I believe you’re right. IIRC, the standard pistol then in use by US marines did not have enough stopping power to take down drugged up Moro fighters. They eventually switched to John Browning’s new .45 ACP pistol and ... problem more or less solved. One COM shot and they’re on the ground, and it’s much faster to reload a spare magazine than six cartridges into a revolver. The first part is a lesson the USMC has apparently re-learned.
"The Browning pistol design was formally adopted by the US Army on March 29, 1911, and thus became known officially as the Model 1911. The US Navy and US Marine Corps adopted the Browning-designed pistol in 1913."
"The pistol was designed to comply with the requirements of the U.S. Army, which, during its campaign against the Moros in Philippines, had seen its trusty .38 revolver to be incapable of stopping attackers. An Ordnance Board headed by Col. John T. Thompson (inventor of the Thompson sub-machine-gun) and Col. Louis A. La Garde, had reached the conclusion that the army needed a .45" caliber cartridge, to provide adequate stopping power. In the mean time, J. Browning who was working for Colt, had already designed an autoloader pistol, around a cartridge similar to contemporary .38 Super (dimension-wise). When the Army announced its interest in a new handgun, Browning re-engineered this handgun to accommodate a .45" diameter cartridge of his own design (with a 230 gr. FMJ bullet), and submitted the pistol to the Army for evaluation."