Greek Enfields

**Peter Laidler** · 07-05-2011 10:48 AM

Not when I was in NZ or Australia icon

they didn't 5th Batt because we had worn out L2 rifles with battered locking shoulder openings at the main Ordnance Depot in Ngaruawahia and Lithgow wouldn't supply spare bodies so we scrapped them on site by cutting them up with the hot axe after stripping them for spares. We also destroyed a couple of Mk2 Sten guns and S&W revolvers at the same time.

In Bandiana we would regularly scrap worn out L1A1's. If Lithgow changed the master component in some controlled way then it was after my time there although I do remember our first (?) DP L1A1's coming on stream from Lithgow but they were the same rifle, with an over engraved DP number so far as I recall. I think that they came to us from a big Ordnance depot at (was it 1 BOD?) Newcastle where all of the cut up rifles were returned under a special heading of 'classified scrap'

As I said, we never had accesss to spare 'master components', certainly in my time there. Occasionally there might be a spare or un-accounted for weapon sloshing around in the system but it was a dangerous thing to get around as a spare weapon was as difficult to explain away as a missing one! 'Tiny' Davidson (known as 'tiny' due to his 6'4" height) had a spare/unaccounted for No2 Browning in his locker and spent 28 days in Holsworthy for his trouble!