September 1941 - Lend Lease M1 Rifle

[Bob Seijas]

Yes, regs called for a crown and BNP in those two places. I'm guessing the dies lasted about five whacks on those hardened receivers. Many imports with the proofs up front between the rings of the gas cylinder don't have them at all, so maybe they just bagged it at the end.

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[DocAV]

The British (Commercial) Proof marks only prove that the said rifle passed "in trade" through the UK. It has Nothing to do with "Lend-Lease."

Interarms (Sam Cummings) set up in England in order to buy a lot of rifles from the British Gov't in the 1950s, by Buying up Cogswell and Harrison.( only British based companies could tender).
The Hundreds of thousands of Lee-Enfields etc purchased, at an average Price of 2 shillings & 6 pence, were held at a Warehouse in Manchester, where a Branch of the Birmingham Proof House did all the "Trade Proofs" of over a Million rifles over time (British, European, Latin American, etc).
IA acquired Garands from all over Europe at that time, as Nations were upgrading to FNFAL or G3 etc. Unless one has definitive serial number proof that a particular Garand was a "Lend Lease" delivery, the question is "Moot" and should not be entertained.

Whilst most Foreign Firearms entering British service would carry Enfield Inspection marks
( such as the Colt and S&W revolvers of both the First and Second world wars), I don't know if the Garands, Springfields, and M17s sent to England did get the Enfield marks.

Maybe they just didn't have the time nor the manpower to do it???

IN any case, an Enfield Inspection/acceptance mark (Crown & number) would confirm "Official" British acceptance, but its absence does not mean a negative...
also, Garands were coming and going from Britain...the Canadians at Dieppe were armed with Garands, and some were also dropped to Resistance fighters all over Europe (But the Bren and the Sten were the preferred firearms of Partizan Groups ).

The whole "Lend-Lease" question regarding Britain is very obscure...Britain did buy a Lot of equipment "Cash and Carry" (by Gold reserves) before the Lend Lease Act...it was only when the Gold reserves were exhausted (mid-1941) that Roosevelt pushed the Lend Lease Act through Congress.

So, before claiming a Garand M1 is "Lend-Lease," just because it has British Proofs (Trade) on it, is Misleading...supporting evidence of Serial Number Records and or "Enfield acceptance" is required to satisfy Provenance.

Doc AV

[Bob Seijas]

There is strong evidence that at least the first lot of Garands in 1959 were those provided to GB under the LL program. The dates and specifications of the Lend Lease Act narrow the serial range to late 1941-early 1942 and rebuilds from earlier production. The story of how and when Cummings acquired Garands from the British government is well known (by buying Cogswell & Harrison as you state). There were almost no M1s in the US collector market prior to IA imports in 1958-59 except a few from DCM sales and vet bring-backs. The imports were in the right serial range and had the red paint on them, so we can be pretty confident they were the Lend Lease guns. After that first lot proofed under the op rod, we can suppose that M1s in the right range and with BPs could be LL, but we can't be absolutely sure.

[Bob Seijas]

Yes, any London proofs are scarce, most are Birmingham. Although the bulk of the LL guns were meant to be rebuilt early rifles, including Gas Traps, it evidently didn't turn out that way because the vast bulk of those seen in the 1959 imports were from new 41-42 production at SA. There were supposed to be WRAs sent, too, but I've never actually seen one with BPs under the op rod.

[Bob Seijas]

There has always been an unsubstantiated story that a ship with 50,000 Garands was torpedoed and sunk in the North Atlantic. Maybe that's where all the rebuilt LL M1s went.

[browningautorifle]

a ship with 50,000 Garands was torpedoed and sunk in the North Atlantic.

We better get out there and find her then...

[Bob Seijas]

If they had as much cosmoline on them as I think they had, they could still be there

[browningautorifle]

If they had as much cosmoline on them as I think

Sort of what I was thinking, love to find out.