HELP! SEND GUNS!

[Mcwsky09]

Sir Winston seems to disagree with your assessment.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill's book Their Finest Hour details the arrival of the shipments. Churchill personally supervised the deliveries to ensure that they were sent on fast ships, and distributed first to Home Guard members in coastal zones. Churchill thought that the American donations (p.418)were "entirely on a different level from anything we have transported across the Atlantic except for the Canadian division itself." Churchill warned an advisor that "the loss of these rifles and field-guns [if the transport ships were sunk by Nazi submarines] would be a disaster of the first order." He later recalled that "[w]hen the ships from America approached our shores with their priceless arms, special trains were waiting in all the ports to receive their cargoes." "The Home Guard in every county, in every town, in every village, sat up all through the night to receive them .... By the end of July we were an armed nation ... a lot of our men and some women had weapons in their hands."[81]

I suspect that what the previous post meant was that the psychological warfare aspect of letting the Germans believe that the British populace was perhaps not so soft a target as they previously believed was far more effective at affecting the German plans than any tangible difference even a large number of firearms with limited training and ammo might have made if a land invasion had occured. And that the wording etc may also have been chosen to paint a more dire picture than was perhaps real in order to change the public opinion in the US toward our eventual participation.

 

[Old 44 Guy]

I remember WW2 very well. Britain was getting hammered by the Nazi's. I saw the article in the Rifleman about sending guns to Britain. They had about disarmed them selves after WW1. They were broke after WW2 & lost all their possessions, India,etc. They may have destroyed many of the guns given to them but they sold a lot of them back to us later. Without our help there wouldn't be an England today.

 

[Bat Guano]

About fifteen years ago at a gun show I found what was left of a Garand after a fire: barrelled receiver, gas cylinder, op rod, and sights, all frozen, scaly, and ugly. Inasmuch as I had quite a few take-off and worn M1 parts around, I thought that just maybe I could cobble up a wall hanger from the mess.

Short version is that, yes, I got things working fairly well, rounded up all the bits, sandblasted and matte blued all the metal; the CMP "repairable ($7) stock came out nicely, too. Under the crud were British proofs; the rear sight was one of the very early and rare "flush nut" types, and the serial number checked out to early 1940. It was one of those we sent over during this time, and came home again.

I had a friend make a nice glass-fronted oak display case for the old rifle and it hangs a few feet away now. Looks nice, too. While it will--unfortunately-- never be fired again, it's "been there and done that!"

Never say never.

http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_copybook.htm