William Godfray De Lisle, a native of South Africa, was an employee of the British Ministry of Air Production when he submitted a silenced carbine for examination to the senior staff of the Combined Operations Unit of the British Military in 1943. Today, the De Lisle Carbine is one of the great unsung firearms of the Second World War, and with good reason: The combatants upon which it was used never knew what hit them. It was, and still is, one of the quietest suppressed carbines ever used in military combat.
When he was only 16 years old, De Lisle and some school chums made a noticeable dent in the local rabbit population once Godfray (as he was known to his family and friends) managed to make a number of silencers from old cocoa tins and affixed them to .22-caliber rifles. A few years later, when he was 37 years old and World War II was devastating the globe, he resurrected his .22 silencer idea and took it to a friend who held some sway at the headquarters of Combined Operations, a Maj Sir Malcolm Campbell, MBE.
Sir Malcolm was a British go-getter in the truest definition of the word. He had served in the Great War and managed to set world records for speed on land and in water prior to the outbreak of World War II. Combined Operations HQ, where Maj Campbell was a regular fixture, was the home of the British Commandos, who had been charged by Prime Minister Winston Churchill (and under the direction of Commodore Mountbatten) to harass and inflict as much damage on the Germans with the least number of men. This “dirty tricks” unit was a favorite of the PM’s, and the idea of a silenced carbine, capable of eliminating sentries, was the answer to a prayer.
Campbell viewed the .22-caliber prototype De Lisle brought him and immediately loved the concept. He felt, strongly as it were, that the gun would find better acceptance if it was in 9 mm, as he felt that to get the job done decently, it would need to fire a more powerful projectile. De Lisle went back to the drawing board, and with the help of friends at Holland & Holland, as well as Bapty & Co. (a theatrical prop house founded in 1919), was able to manufacture not one, but two prototypes for consideration.
While at first glance, the bolt-action operation of the De Lisle carbine might seem anachronistic in a conflict filled with machine guns, the manual operation allowed the gun to function with a minimal sound signature and a variety of available ammunition • At the muzzle end, the suppressed design of the De Lisle carbine is immediately apparent, with the oversize barrel shroud including the needed suppressor baffles • If the De Lisle’s magazine looks familiar, it should—it fed from M1911 .45 ACP magazines that had been modified to work in the carbine.
They made the 9 mm specimen that had been asked for, but also conjured one up in .45 ACP. De Lisle knew the .45 ACP version would work better and give the Commandos exactly what they were looking for—stopping power. De Lisle’s hesitation to advance the cause of the 9 mm prototype came from a simple understanding of physics that Campbell did not evidently possess: When objects break the speed of sound, at around 1,120 fps, the travelling projectile breaks the sound barrier and emits a sonic boom, which is quite audible. But, as anyone who handloads or knows much about ballistics, most 9 mm loads travel faster than sound and will most assuredly create a sonic crack. A .45 ACP, however, is quite a good bit slower than a 9 mm, tipping the velocity gauges at around 800 fps, and does not create a sonic crack. All De Lisle needed for his silencer to be truly silent was to modify some of the baffles designed by Hiram Maxim in his silencer (or muffler) patents of 1902. De Lisle created a series of internal baffles that were shaped more like an Archimedean screw than those previously incorporated into silencers of the period.
The buttstock and elements of an Enfield No. 1 MK III SMLE rifle were cannibalized to create the new integrally suppressed rifle. The bolt was shortened and the bolt face was recessed to accommodate the rimless .45 cartridge. The .303 British barrel was replaced with a 7.25-inch-long Thompson submachine gun barrel, and the baffles were encased in a large-diameter alloy tube. A modified Colt 1911/1911A1 magazine was inserted into a channel forward of the trigger guard and incorporated the same magazine release the original SMLE had employed. The overall length was 35.75 inches and it weighed 8 pounds, 4 ounces—nearly 2 pounds lighter than an M1 Garand.
Today, the De Lisle Carbine is one of the great unsung firearms of the Second World War, and with good reason: The combatants upon which it was used never knew what hit them.
De Lisle’s prototypes were taken to Campbell and, once the physics were made clear to him, he and De Lisle tried a practical—albeit informal—way to put the .45 ACP gun through its paces. They each leaned out the window and took turns shooting at the Thames River, all the while looking down at the street below to see if any of the shots attracted the attentions of passersby. No one was disturbed in the slightest, and Campbell immediately ordered 17 more carbines to be manufactured for field trials.
The first 17 field-trial carbines were made at the Ford Automotive factory in Dagenham, London, and once they passed trials there was an order placed for a further 500 to be made at the Sterling Armament Company, also located at Dagenham.
The first 17 were pressed into service immediately, and saw use in the dozens of small Commando raids into Normandy prior to the successful D-Day landings of June 6, 1944.
The gun was quieter than any silenced Sten or M3 Grease Gun, and to this day is considered the quietest military rifle of all time. It saw use in the Pacific Theater, where one story is told of how a number of British Commandos spread out along the route of a convoy of Japanese trucks and picked off soldiers as the convoy progressed through the jungle, leaving the cause of their demise a total mystery to their comrades.
Jedburgh teams—Allied special operations—were known to have used them, and at least one De Lisle is alleged to have been used by an Office of Strategic Services operative during the war. Post-war use included the Korean conflict as well as the Malayan Emergency of 1948 to 1960. A total of only 130 were produced, and are considered the rarest and most sought-after firearms of that era. Given the near impossibility of ever owning an original, the kind folks at U.S. Armament Manufacturing in Pennsylvania offer a reproduction (with a 19-inch barrel, but the same overall length) that this author has field tested and found to be a faithful successor to the original.
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