Non-standard, substitute standard, and captured weapons in British and Commonwealth service

The 8mm MGs would of course have been the Hotchkiss M1914, already mentioned here. I am not familiar with French destroyer armament, but if they were like other large French vessels then they may have been equipped with the 13.2mm Hotchkiss.

 

I checked, and two of the destroyers (Leopard and Le Triomphant) did indeed carry the 13.2mm Hotchkiss Mle 1929, the same gun the army called the Mle 1930.

 

That's great information Richelieu. Its so convenient being able to down load info from Kew, for free!

I got information on French MG's from some Royal Naval Ordnance Depot log books which are located in the town/county archive facility in Winchester, UK. They also have a set of RN List of Changes when the Royal Navy went their separate way with these after the War.

The UK also supplied the Free French with substantial quantities of M1917 .30/06 rifles and some M1903 Remington made .30/06 rifles which we had obtained from the USA in 1940. So it was a two way street but more in favor of the Free French.

Regards

AlanD

 

Good day, ladies and gentlemen,
I happened on to this forum while searching for info about Bob Boothby and his quest for small arms in 1940 and I have registered specifically in the hope that I might add something to the discussion. I was born in 1944, raised in Yorkshire and emigrated to South Africa in 1969 where I have been ever since. Although I earned my living in construction I was for five years an amateur turned pro gunsmith during which time, in addition to repairing and modifying firearms I made parts for many of them and made and modified many reloading tools. That's just by way of background. During my teenage years and early adulthood Bob Boothby was a household name and a very popular public figure. Was a popular guest on radio shows - the one that stands out was the BBC's "Any Questions" in the 1960s. He was a Conservative Party MP but often out of step with his party. He was outspoken, often controversial, very much his own man which is what made him so popular. The title of his book "Recollections of a Rebel" was therefore well chosen. I don't have that book but am considering finding a copy. I do however recall with almost verbatim clarity a review of that book. The reviewer focused on Boothby's description of his mission for those rifles. This is what he said. Intelligence officers of the retreating British Army in France reported that they had wind of a lot of rifles in Amsterdam. Churchill sent Boothby (they were friends) to try to find them/get them. Boothby reported that the intelligence officers told him "you'd better get them - we might soon need them at home." As we all know, Britain was pretty much without arms of any sort and I wonder what happened to the millions of rifles brought home from WW1. Boothby found the rifles, Mausers, a lot of them, complete with bayonets and 1000 rounds of ammo each. When he returned home he was told that the rifles couldn't be afforded and were not needed, amazingly. He said that after publication of his book he expected that story to get a lot of attention but there was not a word in the media. The conspiracy of silence was complete, he said. He said that it was the most disgraceful episode in his long public life because it could have made the difference between victory and defeat. That's all what the reviewer said.

But I also found, a couple of nights ago, an excerpt of a book by Michael Dobbs entitled "Winston's War." It is a novel written around actual events of the time, and contains these details : Boothby met the intelligence officers in Brussels. They made two phone calls on his behalf and sent him to Liege, where he met an individual who offered him 9000 rifles, 100 machine guns and 1000 light automatics which I presume were the Schmeissers mentioned in this forum. When Boothby said he needed many more than that his contact sent him to Amsterdam where he met four men in the Amstel Hotel. 35 Minutes later he had been offered 400 000 Mausers with bayonets and 1000 rounds each, payment to be in uncut diamonds or dollars in the US for an extra 25%. Accepting that these details are in a novel they confirm what we already had but with added detail.

Which model of Mauser is not mentioned anywhere. Probably 98 from WW1, but if they were Model 91, 93 or 95 those are still good rifles well worth having especially if you've got nothing and the 7 x 57 is a good calibre to this day.

It was mentioned in this forum that Boothby visited Amsterdam 22 April. I didn't have that info. As Churchill became prime minister 10 May he wouldn't have had authority to authorise the purchase before that, but as First Lord of the Admiralty he would have had enough authority to send Boothby on the mission. The Germans got the rifles at the time of Dunkirk 27 May - 2 June, and the British Home Guard patrolled the countryside armed with pitchforks. Not long after, adverts were placed in American newspapers appealing for civilians to send firearms to defend British Homes. We really need to wonder about the mentality of politicians and bureaucrats to refuse good weapons when the enemy is at the door.

I'd really like to know what y'all think of the Ukraine government's offer, on the very day of Russia's invasion, to give a rifle to everyone who'll fight. The way to fight invasions is to have a good militia good and ready as the Swiss do, not to hurriedly cobble it together at the death. But what do I know?

 

Richard,

Welcome aboard. I would suggest your final paragraph would fit better in the current Ukraine thread.

 

First off, welcome to the forum.

Boothby was a character and a half, to put it no stronger. As to the weapons concerned in the Boothby mission, it has been a while since I dug into the matter but as I recall the Schmeissers were most probably the MP28 as made by Pieper, which was a Belgian firm in Liege. I don't know what the Belgian MGs could have been, but as this was Liege I think they might have been FN Browning Automatic Rifles, either Type D (Demontable) or more likely the more common Type 30. The rifles in Belgium, I surmise, were most likely typical FN short Mausers, Model 30. Bear in mind that the Chinese had been ordering all these weapons from Belgian suppliers so some may have been on hand. The rifles in Amsterdam, I seem to recall, were likely a shipment from Germany of 7.92mm Standardmodell 98's, Mauser's commercial version of the Kar 98K. These had been on their way to Spain for Franco, but the end of the Spanish war found them unwanted and stuck in transit. Again, it's been a while since I looked into all this so I can't say for absolute certain and none of us may know for certain until better documentation appears. Maybe there is more in Boothby's private papers, if such exist and are available.

As to the HG carrying pitchforks...well, no, the Home Guard was more serious than that even at the beginning. Shotguns and .22s and other sporting guns may have been present in numbers in the earliest days, but the HG got better weapons surprisingly quickly.

As to politicians refusing good weapons....when Boothby began his mission the need for small arms was not yet so glaringly desperate as it became after the Fall of France. Large weapons programs for standard types in standard calibers were planned or already in hand, and it was generally assumed that the war would proceed slowly enough for these programs to be completed in good time. Except in cases of dire necessity, you don't want to clutter up your inventory and your supply chain with all sorts of odd types demanding their own special ammunition, spare parts, manuals, etc. The 1940 crisis and the loss of the BEF's arms created the dire necessity. Otherwise I'm sure the British would never have bothered with most of the non-standard types mentioned in this thread.

On the Ukraine--I won't get into that here. There is a thread on the Urkaine elsewhere on this forum.

 

Boothby's book is a good place to start. There are over 300 copies available on ABEBooks.

Boothby was certainly a colorful character. With any of these autobiographers it pays to take what is written with a pinch of salt, as often a slant of the true facts is nearly always present. The arms deal is covered in a file or two in the National archives in London as part of the KV group which is MI5. The reason for this is that Boothby had been associating with some people that MI5 were monitoring. These files can be downloaded for free, or at least they could be 12 months ago.

The Boothby archive does exist in an archive somewhere which I will check out on my next visit to the UK. I have got the details somewhere but a quick internet search should find them.

Bear in mind that when one of these arms deals for a large quantity of rifles worth millions of pounds does not come off; there is often a good reason for this.

Regards

Alan