Quote Originally Posted by fjruple View Post
I would like to see the complete documents of these two sections of documents as I believe they are taken out of context. The first document appears to be discussing the availability of M1917 rifles from the inter-war years and appears to discuss the lack of war reserves and their readiness. We know the the US shipped a large number of M1917s to the UKicon pre-lend-lease. If you noted the shipment dates, they are a month before President Rooveselt signed the Lend-Lease Act. These rifles were not inspected and degreased by the US Ordnance Department before shipment as time and need were critical, the Home Guard who received the M1917 complained about having to clean the "grease" from the rifles and giving up what No.1 MKIII rifles they had for the greasy M1917s. While it is clear that the 170,000 rifles were shipped to the UK from Columbus. I know of no evidence of them being returned. I do know the US Ordnance Department did rebuild those that were in US troops hands and were held for Foreign Military Aid after WWII which left a lot of them available. Foreign militaries were looking for M1icon Garand rifles and M1 carbines not M1917s. I have been to the Columbus General Depot many times as it was later known as the Defense General Supply Center under the Defense Logistics Command. It is interesting to note that the Wright Corporation which is close to Columbus Depot did rebuilds of the M1917 towards the end of WWII.
The first document that discusses this says they were sold, and returned. I have not double checked the dates of when NRA sales resumed on the M1917 after WWII, but I have that documentation. My memory RIA was gearing up for the sales of the M1917's to the NRA members again. That is why they looked at the receivers and were asking for clarification.

So otherwise this 26,000 shipment that was returned, had to most likely be going to another country.

What are you trying to figure out from the above two documents I posted?

IT's a report that is 30 pages long and details the politics behind the shipment, how they ignored some laws and shipped them fast. It looks like they bent the rules as they weren't legally allowed to do it officially until March 1941. But they state it was an emergency under dire circumstances. So they did it. A quick looks thru it looks like it was ordered by the President on Feb 5, 1941. It was for 250,000 M1917's and 50,000,000 rounds.