resupply.

Burma would mean patrols that would last weeks, hundreds of miles through the jungle. Every gram of weight mattered. George removed the LAN Alaskan scope and replaced it with a lighter one, a Weaver 330. The Weaver had the same 2.5x magnification but weighed 8 ounces less. He also replaced the wooden stock with a lighter synthetic version.

The modifications reduced the rifles’ weight from 9 pounds 12 ounces to 8 pounds 14 ounces. Not much, but during a two-week patrol carrying 60 pounds of equipment, every ounce counted. The marauders entered Burma in February 1944. Their mission was to advance through northern Burma and capture Mitkina Airfield.

The airfield was critical for Allied supply routes into China. Japanese forces controlled the land through terrain they considered untravelable for large forces: mountains, rivers, dense jungles, no roads, and limited trails. The force would carry all supplies on their backs or with pack mules, without motorized transport or artillery support, relying only on rifles and mortars, and the ability to move quickly across impossible terrain. George’s battalion began the march on February 24. The first week covered 83 miles across

from the mountainous jungle. The men were collapsing from exhaustion. Cases of malaria were increasing daily. The pack mules struggled with the terrain. Several had to be put down when their legs broke on steep descents. By March, the battalion had covered 217 miles. They had encountered Japanese forces 12 times in small skirmishes and quick engagements followed by a rapid retreat. The marauders were not meant to hold positions; they were meant to

Move, harass, cut supply lines, and create chaos behind Japanese positions. George used his Winchester three times during the march: once at 41 yards against a Japanese officer leading troops at a river crossing, once at 370 yards against a machine gun position, and once at 290 yards against a sniper who had cornered the maroder patrol. Three shots, three kills.

George never fired more than once per engagement. The Winchester’s crackle was distinctive, unlike the Garant’s high-pitched sound. One shot announced his presence. A second shot would give the Japanese time to locate him. George learned to shoot and move instantly. The march to Maikina took three months.

By the end of May, the Marauders had covered more than 700 miles. They had lost more men to disease than to combat: malaria, dysentery, typhus. The unit that had entered Burma with 500 men was reduced to fewer than 3,000. On May 17, the Marauders captured the airfield at Mitkina. The operation was a success, but the cost had been severe.

The unit was ineffective in combat: too many casualties, too many sick men, too much time in the jungle without rest or proper medical care. George survived the Burma campaign. His Winchester survived, but the rifle that had proven so effective on Guadalcanal had been used only seven times in three months of operations.

The marauders rarely engaged in the kind of long-range precision shooting that required a rifle with a telescopic sight. Most engagements were at close range: ambushes at 50 yards or less, firefights in dense vegetation where you could barely see 30 feet. George realized something during those three months in Burma. The Winchester Model 70 was an excellent rifle, perhaps the best bolt-action sporting rifle ever made. But modern warfare was changing.

Semiautomatic rifles like the Garant were becoming standard. The next war would require different weapons, different tactics, but there would be no next war for George, not immediately. By June 1944, he was evacuated from Burma with the rest of the Marauders. The unit was disbanded. George was reassigned to training duties in the United States.

He never fired his Winchester in combat again. George returned to the United States in July 1944. The army promoted him and assigned him to Fort Benning, Georgia. His job was to train infantry officers in marksmanship and small-unit tactics. He taught them the lessons he had learned on Guadalcanal and in Burma: how to move through jungle terrain.

How to identify and engage targets at a distance. How to operate independently without supply lines. He kept his Winchester Model 70. The rifle had traveled from Illinois to Tennessee, from Guadalcanal to India, from Burma to Georgia. It had killed at least 14 enemy soldiers in confirmed engagements, probably more.

George had stopped counting after Burma. The rifle was in a trunk in his quarters at Fort Benning. George rarely looked at it. The war had changed. The Pacific islands were being retaken one by one. American forces were advancing through France and into Germany.

The need for individual snipers with privately owned rifles was disappearing. The military was standardizing mass production, interchangeable parts, soldiers with identical equipment and identical training. George understood the need. Modern warfare required an industrial scale, but something was being lost: individual skill.

The craftsman who approached the art of welding. The idea that a man with the right rifle and the right training could change the outcome of a battle. George was discharged from the army in January 1947 with the rank of lieutenant colonel, two bronze stars, a Purple Heart medal, and a combat infantry badge.

He returned to Illinois and enrolled at Princeton University under the Veterans Benefit Act. He studied politics. He graduated with highest honors in 1950. After Princeton, George spent four years at Oxford, then four years in British East Africa studying regional politics and institutions.

He eventually settled in Washington, D.C., as executive director of the Institute of African American Relations. Later, he joined the State Department’s Institute of Foreign Affairs as a consultant and professor on African affairs. George never spoke publicly about Guadalcanal or Burma during those years.

He had colleagues who knew he had served in the Pacific, but they didn’t know about the crossing points, they didn’t know about the Japanese snipers, they didn’t know about the Winchester Model 70 that was stored in a box at his house. In 1947, George decided to write down what had happened, not for publication, but only for his own record.

He wanted to document the weapons and tactics of jungle warfare while the details were still fresh. He wrote for six months. The manuscript grew to over 400 pages. A friend from the National Rifle Association read the manuscript and suggested publishing it. George was reluctant. The book was technical, with detailed descriptions of rifles, ammunition, and ballistics.

It wasn’t the kind of content that would appeal to general readers, but the NRA persuaded him. The book was published in 1900 under the title Shots Fired in Anger. It became a classic among gun enthusiasts and military historians. The book described George’s experiences on Guadalcanal and in Burma with clinical precision.

Without embellishment, without hero worship, just facts and observations about what worked and what didn’t in combat. The book is still in print today and is still used as a reference by collectors and historians studying small arms from World War II. George’s descriptions of Japanese weapons remain some of the most detailed contemporary accounts available.

George lived to see the United States fight in three more wars: Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War. He witnessed the evolution of military rifles from the Garant to the M14 and then to the M16. He saw the sniper become a formal military specialty with dedicated training and equipment. He saw the lessons of World War II relearned and refined by new generations of soldiers.

John George died on January 3, 2009, at the age of 90. The Winchester Model 70, which had killed Japanese snipers on Guadalcanal, was donated to the National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Virginia. It is displayed in a glass case with a sign describing its history.

Most visitors walk right past it without stopping. It looks like any other vintage home rifle, but it’s not. It’s the rifle that proved a state champion shooter with a mail-order scope could outshoot professionally trained military snipers.

The rifle that cleared the Point Cruise woods in four days accomplished what an entire battalion couldn’t in two weeks. The rifle that changed the way the U.S. military thought about the individual market and modern warfare. If this story touched you the way it touched us, please do me a favor and hit that like button. Every like tells YouTube to show this story to more people. Hit subscribe and turn on notifications.

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