Australian Lugers?

[john]

The 2MD marking signifies issue in the 2nd Military District (New South Wales). I would say your Enfield was issued to either a training, VDC or a "lines of communication" unit.

That is not to say it didn't see active service either before or after this marking was applied. Who knows?

I understand both 2/1st and 2/2nd Independent Companies, when operating in what was then Portuguese East Timor, used the P14 Enfield for sniping.

Advice today from a fellow who was in the area at the time is that Lugers were a fairly common handgun among Australian troops during the New Guinea campaign, whether these were privately owned or issued he was unsure.

He remembers two individual guns in his unit, one was a WW1 pistol, handed down to the son, who carried it, from his father, who had acquired it when a previous owner "died suddenly". The other had been acquired in similar circumstances in North Africa