Book excerpt: This is the absorbing story of the handguns credited to Nambu Kijiro, the principal personal-defence weapons of the Imperial forces. Featuring full-color artwork and carefully chosen photographs, this book charts the origins, development, combat use, and legacy of the Nambu pistols. Cutaway artwork reveals the inner workings of these important handguns, while specially commissioned battlescenes depict them in use in action. Influenced by the German C 96 and other semi-automatic pistols, the first Nambu model was never accepted for universal issue, being confined largely to purchase by Japanese officers. Adopted in 1925, the 14th Year Type was to become the best-known of these handguns, serving in every campaign undertaken by the Japanese in the 1930s and then throughout World War II. It served alongside the bizarrely conceived Type 94, intended as the weapon of airmen, tank crew, and anyone to whom its compact dimensions were useful. When World War II ended, thousands of Nambu pistols arrived in America with US veterans of World War II, while others were carried by insurgents and other armed groups across South East Asia for decades after 1945. Fully illustrated, this is the engrossing story of these distinctive pistols, from their origins to their legacy.