Change in name of LongBranch to Canadian Arsenals

[Warren]

The "official" date of change was August 29, 1947.
The CA (A within the C) logo became official on that day by an act of Parliament.
How long it took to change markings on manufactured items and dies is anyone's guess.

Related older thread...

Marking - C with the A on Canadian Arms (http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=31810)

[Bullseye4mkI*]

All operations were taken over by the 'Small Arms Division of Canadian Arsenals Ltd.' on December 31st 1945.

March of 1946, is when all the assets and liabilities of the Company were turned over to the Department of Reconstruction and Supply, and the Company made application to surrender it's Charter.

Edit- On April 11th 1946, the final meeting of the Board of Directors was held at Long Branch. At this meeting, final approval was given to the final balance sheet of the company, which carried the statement; that as of March 31st 1946, all the assets and liabilities of the company were transferred to the Department of Reconstruction and Supply.

-Excerpt taken from Internal memo to Board members dated 12 Nov. 1946,
relating a request from a Mr. J deN. Kennedy who was tasked with writing a combined wartime history of the Crown Companies responsible to the Dept. of Munitions and Supply, requesting the period of history- OCT 1943- End 1945.

[Bullseye4mkI*]

Sorry to hijack your thread Warren, but I got a ton of LB info y'all might be interested in…. Technically LB was a Crown corp in 1940, with the Government being pretty much the only stockholder. So it could have fallen under a 'Canadian Arsenals' umbrella due to that, or, even a wartimes measures act....?!

History of Long Branch Arsenal (click here) (http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=36139)

[rgg_7]

Great info! |Is there any info in your literature for the experimental work that SAL did on light rifles, snipers and so forth? Ron

[Bullseye4mkI*]

Hey RG7-

That Dominion post was not the result of Chen's article.... That intro was from the original letter to the Historical Society from the author, my Grandfather, who was a Dominion employee and then was with CA till closing. If you could put that Chen link back up as a reference, because I'm not sure if it was edited by Chen. I can tell you that most of the content of the 43-45 history is not in this article...
Yes- there is info on production of light guns and snipers. This history contains all production numbers and orders for this time period. It's a little dry but I know the numbers are correct. Talks alot about Sniper production in that their production was dependent solely on the delivery of scopes. Then goes into the factory workers, facilities, process, etc...
I'm trying to electronify all my Grandfathers papers, so I'll be happy to pass it on if you guys are interested. Most of his archive covers the 60's when LB was trying to survive..

[Badger]

I'm trying to electronify all my Grandfathers papers, so I'll be happy to pass it on if you guys are interested. Most of his archive covers the 60's when LB was trying to survive..

We'd be happy to help you do this and also publish the resulting electronic library as an MKL entry for the benefit of the entire collector community. :thup:

Thank you for your efforts with this. We all appreciate it. :cheers:

Regards,
Doug

[Peter Laidler]

The sniper production engineering side would be useful especially in view of the fact that one of the Holland and Holland production overseers went to add the H&H technical oversight in order to production line process the LB sniper production. Alas, if you can't keep up with sight production, production lining the rifle conversion is pretty well academic

[Bullseye4mkI*]

Hey Guys,

-My pleasure Badger, feel free to move where ever!

-Peter, I will keep a look out for any mention of those H&H guys...

I don't think I have alot of specifics for this period other than this '46 doc. Specific(official) info/documentation on the development and disposition of 'special weapons and prototypes', especially, in the war period would be difficult if not impossible to procure...

I’ll eventually pass on everything of interest I have, I literally just started cataloging it. I started here only because there was a bunch of humorous internal memos attached, and correspondence with J.Kennedy regarding this missing document, and how he kept on getting delivered the first part only. Also because of the request in 1991, from the Historical Society, for this portion of the history as they were unable to locate it also…

The first documents I actually looked at was some funny stuff about who the hell authorized the shipping of 2 'C2' rifles(def experimental and 'maybe' not federally approved) to Ghana in 1960….I’ll try to include somewhere!

History of Small Arms Limited (October 1943 - March 1946) (http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=36140)

[rgg_7]

You've got my attention. No5 rifle? 63/4 lbs tropical prototype? Can't wait. Ron

[Bullseye4mkI*]

Lol sorry Ron, as mentioned and for those wondering it doesn't have specific production numbers on prototypes, more of a few paragraphs as to their approach/need in new development.

[Peter Laidler]

I've got a funny feeling that this info is in the public domain somewhere because I got the information about the Sten gun butts and grips from it while researching the Sten book. In fact, I repeated the billetted wood blocks forSten butts a few days ago on another thread. They were eventually made up at Tibbenham (FT in a diamond logo) at Lowestoft in Suffolk along with Mk2 Bren butts and bayonet grips.

Maybe you should publish all of this archive material in booklet form Bullseye!

[Warren]

Information on some production is found in the second volume of Kennedy's work, however there are no numbers for any experimental work. Production figures are not broken down enough to specifically find any one specific model or another. That information can only be done on a hit and miss search of the Dominion Archives in Ottawa. Some production figures I found were filed with Russian shipping contracts during WW II. Filed there by error or ??
Most, if not all REL records were destroyed by a flood in the early/mid 50's. The sodden records were taken to a paper mill and pulped. A copy of the index existed in the UK however to the BEST the Dominion Archivist's knowledge a copy does not exist in Canada in public domain. The record destruction information came to light during a discussion with the Canadian Dominion Archivist in 1999.
There are several books on WW II War Time production however none are definitive and only by luck will one find the odd orphan document in the archives. The best information source so far has been the financial records however they do lack specific type and kind information and only two copies of the financial records existed post 1955, to my knowledge, and possibly only one copy now remains.

[Bullseye4mkI*]

I would think that all this info was in the Public Domain, somewhere, perhaps not in it's complete form!
The reason I thought this would be of interest is because is it period document written internally, and although requested in 1991 all it's info wasn't included in the article then, and, the only other reference I could find was the request for it in '46...

Peter- Not sure what you mean by booklet form, literally what's posted is all I've typed, want me to continue the rest of brief on that post and then move in it's entirety!? or give you the whole in a word/pdf doc when complete?

Could info be gleaned from it to date (T) models due to it's specific number manufactured by quarter and then backtrack, or were (T)'s pulled of the line before being numbered, identified as such before?!...

I have thousand of pages of documents from my Grandfather that I haven't gone through yet so maybe ......

-Graduated with Honors from University of Toronto - Poli Sci/Economics 1930
-Joined Dominion Small Arms Factory 1940
-Assistant Secretary-Treasurer of Small Arms Ltd. 1942-1946
-Head of Accounting-Finance, with later added responsibilities for labour relations and personnel Small Arms Division of Canadian Arsenals Ltd. 1946-1957
-Asst./Acting Division Manager 1957-1970

1906-1998

Most info, like I've said is post 60's dealing with the Arsenal's continuance, and should probably stress that wartime records especially on 'black' stuff didn't walk away from Manufacturers too often, if it was even ever properly documented?!

[Bullseye4mkI*]

History of Small Arms Limited Oct 1943-Mar 1946, completed and added to page 1 post.

Moderator note: In order to keep the content of the original thread coherent and also separate Bullseye4mkI*'s excellent new research content into their own easily located areas, I've created two new threads in the forum and also stickied them, so they stay at the top. Bullseye4mkI* ... please feel free to edit and modify them with any additional information you'd like to add, in order to bring context to them.

History of Long Branch Arsenal (http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=36139)

History of Small Arms Limited- October 1943 - March 1946 (http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=36140)

Note for members: Perhaps in the interest of continuity, please post your comments on Bullseye4mkI*'s content in the separately listed threads above ... thanks.... :thup: