did the british army use lithgows

[bonnny]

as the title says really, did the british army use the Lithgow made smles during the second world war ? a local gunshop here in ireland has a lovely 1943 lithgow no.1 mk3 for sale , it struck me its a long way from home as all the other enfields i have seen for sale are either american/canadian or british made.
were the british so short of rifles that they bought some from lithgow ?

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[Claven2]

Yes, in WW1 the British Army used a lot of Lithgow-made SMLE's. After the war, the Brits returned an equal number of rifles to Australia but they didn't bother to select Lithgows to return, so Brit made guns went to Australia and some Lithgows stayed in the UK, were used, often refurbed prior to or during or even after WW2 - though obviously not in bigger numbers than brit-made rifles.

[Son]

The figures escape me at present, but after Dunkirk, where the evacuation of troops left almost all of their equipment behind, Australia sent a shipment of No1 rifles over to speed up the re-supply.

[bonnny]

would the Lithgow rifles of those years have had a heavier barrel then the british no.1 mk111's ?

[Bindi2]

would the Lithgow rifles of those years have had a heavier barrel then the british no.1 mk111's ?

Some Lithgows had heavy barrels fitted indicated with a H on the knox

[TonyE]

Apart from direct shipments from Lithgow to the UK, rifles would have been recovered by Salvage Battalions in WWI after major battles. These were checked, cleaned and any minor repairs carried out in France/Belgium before being returned to the rifle pool for re-issue. Those rifles needing more extensive repair were returned to Enfield before going back into the system. Thus if Australian or Indian troops were involved any of their rifles would end up in the general pool. A similar system would have applied in WW2.

In the late 1950s we had 500 SMLEs in the cadet armoury, quite a number of which were Lithgows and some Ishapores.

Regards
TonyE

[Peter Laidler]

The simple answer and to corroborate that of TonyE above, then YES. It was quite common to see Lithgow and the occasional Ishapore No1 rifle in use as EY's and in some school CCF armouries.

The rifles were identical to the run of the mill UK spec No1's as we wouldn't allow a mixed fleet

[bouletbill]

Ah yes, but Bonnny says it's 1943, I would have expected all late production to be heading off to the Pacific theatre. Anyways, in recent years there have been a lot of Lithgows imported into the EU (and US) so there's probably no knowing where that one saw service, if ever. Many I have seen are like new, if your one is , grab it. May lack individual history but should be a super shooter.

[bonnny]

how were rifles issued from any factory anyway ? would a specific batch of serial numbers have gone to a certain part of the military ? would records have been kept ? its sad to hold a piece of history and not know a little about what action it has seen.

[Peter Laidler]

In the UK and Australian military, the rifles all go from the factories to a Base Ordnance depot where they are taken onto the Army books so to speak. From there, they're issued to Central Ordnance Depots by quantity then to sub depots by quantity and then onwards and upwards............ So there's no real paper trail as such