A WWII-era M1 Garand rifle being loaded; photo of a hand inserting a clip of ammunition into the rifle
13 April 2021
To lock and load literally means to ready a firearm for firing, and the phrase is often used as a command to do so. The exact phrasing of lock and load dates to just prior to the United States’ entry into World War II, but earlier uses of the command reverse the order, making it load and lock, the order of the actions depending on the type of weapon used. The phrase lock and load is also used figuratively to mean prepare for confrontation or trouble, a sense whose popularity is due, in part, to actor John Wayne.
The use of the words locked and loaded in reference to firearms dates to the eighteenth century, but the imperative form isn’t nearly that old. A 1793 reference to muskets being ready to fire can be found in documents relating to the community at Maugerville, New Brunswick in Canada:
Afterwards Carvell brought in two musquets and justice Hubbard asked him if the guns were well locked and loaded Caswell replied “One of them is.” Mr. Hubbard then says you ought to have bayonets.
The command, however, doesn’t appear until the end of the nineteenth century in the form load and lock. From a 17 June 1899 account of an incident in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War:
As the line was advancing a number of men in white suits of clothing began darting through the thicket in front of my right flank; the officer in command of the company on that flank asked permission to fire, which was refused, being uncertain as to who they were. The line was under strong long-range fire and the order was given to load and lock pieces; investigation proved that the white objects seen were the marines returning to their ship. I understand that the ship was the Helena. I recommend that the marines do not again appear in white clothing in front of the firing line.
The account doesn’t specify what type of weapon the soldiers were armed with, but it was probably an M1896 Krag-Jørgensen rifle, or one of its later variants, which was the standard rifle used by the U. S. Army during that war. A soldier would load up to five rounds—the Krag had a unique side-loading system—and then work the bolt to lock a round into the chamber.
The Krag would be replaced in U. S. service by the M1903 Springfield rifle, which was used during World War I and remained in use by training units during World War II. Loading a Springfield followed a similar load-then-lock order as the Krag, only the cartridges were top-loaded in a five-round clip. Here is a description of firing range procedures from the U. S. Marine Corps magazine Leatherneck from February 1934:
For this problem it is highly essential that men on the firing line adhere to the ancient byword of the rifle range, “Load and lock.” In this problem the sections fire at a moving target at a distance of three hundred yards, from the prone position, and then advance to the two hundred yard line, where the position is offhand.
The Springfield would be replaced in combat use in World War II by the M1 Garand rifle. Here is an account of a New York Times reporter participating in a U. S. Army firing range exercise from 19 November 1940 that explains the different procedures for the Garand as opposed to the Springfield:
Major Gen. William N. Haskell, commanding the Twenty-seventh, permitted your correspondent to fire the Garand to gain some general observations which might be of interest to draftees and the men who went into real battle overseas with the Springfield and the British Lee-Enfield.
The first impression was of the safety factor. Last Thursday, when the correspondent made the first of three trips to the range, Lieut. Col. Joseph T. Hart, range officer, boomed through his microphone, “Lock and Load.” That seemed a slip of the tongue. It had always been “load and lock” with the Springfield, the soldier pushing in his clip of five cartridges and snapping the safety catch.
Sergeant David Paye of Company A quickly pointed out to a Garand novice the safety catch cut into the trigger guard of this rifle, which puts the firing pin out of operation before the cartridges go in. At the moment of fire it is released by a forward push of the trigger finger.
And the commands given at Army firing ranges would vary depending on which weapon was being used. From a 1941 Army training manual:
The instructor announces the range and position. He then commands: 1. With dummy cartridges LOAD (or LOCK AND LOAD). 2. Ready on the right. 3. Ready on the left. 4. READY ON THE FIRING LINE. 5 CEASE FIRING. 6. UNLOAD. At the fourth command the pieces, which have been locked, are unlocked. As the targets are exposed each man takes position rapidly and simulates firing of 10 rounds (16 for the M1). Any cartridges remaining after cessation of fire are unloaded or cleared at command. Bolts are left open and sights laid.
Like its predecessor load and lock, the command lock and load was not limited to firing ranges, but was also used in combat situations. For safety reasons, soldiers would not typically have a rounds in the chambers until shooting was imminent, at which point the command would be given to lock and load. Here is an account of the landing on Iwo Jima in 1944 in Allen Matthews’s 1947 memoir, The Assault:
“Some tanks are on the beach!”
I stood again and looked and I saw that they were indeed and it appeared to me that they had even succeeded in scaling the first terrace which lay close to the water's edge. But I wasn't certain and before I could determine if this were so Turlo motioned for me to get down and I sat on my mortar case again.
“Don’t you think we ought to load now, Turlo?” Boudrie yelled. Turlo failed to hear but, in a matter of seconds, he shouted:
“Everybody lock and load!”
We peeled the covers off our weapons and I took a clip of ammunition from the side of my cartridge belt, tapped the black-tipped projectile ends on my rifle butt to make certain the bullets were aligned evenly in the clip, stripped back the operating rod handle, pressed the clip down on the follower and slide, and smashed the bolt home with a blow on the operating rod handle from the heel of my palm. I clicked on the safety and placed the rifle, butt down, between my knees, the muzzle pointing directly into the air.
And the phrase lock and load would be iconically used in the 1949 film Sands of Iwo Jima, starring John Wayne. The phrase is used three times in the movie. The first time is by a lieutenant ordering his men as they are about to hit the beach on Tarawa atoll:
We're crossing the line of departure. Lock and load!
It’s used again in an exchange between Wayne’s character, Sergeant Stryker and a private in front of a bar. Here lock and load is being used figuratively, meaning prepare to booze it up:
PRIVATE: Buy you a drink?
STRYKER: Lock and load, boy, lock and load.
The third time is in the scene depicting the landing on Iwo Jima, where Wayne’s character says:
All right! Line of departure! Get down! Lock and load! Drop those lifebelts when we hit the beach!
Lock and load remains the firing-range command in the U. S. Army to this day.
John Wayne used lock and load figuratively in the 1949 movie, and this figurative sense of prepare for action, be it in drinking or warfare, is still in use. For example, there is this from the New Yorker of 29 March 1993 about nuclear tensions between Pakistan and India:
Eventually, the intelligence community picked up a frightening sight, the analyst recalled. “They had F-16s pre-positioned and armed for delivery—on full alert with pilots in the aircraft. I believed that they were ready to launch on command and that that message had been clearly conveyed to the Indians. We’re saying, ‘Oh, shit.’ We’ve been watching the revolution in Kashmir, the internal problems in India, and we look at the Pakistani pre-positioning. These guys have don everything that will lead you to believe that they are locked and loaded.”
But the phrase isn’t limited to imminent combat. There is this from a 3 February 2021 Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. earnings call:
And then obviously, as we are able to lock and load on new initiatives, we'll share that with you guys. We're still in the phase of making sure we've got the equipment rolled out everywhere. And we're feeling really good about the training we're going to do around quesadilla. So more to come on that front.
Quite a distance from marines hitting the beach.
Sources:
Baldwin, John A. Letter (17 June 1899). Annual Reports of the War Department for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1900: Report of the Lieutenant-General Commanding the Army, part 3 of 7. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1900. 337. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Brown, Harry and James Edward Grant. The Sands of Iwo Jima (film). Alan Dwan, dir. John Wayne, actor. Republic Pictures, 1949, 33:50, 1:04:15, and 1:13:20.
“Documents of Old Congregational Church at Maugerville” (1793). Collections of the New Brunswick Historical Society, vol. 1. Saint John, New Brunswick: Daily Telegraph Steam Book and Job Printers, 1894, 147. Archive.org.
“Event Brief of Q4 2020 Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc Earnings Call—Final.” Fair Disclosure Wire, 3 February 2021.
Haensler, Phil. “Adventures of the Cuban Battalion.” Leatherneck, 17.2, February 1934, 44. ProQuest Trade Journals.
Hersh, Seymour M. “A Reporter At Large: On the Nuclear Edge.” The New Yorker, 29 March 1993, 65.
Leviero, Anthony H. “Men of the 27th Hail the Garand Rifle After Its First Use on the Range.” New York Times, 19 November 1940, 12. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Lighter, J. E., ed. Random House Dictionary of Historical Slang, vol. 2 of 2. New York: Random House, 1997, s. v. lock and load, 455.
Matthews, Allen R. The Assault. New York: Simon and Shuster, 1947, 34. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2021, s. v. lock, v.1.
U. S. Army. Infantry Drill Regulations and Rifle Training. Washington, D. C.: P. S. Bond, 1941, 108. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Photo credit: Anonymous photographer, 2015. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.