"Grandad's gun from the war"

[Pablo]

This is term I've encountered a few times already in my short time (4 years) collecting lee enfields. One of the ones I bought even came with this story.

I'm curious to know what the chances are of this even happening. Surely before a soldier is released back to the world his firearms are carefully returned.
Anyone know the exact process? Namely WW2 and Korea.
My one was bought from the family of a Korean war vet that claimed it as his from the war. Got me thinking is all.

On a personal note, my aunty has had in her possession a rifle mum and her relos (who know nothing about guns) claim to be grand pa's from the war. When i was old enough and wise enough I got to see it and took less than a second to realise how wrong they were. It's a pump action winchester .22 .......... So yeah that my main reason for thinking relatives of servicemen aren't really in the know.

Cheers

Information

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[us019255]

Some of these stories are probably misunderstandings by either kids or relatives. It is easy to see how "This is just like the rifle I used in the war." can turn into "This is the rifle I used in the war." 40 years later. Of course, some folk just like to tell tall tails...

[Son]

You need to take a look at the Winchester pump action .22... It may well have been a service rifle! During ww2 the dept of defence called in a lot of rifles from private ownership to be utilised for training and even the defence of the country in the hands of home guard units... IIRC (and as usuall, I stand to be corrected here...) Winchester Mod 1896 (or something) pump .22 rifles were on the list... I have seen it written somewhere... just cannot recal where... Someone with more knowledge o the right book reference might be able to say if they were marked by the D^D.

As for a .303 "from the war".. I don't think so... but there were a lot of periods when demobbing servicemen were given the option of buying a new rifle dirt cheap as they went out the door so to speak.... Once again, someone else here will have more info on this too.

[spinecracker]

When I was a young boy back in England, I came home from school one day to find police and, if I remember, a bomb disposal unit going in and out of my home. My mother later told me that my grandmother, who was living with us and had a habit of smoking in bed, had a box under her bed with a Webley service revolver, a bunch of ammunition and a live grenade in it that my grandfather had "borrowed" at some point during his service in the Royal Navy during the 2nd World War (we called him Grandpa Pom Pom because he had been part of a Vickers 40mm anti-aircraft gun crew) . I can only think that Gandpa had light fingers, as I can't imagine how he would have got hold of a grenade legally!

[Thunderbox]

I don't think any British serviceman was ever "allowed" to retain an issue firearm, but poor security and the vast amounts of weaponry floating around in WW1 and WW2 meant that pilfering was fairly common. My mother's parents lived in Derby. More or less at the end of their street in the Sinfin district was a large military depot. At the end of the war, this depot was used for the mass demobilisation of soldiers. It was an astonishingly rapid and large-scale process: armed, uniformed soldiers would arrive by battalion groups. The men would go through a sort of admin " production line" - undressing from uniform, re-dressing in a civilian underwear, shoes, hat and "de-mob" suit chosen from vast racks, collecting their pay and end of service certificates, etc, then finishing off with a rail warrant to go home. My grandparents said that the mens' rifles & stens were simply thrown onto large heaps; pistols went into skips or crates. Apparently the heap of rifles was about twenty feet high by about thirty or forty yards long. The depot had no real security or fencing to keep kids out, and apparently many houses for miles around ended up with rifles and other souvenirs in the attic.....

[Beerhunter]

I'm curious to know what the chances are of this even happening.

In the case of "Granddads' Rifle", assuming that granddad was in the British Army, I'd say between zero and none. Granddad stealing another rifle that was not locked up properly would be SLIGHLTY more plausible.

None of the above applies to pistols of course because a) some were privately owned anyway and b) more easily "pinched".

---------- Post added at 09:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:47 AM ----------

there were a lot of periods when demobbing servicemen were given the option of buying a new rifle dirt cheap as they went out the door so to speak.... .

Not in the British Army. The first real Firearms control Act in this country, just post Great War, was designed specifically to disarm returning soldiers.

Remember the British have never trusted their soldiers (probably de to the aftermath of the Civil War) and always seek to disarm them as soon as possible. That distrust is the reason that the world's first Police Force (the Metropolitan) was (largely) unarmed and wore blue uniforms - blue because it is not the scarlet of the Army.

[RJW NZ]

I don't really know cos I wasn't there but isn't it more correct or logical that a soldiers rifle is issued as the situation demands, imminent combat, or for a parade, and that its not under his pillow for the duration? I keep reading stories that a soldiers rifle was given back to the armorers or issued from the armorers, so doesn't it make sense that this was where they are kept when ie he's on leave to go to the flicks if its a weekend pass from the base, or in a battle zone he carries it for as long as the possibility of combat exists but when those demands are over and the front is either far away or enemy vanquished, you never see soldiers constantly totting a rifle around th place, so ergo they must be stored somewhere. It says to me that by the time demobing comes around that a soldier's rifle would have long been handed in back to the armorers because the combat need was weeks or months over....

Any experienced voices car to comment? I too have wondered... logic says there's no way grandad would have his gun to bring it home, unless it was perhaps a war souvenir ie luger but I could not imagine a lee enfield being considered a legit war souvanir even it was 'found on a battlefield', unless smuggled home.

[Thunderbox]

Soldiers in UK did take their rifles home whilst on leave during WW1 and WW2 - there are some well known newspaper photos of kids carrying dad's rifle, etc. In an era when hundreds of thousands of soldiers were moving between camps, leave and transport points, it wouldn't have been practical to store rifles at many locations.

[Peter Laidler]

Until the late 40's, according to the equipment regulations, a soldier was ussued with a rifle as his personal kit and entered on his what we still call his '1157' (after the army form AFG- 1157 or eleven fifty seven) and took it with him between postings etc etc. It stopped in 1949 and the soldiers rifle was issued at his posting, where it stayed.

T/box is right about the demob centres, where a soldier might be on his extended 'active service leave', with his kit and be informed by telegram that he was to report at XY demob centre on XY day to be demobbed. If he was clever, he turned up less rifle. Thousands turned up with all their kit and piles and piles of them were laying around unaccounted for.

I returned home from the Far East after flying back from Australia and then onwards from transit in Malaya, in the kit I was wearing plus rifle plus my pistol in its holster on my waist. The loadmaster chap took it off me and put it somewhere and handed it back to me when we landed As for the accompanying '1157' or the Australian equivalent, well, it's still in the post somewhere....... But my prized possession was the issue and very expensive G-10 Omega wristwatch which I still have.

Weaponry......... tightly controlled but with tooing and froing, casualties admin cock-ups etc etc the place was awash with the stuff

[Homer]

You need to take a look at the Winchester pump action .22... It may well have been a service rifle! During ww2 the dept of defence called in a lot of rifles from private ownership to be utilised for training and even the defence of the country in the hands of home guard units... IIRC (and as usuall, I stand to be corrected here...) Winchester Mod 1896 (or something) pump .22 rifles were on the list... I have seen it written somewhere... just cannot recal where... Someone with more knowledge o the right book reference might be able to say if they were marked by the D^D.

As for a .303 "from the war".. I don't think so... but there were a lot of periods when demobbing servicemen were given the option of buying a new rifle dirt cheap as they went out the door so to speak.... Once again, someone else here will have more info on this too.

My Great Uncle took possession of an SMLE when he left the army in 1946 and I have it now. He used it in the gulf and Cape York as a croc shooter in the late 40's before putting it in the rafters of the shed where he still lives today. It wasn't until about five years ago he told me about that gun and we pulled it down. The magazine was stored in a different location and was still loaded with ten rounds. I've also got two receipts dated 1946 for several cases of 303 ammunition from Carl Shultz gun shop in Brisbane. Same uncle told me that on one occasion during the war, he went AWOL for a short period and left his kit and rifle at the train station where it remained until he returned. I would imagine some rifles may have been stolen in similar situations.

Forgot to add this. I have another SMLE that was supposed to have belonged to my mates relative who was drafted into the Coast Guard in New Guinea during the war. They gave him a rifle and never asked for it back. True or not I don't know but that was the story.