![\"wellrod\"](\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/06\/wellrod.jpeg\")
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Equipped with an effective silencer and easily taken apart to hide its true purpose, the Welrod was the perfect pistol for resistance operatives in Nazi-occupied Europe.<\/strong><\/p>\n The Welrod is one of the best-remembered pieces of real-life James Bond gear manufactured by Special Operations Executive. SOE was a clandestine department set up in 1940 in the UK to assist resistance movements in occupied Europe, and they came up with some very interesting\u00a0gadgets. SOE’s Station IX specialized in weapons R&D, and was located in the small town of Welwyn, just north of London.<\/p>\n The devices created in Welwyn were all code-named\u00a0using the name of the town for the first three letters. There was the Welrod, of course, and also the Welbike (a tiny folding motorcycle), the Welpen (a pen gun), the Welgun (a 9mm submachine gun), and more.<\/p>\n Welrod was built from the ground up as a silent weapon for shooting sentries, and this dramatically influenced its design. First, it was made as a manually-operated weapon, and not semiautomatic. The problem with semiautomatic guns in this application is that no matter how effective the silencer is as muffling the sound of the shot, you will still have noise from the action cycling\u2014the bolt or slide slamming into the rear of the barrel as it chambers a new round. This is not much noise compared to the sound of the shot, but it would be a very distinguishable “mechanical” sound and would alert attentive guards to something going on.<\/p>\n To avoid this, the Welrod was designed like a bolt action rifle. It had a bolt on the back of the action which the shooter would turn 90 degrees and pull open to eject a spent cartridge casing, and then push forward and rotate the opposite direction to load a new round and make ready to fire. This manual action meant that noting was moving when the gun fired, and thus the only noise was that of the gunshot. The action could be opened slowly and carefully to reload in complete silence.<\/p>\n