Thai marked 1903s

[Chuckindenver]

Note: the barrel that is China or Japan made is dated 6-1946... i must say they did a nice job making the barrel, Blue is a little off, but the metal work is exellent..
iv been messing with 1903s for a while you could say, and see more then most guys...and these are the first ones marked as such

[Rick the Librarian]

I agree - a 6-46 M1903 barrel is a first!

[UNPROFOR1994]

I think it is a WW2 M1903 overhauled and marked by the Chinese Nationalist Army just like my Chinese Mauser (Standard Modell copy).

[JGaynor]

The Springfield 1903 Rifles: The Illustrated, Documented Story of the Design ... - William S. Brophy - Google Books

The above captioned link will take the reader to page 141 of Wm. Brophy's encyclopedic work on the '03. Scroll down to pages 149 to 151 for information on Lend Lease and Military Assistance rifles.

[UNPROFOR1994]

Posts #3, #7 and #10 in this thread Savage No4 MkI* - Chinese Lend Lease confirms the markings are Chinese Nationalist Army markings.

[JGaynor]

HyperWar: Lend-Lease Shipments, World War II (Ordnance)

This link goes to a table showing just how much stuff was sent overseas under the Lend Lease program alone. Scroll down its organized by country.

[browningautorifle]

Good info Jim...good link.

[firstflabn]

Bear in mind that these figures are incomplete. 'Theater transfers' noted on the bottom of the page amounted to 14% of L/L total dollars. These were items provided to friendly forces in active theaters directly from theater reserves, not those shipped from the U.S. As I understand it, itemized lists were either not kept or, at least, never published (only dollar totals), so we might never know the actual count of this or that type of rifle.

The French, first in Italy with 5th U.S. Army, later in southern France with 7th U.S. Army, received U.S. small arms, including at least 89,000 M1917s. See how many 1917s are listed in the tables? It appears to be even more complicated - most (if not all or almost all) of these came from the Brits - from the ones they purchased just after Dunkirk and before L/L. Bet the transfer from Brit to French for a U.S. program required a complicated accounting entry.

[browningautorifle]

Bear in mind that these figures are incomplete.

Understood, but I had NO info in print before this...probably an oversight on my part as I'm sure it's been here before.

[firstflabn]

Understood, but I had NO info in print before this...probably an oversight on my part as I'm sure it's been here before.

We're on the same page, Jim. Didn't intend for my wording to come across as criticism. I'm a dedicated beancount guy, so all numbers are good in my book. My reply above was partially from memory, so let me rehabilitate myself with some excerpts from the army's official account of French rearmament:

In addition to the M1917 rifle, which they received throughout the year 1943, the French were also given large quantities of the M1903 (Springfield), likewise .30 caliber.

...the larger part of the rifles issued to them, approximately two thirds, consisted of M1917's....

Further aggravating maintenance problems was the fact that a considerable proportion of the rifles (estimated by the French as 10 percent, especially the M1917's) were found to be of a low order of serviceability. This was not surprising for the weapons involved were old. In fact they were part of the stocks shipped by the United States to the British after the evacuation of Dunkerque in 1940....

In July 1944, answering a query from the War Department, General Loomis reviewed the French rifles situation as it stood on the eve of ANVIL. He estimated that the French had received a total of approximately 215,000 rifles including 167,000 M1917's, 47,000 M1903's, 740M1's, and 13,400 M1 carbines.

My 89k figure for M1917s was for French forces in the ETO in Jan 45. The larger number above appears to be for the entire program. Note that the linked L/L list also underreports M1903s.

Back for a moment to the Thai connection - I was at first dubious as to whether Thailand was part of L/L. They don't show up as receiving anything in the linked transcription. In my piles I found a page from a wartime L/L publication. It contained a note grouping a bunch of small countries in Asia and Africa into an 'other' category. Among them was Thailand. Unfortunately, military hardware was also summarized, appearing only as a dollar total. So, Thailand cannot be eliminated from consideration as might have been thought from their absence in the hyperwar L/L list.