Col. Applegate’s ‘Kill or Get Killed’ system

Applegate’s book ‘Kill or Get Killed’ was required reading in many Federal Departments and Law Enforcement Academies in America. This was the man who taught John Wayne to shoot and was said to be the inspiration for several of Ian Fleming’s characters in his James Bond novels.

Applegate described the handgun, both pistol and revolver, as indispensable to law enforcement and military service, being superior to knives and clubs as close-range weapons. He found that the average military man who carried a handgun at the start of World War Two was quite skeptical about its use, as the only training available was slow target shooting.

Scrap handguns for carbines

The men using these weapons in actual situations on the front found that they couldn’t use or see