Enfield Made MkII’s?

[phoenix44]

Something has been bothering me about the figure of 26,000 Bren's being lost in France.By May 1940 the size of the BEF was 10 divisions.They would have had an approximate issue of 1,000 LMG's, this included Lewis guns, which despite all that is written, were still very much in evidence.I have spoken to many veterans, who never went near a Bren, until they returned to England after the evacuation.So if we do the maths, that is 10.000 and I have based this on figures for later in the war, I believe the establishment of a BEF division was less.So if the establishment figure is 10,000, why were 26,000 lost, even taking into account loss and damage it seems a great divide between the two figures.The other odd thingis, that IF the Germans had got such a large amount, why did they not use them in any large numbers? A few seem to have been used in the Channel Islands on the Atlantic wall, but I have never seen mention made of their use elswhere, when they used the Dutch M20 Lewis Gun as an example.I agree with what Peter has said, about a lot of equipment being captured at depot's and ports, much of this gear never reached the front line troops.So has any body got any thoughts on this?

[Brit plumber]

I've never come across a photo of a Lewis in the hands of the BEF. I thought they had been withdrawn by then, which is why they were available post dunkirque. Anyhow, there must have been more than 10,000 in use as the RAF used the Bren too, but still not 16,000 of them. My other thought is that some may have been unservicable/lost/thrown away and New items were on their way to the front as replacements. By mid '40 Bren production had reached approx D5000 which is approx 35,000 guns.

I've also found a reference to there being 13 British Divisions by May 1940 and an allied army of 135 divisions. I don't know if BEF included commonwealth countries like Canada, but I'm sure they also recieved Brens from British supplies.

1st Lothians and Border Yeomanry

[Kev G]

Hi Peter,no intention of shooting messengers LOL.
Just trying to make sense of numbers given at different dates.

Point taken about the later evacuations from France after Dunkirk.
But if the census of warlike stores that was compiled in August giving the total of Brens as 2,300 is correct and then you take off say half of Julys production of Brens (1,826) this infers that only about 474 Brens or so were brought back ?

Or looking at it another way -
From these figures gained from different dates 2,300 left (from August) has been subtracted from manufactured Bren numbers up to June 30,000 (MoS figures give 32,270 approx) to give a lost number as "over 27,000 (as cited by Dugelby )
This of course completely leaves out Brens delivered in June and July.
June's MoS deliveries - over 3,400 Brens
July's MoS deliveries - over 3,600 Brens

These two months add another 7,000+

So is this to say that 34,000+ were 'missing' as from August (not accounting for any in the middle east etc or supplied to Finland or lost in Norway )?

......I probably need to get out more often !


ATB Kevin

Edit to say that this was written a couple of days ago so not up to date.

[Kev G]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British...f_battle_(1940)

Now for someone to work it out !

ATB Kevin