Dad's Army P14s

[Seaspriter]

For once and for all - those P14s were NOT Lend Lease. They were bought and paid for during the Great War - over two decades before the Lend Lease Act. We always owned the bloody things the US Government had NO involvement!

Beerhunter is absolutely correct -- Lend Lease was not invoked until March 1941, basically because Churchill and Roosevelt knew Britain would be quickly bankrupted if it had to fight the war against Hitler alone. Fortunately, those two leaders were very savvy, understanding the dynamics of the political arena. Roosevelt knew he couldn't engage the US in another war unless provoked, given the very vociferous opposition about another bloody war in Europe after we all fought "the war to end all wars." (Strange that when a German submarine sank the U.S.Reuben James in the North Atlantic on October 31st, 1941, we didn't declare war with Germany. And after Pearl Harbor, we didn't declare on Germany until after Hitler declared war on the U.S.)

Apparently over 100,000 M1917 Rifles were acquired from the US in 1940-41 for mobilization and training before Lend lease. Many went to Canada and stayed there. The President of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles Museum reported: "Veteran's Guard of Canada, a unit composed of WWI veterans too old for overseas service and instead used for guarding POW camps and military installations/factories, used these rifles. I know that the guards of a POW camp located in a park that I worked in during the summer used the M1917s. These are also sometimes found with a red band painted on the stock and forestock to show that they are .30 06 not .303." Apparently they are all marked on the butt stock with their C and broad arrow.

The British PURCHASING Commission, contracted to procure arms surplus M1917 rifles for the Home Guard in 1940, at least ONE year before the Lend Lease Act, and paid in pounds sterling.

Some more details from Rick the Librarian:

"C.S. Ferris, in his authoritative book on the M1917, United States Rifle Model of 1917 (p.146-147), stated that the initial list of material for the British, including 500,000 M1917s was developed as early as May, 1940, with the initial shipment arriving in July, 1940. A further group of 250,000 M1917s were authorized but there is no record if they were shipped or not. Another U.S. Army report has a further 270,000 M1917s shipped before February, 1941, but there is not positive proof. To be fair, an additional 119,000 M1917s were ordered and paid for at a later time under Lend Lease. This was several months before the Lend Lease Act was signed in March, 1941. The financing was handled by a "sleight of hand", whereas the U.S. Government sold the rifles to U.S. Steel Export Corporation. which would presumably sell the rifles to the British. This is also quoted in Ferris' book."

What is also seldom talked about is that there was "security" for these weapons. Both Britain and France shipped their gold reserves to the US and Canada just as the war started to prevent falling into German hands. After the war De Gaulle refused to allow any of the gold to be used to pay for the liberation of France. I'm not sure how the British gold was repatriated.

Many arms were sent to the USSR, including P-39 Aircobras, Rifles, and Studebaker trucks. I'll bet the investment saving the USSR was never paid for either, and came back as a Cold War acrimonious slap.

[Mk VII]

A quantity of P-14s were sent to Greece for use in their civil war in 1947.

All .303s were reserved for the Field Army, who remained short of rifles until the No.4s started coming along in late '41 and early '42.

Stocks of .30 for the Home Guard were so small that no ammunition could be spared for practice and arrangements were made for small numbers of .303s to be made available for firing days - no shortage of ammo for those.

The loan paid off in 2006 was for aid in transit between VJ Day and 1st September 1945 when Lend-Lease was abruptly terminated without any warning. Keynes had hoped he could get them to make it a grant-in-aid or at the least an interest-free loan. He was quickly put right on that score - many in Washington didn't see why Britain should be given, or forgiven, anything at all.

[RC20]

The Russians never did pay their debt.

Canceled I believe in the 80s or 90s which I think was a huge mistake.

Always nice to have something to beat them with they could not argue.

[Flying10uk]

The Lend Lease weapons which I was referring to in my last post, post No28, was the M1917 not the P14, perhaps I didn't make it clear. I was trying to ask if the P14 could have been supplied to resistance movements in Europe because they were not part of the Lend Lease arrangement.

[Peter Laidler]

On the subject of honesty, Britain and Australia put the royalties for every Bren produced into a bank account and paid up, in full to Brno at the end of the war prior to Czechoslovakia being taken over. The royalties due from Canadian production was also paid by the UK because JI produced them on contract to the UK Government.

But back to the P'14's. In the 1943 Information for Armourers issued by the Ordnance Inspectorate (Small Arms) at Weedon there is a list of all parts common and interchangeable, interchangeable with slight modification and those NON interchangeable parts between the 3 manufacturers including how to configure the demand sheet to cater for the variables.

[Flying10uk]

I did hear it suggested, years ago, that at the end of the war the U.K. wrote off the debt owed to it by Poland and other European countries partly in the hope that the U.S. would do the same for us and also, I guess, that the countries in question were also virtually bankrupt. However, I have never heard this confirmed.

[Beerhunter]

The Lend Lease weapons which I was referring to in my last post, post No28, was the M1917 not the P14, perhaps I didn't make it clear. I was trying to ask if the P14 could have been supplied to resistance movements in Europe because they were not part of the Lend Lease arrangement.

BUT THE M1917s WERE NOT LEND LEASE EITHER. They were all bought and paid for by the UK Government as well. The vast bulk of them in in 1940 and few more in in 1941. Both transactions pre-dated the Lend-Lease Act! (I believe that this is all documented at Kew.)

[Peter Laidler]

And paid for, up front, in gold and not Sterling as by then the UK £ was worthless!

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Let's not forget the quantities "gifted" to small nations that emerged, sometimes for a very brief period, post WW1.

A couple of the Baltic states were set up with P-14s, "recycled" ex-German Maxim MGs and all manner of odds and ends. Most of this would have been snaffled up by our Soviet "allies" in due course.

What materiel was sent as "aid" to potential "newly independent" states in Africa and Asia is probably buried somewhere in the archives.

But, sadly, a prodigious quantity of goodies went to Davy Jones Locker on several occasions.

[fjruple]

I wonder how many Model of 1917s ended up on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. They appear to be shipped during the height of the U-boot "menace" in the early 1940's. A thought to consider. Does any one know the lost rate?

Cheers

fjruple