A very long shot - No1MkIII S#16229

[841NER]

A dear friend and hero of mine lost this rifle escaping the advancing SS Adolph Hitler Division in Greece. At the time he felt like he had lost his right arm - he relinquished it in order to not drown in a freezing river. He remembers the serial number and I thought it would be remiss of me not to put it out there, to see if it ever resurfaced, so to speak. It is most likely lying at the bottom of Aliakmon River but you never know!

Please feel free to repost to any site you feel may be worthwhile.

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[Thunderbox]

Your friend has about a one in a million chance of finding an imposter rifle with the correct serial number, as over four million No1s were made and the serial numbers were re-used roughly four times each. You'd first need to know the letter prefix or suffix of the serial number in order to identify it.

As for the chances of finding a rifle that was discarded in the middle of a deep river in wartime.........

[RobD]

I hope he got away from those bastards. Around 460 villages were completely destroyed and approximately 60,000 men, women and children were massacred during the occupation of Greece. It sickens me when people call the SS "elite troops"...

[Surpmil]

Reminds me of Tom Barker's No3 MkI*W(T) He told me where to look for that on Crete. One day I will.

[841NER]

@Thunderbox - of course Roland [the friend mentioned] has never held any real hope of finding the rifle. I thought it worth putting out there and seeing if the Internet could throw up some magic. I had assumed the lack of a letter prefix may have meant a Lithgow 1915-1918 manufacture date.

@RobD - he was indeed evacuated on the Costa Rica. Only to be sunk and rescued then landed for the debacle on Crete.

@Surpmil - that sounds interesting.

[Beerhunter]

It sickens me when people call the SS "elite troops"...

Call me sad or call me mad but I don't understand the reenactors who dress as Waffen SS.

If it is to understand and explain German kit and tactics, which I applaud, why not do that as ordinary Heer.

[bouletbill]

Sometimes I wonder a bit about all re-enactors , but then they do provide good entertainment . They are after all just acting , but they should stay within the display areas . I was extremely unimpressed when the War&Peace Show had "German"WW2 re-enactors doing crowd control a few years back . Was in very bad taste for any visiting veterans . Wouldn't get away with that in France .
I think we would all love to find a buried war relic ..... but if plod caught anyone fondling a rusty Lee in their snuggery !!! WMD over-reaction I expect .

[RJW NZ]

If you head over to enfield resource.com there's a site listed as being for a lost and found to reunite parts to rifles etc, you could always put a post there, you just never know, hell if I lived in Greece I'd be there in that river bed every drought with my metal detector. Heck, look at that roman helmet that got found and sold today in the UK, awesome whats in a farmers field for 2000 years, mindboggling.

[Edward Horton]

I hope he got away from those bastards. Around 460 villages were completely destroyed and approximately 60,000 men, women and children were massacred during the occupation of Greece. It sickens me when people call the SS "elite troops"...

The best part of winning wars is the ability of the winners to write revisionist history. The SS had many different branches and the Waffen SS were the elite combat troops of the SS and not part of the regular German Army, "BUT" after 1943 you could have been drafted into the Waffen SS regardless of your political leanings. After years of legal battles in West Germany the Waffen SS members were allowed to draw monetary and medical pension rights. Therefore if what the Waffen SS did sickens you then the fire bombing of German cities and the killing hundreds of thousands of civilians by the Allies should make you upchuck your meals for months on end.

In war there are no rules...................

[enfield303t]

Ed there are rules just no one obeys them.