Mystery British Oiler

[Peter Laidler]

Woodsy, thread 7, last sentence. In ours the oil bottle was inserted down into the top part of the grip plate, through the wooden grip and down, into the bottom part of the grip plate. That's how we were able to replace the wood grips that the gunners damaged with monotonous regularity when they dumped the gun breech end down.

In the last few months before I left the Small Arms School, we had a visit from a couple of the old and bold from Chippenham, Wiltshire Regiment MMG platoon, who had arrived in Europe a month after DDay to replace tired or worn out crews. They kept the same Vickers MMG for the whole time, reliable as the days is long until a few days before it was all over when it was run over by their section Bren Gun Carrier. He cut the upper and lower grip plate off and kept the oil bottle and wood grip as a souvenir. He asked me to keep it safe for the future. Brought a lump to my throat. It SHOULD be in the Wiltshire Regt museum really..........