This is my paternal grandpa, in 1943.
He joined the Navy in August 1942. He'd gotten his draft notice and didn't want to join the Army, so he joined the Navy. He'd tried to join the Navy in May 1941, right after he graduated high school, but they said he was 10 lb underweight and refused. However, in that intervening year, the requirements were relaxed somewhat, so off he went to boot camp, and then to the heavy cruiser USS Salt Lake City, where he served for the duration of the war as a 40mm antiaircraft fire control director. But this thread isn't about 40mm AA guns. I'm here to post about a different gun, namely his bringback Type 99 Arisaka.
Back in the 90's he wrote an 80-page memoir about his service in WWII which he gave to all his grandkids, so I'll let him speak for himself:
(click for bigger images)Originally Posted by My grandpa
The mum is intact. The first two characters are "9", and the last character means "Type" or "Model."
The marking on the right after the serial number is for the Nagoya arsenal. The marking on the left is a series mark, in this case for the number 4, so the serial is actually something more like 4-29644. Apparently this dates it to 1939 or 1940 manufacture.
Flip-up rear sight goes out to 1500 meters.
I had someone tell me on another board that these characters are numbers (a rack number?)
The hooked guard on the bayonet is the earlier style. The mark is for Kokura arsenal.
Bayonet mounted, monopod extended.
Here he is with the rifle in 1993, still fitting in his old uniform from 50 years earlier.
I bought 100 rounds of 7.7 Japanese and shot it last month. It shoots a little high and to the left, but the group isn't terrible.
As far as I know, it was the only firearm he ever owned. I'm sure I'm the first person to fire it in in ~75 years, my uncle said grandpa never fired it and I have to reason to doubt him. I don't think 7.7 Japanese was readily available at the time, anyways. Grandpa wasn't a hunter so luckily it wasn't sporterized or rechambered in another cartridge like so many other bringback Arisakas apparently were. When I was a kid, I knew the rifle existed, but I never actually saw it myself until 2005, a couple years after it had been given to my uncle & younger cousin, and a couple years before my grandpa died. I really wanted it, but my grandpa chose who he'd given it to, so respected his decision and kept my mouth shut, hoping that I might have a chance at getting it in the future. After my grandma died last year, the extended family began divvying up family memorabilia, and the rifle was offered to me. So this is now the bolt-action wood-stocked C&R oddity in my collection full of modern polymer-stocked NATO-caliber semi-autos.