Reloading in WWII

[Harlan]

Here's an interesting clip showing how the US military recycled ammo during WWII

Men working on reclamation of bullets, shells and shell cases in the European Theater.



(There's also some other interesting related subjects on the right side of the page)

[browningautorifle]

Up intil now Harlan, I'd have told you for sure that that didn't happen. I always wondered why they didn't reclaim the stuff. So, they actually did.

My dad told me about a CO he had that would make them recover their brass after action. Apparently for recycle. But he did it during the battles. Dad was with a machine gun platoon in Sicily, Italy, Normandy-France and Germany, Belgium and Holland. This incident only happened a few times and was of short duration. The CO was relieved because he was nuts.

[Harlan]

I thought the same thing, Jim. I thought they just had everything new and wasted everything they got their hands on.

There's several other clips on that page showing them repairing/recycling everything from canteens to tires, and you can see it's authentic and working processes. I guess when you think about it, we were at total war back then and the US did have severe shortages at times with raw materials and production too. It makes sense they'd try to recover what they could if it was practical.

But a CO making his guys police up spent brass from a combat zone really is nuts!!

[Bill Hollinger]

Who woulda thonk?

[browningautorifle]

Zactly...but there ARE trades in the army to do that stuff. So why not do it? I liked the de-linker they used. Made by Rube Goldberg.

[Cosine26]

After the 1943 "steel' pennies" the 1944 & 1945 pennies were made out of returned shell cases and were or are known as "shell case pennies"
FWIW

[browningautorifle]

Didn't know that one either.

[Bruce McAskill]

Many of the artillery shells were returned, checked for damage and if in good condition were reloaded. The heads of the shells were stamped with a code to show how many times the case had been loaded in the past. From what I have read it was only brass shells that were reloaded and the steel cases were sent to be melted down.

[Emri]

In the book "Pacific War Diary" the author mentioned loading spent 5" powder cases on a barge for re-use. They only did this when parcticing in rear areas. When involved in combat the powder cases were thrown overboard to clear the deck.

FWIW,

Emri

[browningautorifle]

We did that also on the warships of the Canadian Navy even in the '70s. We were out about 100 miles and on the way to San Diego. After a shoot out there they just chucked the brass over the side rather than pack it home. Made sence to me.