Madsen M1902/04 Light Machine Gun

Madsen M1902/04 Light Machine Gun with an air cooled barrel that has a fixed carry handle at the point of balance. The rectangular box section receiver is marked DANSK REKYLRIFFEL SYNDICAT over KOBENHAVN over 1938 on the left side. It has wooden butt with a folding steel butt clip. A brass knob cocking handle is on the right side. The weapon is complete with a bipod attached to the barrel just behind the foresight.

This weapon was issued to the Netherlands East Indies forces but captured and used by the Japanese. The Japanese, during a disorderly flight from the Brunei town area, after the Australian ground force landing on 10th January 1945, began abandoning heavier weapons to allow them to move faster and carry more food through the many swamps and crocodile infested streams which were on the retreat route. This machine gun was recovered by Malay fishermen from the bed of a river near Rangau, a small fishing village at the mouth of the Pandaruan river which flows into the southern waters of Brunei Bay, in New Borneo. The fishermen at the time were dragging with their nets for a wireless set, which had been swept off the deck by low overhanging foliage, from a landing craft carrying a 2/15 Battalion patrol who were searching the river area for the enemy.