Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring
24 January. The I&R Platoon, 126th Infantry, 1 officer and 8 men of Company I, moved into Sindaman guided there by natives. Our patrol surrounded a hut where natives had reported enemy to be living. Hearing no sound from within the hut, a sergeant from the I&R Platoon stood up. At this same time a native came out of the hut and saw the sergeant, but gave no sign of recognition. Instead he started talking to the Japanese to show our men where they were. When fire was placed on the hut one Japanese was killed immediately. Then a second Japanese jumped up screaming, snatched a stick from the ground, and charged at Lieutenant Kittrel. The Lieutenant shot him through the neck but then discovered that his clip had fallen from his gun when he fired. Platoon Sergeant Young now tried to fire but his clip, too, had dropped from his carbine. Now a sergeant from Company L opened up with his tommy gun but the Japanese kept going by sheer force of his charge. It finally took the butt of his tommy gun to stop him. A third Jap was found dead from fever.
A patrol found two Japanese asleep in foxholes four hundred yards west of the Mot River and killed them.
Major General H.W. Blakeley, USA, Ret., The 32d Infantry Division in World War II
Winston S. Churchill, Closing the Ring
From a Guns and Ammo article about the original M1 carbine:
The magazine was released by a button in front of a similar-style safety forward of the triggerguard. It was found that in the heat of battle, soldiers would often hit the mag release instead of the safety, thus accidentally dropping and unloading their weapons. The button safety was later changed to a lever-style to eliminate this embarrassing and potentially lethal problem.
Read more: http://www.gunsandammo.com/2013/06/06/m1-carbine-americas-unlikely-warrior/#ixzz2rM9VFysC