U.S. Navy WWII ships's small arms compliment

[Peter Laidler]

Further to BinO's picture, while I was in NZ doing some job somewhere - probably at Devonport - someone gave me 6 or so of those cap bands with simply HMNZS on them, similar to the HMAS shown on Bruce's pic. The man told me that they'd been commissioned as film props in the early 60's for a NZTV documentary regarding the sinking of the Graff Spee when one of the big ships involved was from the NZ Navy. Wish I still had them. Mind you, I expect the RNZN wish they still had those two big cruisers..........

Off the page a bit but......... When I was writing the Sterling book, some of the papers mentioned that a small pro-rata % of Lanchester guns should be manufactured so as to accept the what was described as 'the American rifle bayonet in service' This will have been the P'14/17 bayonet at the time. I have never ever seen one or heard of anyone ever a) having one or b) seen one either including a large importer. I can only assume now that at the time, the guns were for the Army and it's true that initially, large quantities were earmarked for the Army. Presumably by the time production got under way that idea had been kicked into touch. But there's always a chance that an early Mk1 was fitted with a P'14 type extended bayonet standard. It would only be a slightly different, almost indistinguishable sling loop/bayonet standard casting. I'm sure that there is a lot more to be unearthed about them.