French Resistance Cache found

[Brit plumber]

Don't look to bad seeing as they've been hidden for 70 years.

http://www.guns.com/2017/10/19/french-resistance-cache-unearthed-including-stens-named-pepette-and-alice-photos/

Information

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[browningautorifle]

Try this link... French Resistance cache unearthed including STENs named (PHOTOS)

Yes, look like we could wring them out without much except oiling.

[philb]

lucky person

[Peter Laidler]

I wonder whether the FRench Government had a post war policy of buying back or an amnesty for those weapons that were supplied to the resistance

[mrclark303]

I wonder whether the FRench Government had a post war policy of buying back or an amnesty for those weapons that were supplied to the resistance

Something I've often pondered too Peter.


If you put yourself in the mind set of the average Marque member, after all, the Boche had been uninvited guests twice in only 20 years!

That and the people were terrified France would rip itself apart in civil war, it came very close ... Apparently the French killed more French people than the Germans did during four years of occupation, with the purging of the republic after the Germans where booted out.

In the context of that chaos, the authorities never really got round to collecting the weaponry in any meaningful quantity.

If it was me in that position, I would think twice before handing in my gear too, my Sten and Mills bombs would likely be under the floor too!


There is still tons of gear in France, it seems to surface on a regular basis and I am sure it will for many years to come.

[Flying10uk]

Who would have been the actual legal owner of the weapons once they were dropped to the resistance groups in occupied Europe and elsewhere? Would it be the people dropping it, the British in this case, or the people receiving the arms? Did the governments in exile pay for the weapons or agree to pay for them at a latter date? When it was decided to drop vast numbers of weapons into Europe some decisions must have been made as to who was going to pay for them and who owned them once they were dropped?

[CINDERS]

Good old press still getting it wrong "several Bren magazines" I counted 23 of them (had to use my toes?) I agree with #6 you would be thinking twice about handing it in with the govt the way it was or hand in part and say that's all you have keeping the other in another hiding place.

They would fetch a pretty penny on today's market those Stens provided the barrels are not badly corroded or pitted.

[30Three]

This is an interesting find; but not that unusual. Some weapons were handed back in after the war; but many were hidden away again. In May this year I acquired a No4Mk1 that had been well preserved for over 70 years.
So as not to disrupt this thread; I will start a new one for this rifle.

[Paul S.]

I can well imagine the mind set of many who quietly tucked away weapons for the 'next time' or 'just in case'. One only needs to think: Franco-Prussian War, WWI, WWII, and a virtual political vacuum throughout much of Europe in the early post-war era.

Quite honestly, if it had been me, I would have been one of those who cleaned, greased and packed away one of those STENs, magazines and ammunition for that uncertain future.

[browningautorifle]

I would have kept all of it and squirrelled it all away.