jtward01

I've heard that our British friends refused to return most of the lend lease weapons - including privately owned rifle and shotguns that had been donated to help defend the home island. It's my understanding they were destroyed. Anyone familiar with this story? Any truth to it?

markw76

Just to verify I heard that same story. Brit politics being what it is, I'm sure they felt they were doing us a favor when they did it. I seem to remember WW2 was the second time they had to beg for guns. Some people never learn.

Match14

If you look in the Class3/Title II/NFA forum and go to about page 4 or 5 you will see a thread called
Those poor M1A1 TSMGS( and others)
There is a link on that thread with a picture of what the Brits may have done with the weapons they didn't return.

Sorry, I would just provide a link, but I'm not very good at that.

markw76

one comment near the end says thats in PI following a warehouse fire. still brings a tear to the eye

tnbackpacker

FWIW, here's an article about the ruins of the Tennessee Powder Company, under the first section titled "TNT Times"

http://www.memphismagazine.com/backissu ... kvance.htm

**for some reason, that link won't work half the time....here is the google cache of the same:

http://tinyurl.com/oulvn

Gherl

Great Photo, I love this stuff!.

stand watie

ToAll,

As many of you know, my dad was in the USAAF & in B-17s, during WWII.
When he passed back through the UK, to catch a ride to the USA to attend transition training for the B-29, he saw MANY brand new & "depot rebuilt" vehicles, weapons, engineer equipment & things like large generators being loaded on every available watercraft, which had a large open deck.
Seeing that the equipment was NOT properly prepared for shipment to CONUS, he asked about it & was told by the COB of a vessel that the plan was to take the load out into the Atlantic & push it overboard, as a means "to cheaply dispose of the goods."
(This was New or rebuilt equipment. - WASTEFULNESS has ALWAYS been common in the government.- The bureaucrats spend it like it isn't REAL MONEY.)

NOTE: My dad asked for and was given a new .45 US&S auto pistol. - He said everybody took a handgun, rifle or shotgun, as all of them were being dumped anyway.

yours, sw

Skeptic49

There's an idea. I remember an article years back on some divers looking for the fighter planes "combat lossed" by the Brits tossing them off the carrier FanTail at the end of WWII. Shipments were not containerized back in WWII, much to the destruction of assets. But would a shipment of arms be returnable since they were never exported?
Would the condition of near mint guns after 65 years in the North Atlantic be worth the extreme cost of finding and retrieving?
Just how good was cosmoline?
Mint 03-A3s, M-1 Carbines, M-1 Rifles, M1911A1 pistols, BARs and 1919s and M-2s the mind boggles!
Geoff
Who is not a collector but OMG!

bearcat6

My mother packed 30 carbine ammo at Lake City arsenal during the Korean war.

Magnafique

Now we know how stocks got their first dents and barrel scrapes.