[firefree]

Thank you all, for the comments. I don't know if its matching but it has "03" in many places. The magazine does not match. Its 9694
By holes are you refering to the detent holes below the safety lever that catch the selector in safe or Gesichert?
This is very interesting stuff. These are like 1911's, they all look alike. One must be very sharp to catch the differences.
Is there a way to figure manufacture dates? I've looked thru the technical stuff but do'nt understand much. Seems like the serial numbers were used over and over. And that any letter after the serial may have been polished off.
The gun shoots like a champ. I have been its caretaker for just under 20 years. I clean it, wipe it down and evey now and then I run a magazine or two thru it. The trigger is crisp and its very accurate.
The story it came with would put it as "picked up" in France sometime after D-day. The owner my father in law operated a machine gun on a Higgins boat. He was shortly after reduced in rank and sent to the Pacific where he was captured by the Japanese. The first version I heard had the gun taken from a Japanese officer. I lean toward the France version, one thing I do know, its not a Nambu. I've heard after the invasion there were piles of Lugers that GI's could just pick from. I would have thought there would have been piles of P38's