"Redeployed: FN M1 Garands and Carbines"

[painter777]

I'm sure I read it somewhere but can't recall where,
That the US had taken German wood blanks for stocks, that came from the Black Forest.

Ring a bell... Anyone?

CH-P777

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[browningautorifle]

That the US had taken German wood blanks for stocks, that came from the Black Forest.

I was told that part of WW1 reparation payment was stock blanks, they had been cut for '98 rifle so they were close enough to make 1903 stocks...

[Bruce McAskill]

Yup, walnut stocks from Germany post WW1 were in storage and when the great walnut shortage was feared they were released to make stocks for the US military. But they were full size stocks for 03's and or M1 Garands. Unmarked stocks were made and used by Italy for carbines and it was the late type 5 pot belly stock that was the model. There were so many replacement stocks made for the US military for M1A1 carbines I would not be surprised if the ones seen at FN were not OI or SA made replacements. There was almost zero stock quality wood left in Europe at the end of WW2.

[frankderrico]

I find it hard to believe that FN made any M1A1 stocks during their rebuild contract. They would also have had to produce the metal and leather parts and I have not seen any evidence of that.

Best Regards.....Frank

[Bruce McAskill]

I still do not believe they made stocks for M1A1 carbines or even standard carbines at that. At the end of the war the military was swimming in new replacement stock for carbines including M1A1's and as Frank pointed out they would not have had the metal work for the M1A1's. They only used new and used parts from the US military system to rebuild carbines.

[kablair]

fistflabn, to try to answer, "deals with" in the sense I used the words, simply means "has to do with".

One of the pictures is explained "1945:FN's boiserie (woodshop) workers shape new M1 Garand stocks and hand guards by hand - photo courtesy of FN Herstal." (p.61)

I am not trying to defend Anthony Vanderlinden, a recognized expert in the field of FN Browning pistols, I was trying to add some information to the discussion. I did stray from the subject of carbines, although the article quoted from the Rifleman did mention both M1 Garands and carbines.

To quote from his book, FN Browning Pistols "After Germany's surrender, FN was contracted by the U.S. government to clean, refurbish, repair and pack most of the U.S. small arms used in the European theater." p. 60

The acnoledgement page of the book lists dozens of contributors including FM Herstal & Herstal Group, the John Browning Museum and Browning Arms.

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[firstflabn]

I'm in your debt for taking the trouble to provide details from the Vanderlinden book. In particular, I now see that the scope of work that you quoted from the book is much more limited than what he claimed in the article (note how "most" is a different matter from "all"). The claims of manufacturing stocks remains ludicrous.

My main issue is with writers who can't be bothered to at least give a nod in the direction of sourcing. All it takes is a phrase like, "...according to a report dated..." and the narrative can rumble right along. Failing to do that poorly serves readers new to the subject who lack a factual basis to challenge the unsupported claim and others who lack the analytical ability to spot rhetorical subterfuge. Heck, people get challenged all the time in this neighborhood to back up what they say and this is a pretty informal place. Unfortunately, you can't do that with an article.

I'm on the run, but here's one clear contradiction to the author's claims: the Aug 45 inspection report lists quite a quantity of pistols at FN. So, besides the question of why someone would engage in wild speculation about pistols being excluded from FN's work, it gives a further indication he did little or no research. An educated guess is fine; with incomplete data that's almost inevitable, but proposing a hypothesis, then trying to explain it with guesswork is irresponsible. His round peg was previous knowledge of FN's licenses with American gunmakers. Unfortunately, he tried to pound that round peg into the square hole of "all" US ETO small arms. It didn't work.

Thanks again for helping me confirm my suspicions.