No1 mk3* (Antipodean issue Enfields)

[huntervixen]

I have noticed that most WW1 Australian and New Zealand issue SMLE's (of UK manufacture) tend to be Enfield and 1917 dated.

I had counted 5 (including my pride and joy NZ issue example) and was speaking to chap yesterday whose Aussie issue rifle is also Enfield and 1917 dated.

Of these, nearly all are Lithgow arsenal WW2 rebuilds, re-barreled and re-stocked with light coachwood stocks and the typical Australian foresight protector mod.

I would guess a large Enfield production lot was turned over to our Antipodean cousins in 1917??

So has anyone else got or seen one that bucks the trend, is six in a row just a coincidence very interested to know.

[Rearlugs]

Australia received a lot of British No1s during WW1, but its probably impossible to now find out whether they received factory-fresh batches, or simply quantities from stores. I've personally owned Aussie/Brit No1s of every wartime date.

Australia also received a second very large tranche in c.1943, when the armies in Europe and Africa/Italy re-equipped with the No4.

There might of course be a simple statistical anomaly in favour of 1917 rifles: that was a year of peak No1 production. Also, when rifles were distributed to commonwealth countries, its logical to assume that there would be a higher proportion of 1917 and 1918 rifles, as these would have survived longer and in better condition than the rifles of 1910-1916.

[huntervixen]

Hi Rearlugs,

Very good points, tell me where the rifles you owned mostly Lithgow refurbished or still in original condition?

The thing I really like about my 1917 NZ issue is it remains like a "time warp" rifle, original numbered woodwork and 1916 dated barrel, I wonder if Lithgow refurbished NZ rifles or did they take on this themselves?

Certainly not knocking the Lithgow rebuilds though, they stand as a testimony to a truly classic and enduring battle rifle used in both world wars, Korea and Vietnam (sniper only) by our steadfast allies, Leighc has a very fine example of a Lithgow rebuild, I will definitely add one to my collection at some point.

"Australia also received a second very large tranche in c.1943, when the armies in Europe and Africa/Italy re-equipped with the No4." I didn't know that, I wonder if they were predominantly straight from store or mainly Sparkbrook rebuilds?

Cheers, john.

[Rearlugs]

Most of the rifles I have owned were Lithgow refurbs carried out in 1945-55, i.e. usually with replacement woodwork, the green parkerisation, and the drilled nosecap. A few have been in their original British walnut, just with Aussie stamps on the butt. Six have been No1 mkIIIs with the volley sight plate still in situ.

The WW2 rifles would have come straight from stores, and were probably in mint condition (not used in combat), or used un-refurbished condition (from the campaigns of 1939-41). Presumably, it was most of the latter that the Aussies refurbed in 1945.

Despite the Dunkirk myths, Britain was actually awash with rifles in 1940. About 2.7 million No1s survived WW1, out of the c.4 million produced. In the 1920s, a big refurbishment and inspection programme was carried out, leaving about 2.1 million new or mint condition rifles in store, with the remainder broken up for spare parts. An additional 250,000 P14s were also in store, although thousands of these were sent off to other countries as military aid (eg the Baltic states). Apart from the rifles used in France, North Africa, and the Far East, the majority of British No1 stocks would still have been in mint condition when they were handed over to India and Australia.

Sparkbrooke disappeared even before WW1. All WW2 British production and repair of No1s came from BSA - of No1 MkIIIs until 1940, and then "Dispersal" No1 MkIII*s thereafter. BSA also carried out a very large FTR programme in 1953. Its thought that this was a Foreign & Colonial Office contract in order to send new condition rifles out to various colonies.

[huntervixen]

Hi Rearlugs,

Sorry, brain fart, I meant Small Heath not Sparkbrook, I wonder why the 1940 "critical rifle shortage" myth came about, probably quoted in one book at the time and taken as gospel by everyone else since, I certainly thought that was the case......but I did wonder what happened to the millions of WW1 SMLE's!

I suppose you could possibly attribute it to government deliberate miss-information at the time, to place more pressure on the Americans for "assistance", fascinating stuff.

Along similar lines, it's always quoted that the BEF left virtually all it's Brens and Tanks etc behind in France (plus thousands of troops) following the retreat from Dunkirk and Britain would be "defenceless" in the event of an invasion. I don't buy it, we had a powerful industrial base then, companies like Enfield and Vickers were working round the clock replacing lost kit and conscription was in full swing, so the bulk of these losses would have been replaced fairly quickly.

These things are taken as fact today, but probably just another way of trying to drag Uncle Sam into the war by his beard!!

Sorry to go off topic.

Cheers, John

[meles meles]

There were a lot of rifles and ammunition in storage at the time, and in the darkest days of 1940 following the withdrawal from Dunkirk it was suggested that a rifle and ammunition should be issued to every able bodied male in the country. The then Home Secretary (I believe) cautioned against this, fearing that an undisciplined armed citizenry might rise up against a descredited government. Churchill himself was also wary of the idea, fearing that Quislings might make use of an armed citizenry to assist them in making peace with Germany. It was felt better to retain arms only in the hands of the army, whose loyalty was considered more assured.

[huntervixen]

I wonder how many Home Guard weapons ended up "getting lost" during the War, quite a few I'll wager, I remember one of the firearms amnesty's back in the 80's, lots of P14's handed in and the odd 1928A1, curious, now where did they come from!

[Rearlugs]

As mentioned above, the "rifle shortage" legend came from two sources:

(1) Churchill's plan to try and arm every household in the country. This led to the famous call for US civilian weapons to be donated - which has strongly reinforced the "defenceless UK" myth on that side of the pond. Almost immediately, it was realised that there was essentially no chance of an invasion, and arming the civilian population would not be a good idea - so it was dropped. When the thousands of US donated weapons turned up months later, they vanished - probably discretely into the smelters.

(2) A figure of 90,000 rifles lost, as used in Churchill's statement to the Commons at the end of Op Dynamo. However, it is clear that this figure was just someone's wild guess - at the time of the Commons statement, there was no way that a full audit had been carried out of all the troops and returned stores scattered across UK. Research now shows that (a) the vast majority of evacuated troops were infantry, who came off the Mole fully equipped with their rifles (b) the ordnance stockpiles in France had mostly been evacuated prior to the troop withdrawal, including all of the small arms reserves. Probably no more than 40,000 rifles were lost, and maybe even just a fraction of that amount.

UK war production was so powerful that all of the France losses (tanks, artillery, vehicles, machine guns, radios, etc) were replaced in just two and a half months.

In June 1940, the Germans had no sea-lift, no naval supremacy and no staffed invasion plan. UK already had three fully-armed divisions ready to counter the invasion, and up to a million more men in partly-armed or rearming divisions.

By September 1940, when the Germans had organised a pathetically inadequate invasion fleet, UK had about seven fully armed divisions waiting.

In both June and September 1940, the RN had around 80 fast units on invasion defence. I don't think anyone now thinks the Germans had any invasion chance beyond a doomed airborne bridgehead on the Dover heights (now also shown to have been covered by planned defences).


Interesting photos:







AFAIK, not so far identified - but appear to be returned British troops at Ramsgate or another small south coast port.

Some interesting points:

1. The troops appear to be happy and relaxed, and all bunched together. This presumably means they are on British soil;

2. They are all armed with their rifles;

3. Not only do they have their own rifles, but it seems that they have brought back hundreds of salvaged rifles;

4. The RASC oik dealing with the spare rifles is carrying out a quick unload drill - dumping out the magazines, and working the bolt.

These photos are some of the evidence that shows the BEF brought back very large amounts of equipment that legend had assumed as lost...

[Gaz]

I wonder how good the paper trail was with weapons of the time? Did salvaged rifles just get checked over by the nearest armourer and added to his unit's books, or backloaded to the nearest depot, or did someone attempt to match rifles back to their original units?

I suppose the butt discs on the SMLEs would have helped with the latter. Did Brens and the like have similar unit markings on them?

[Rearlugs]

I'm pretty sure all weapon accounting by serial numbers would have ceased shortly after the start of operations in 1939. After that point, weapons would simply have gone up and down the supply chains by quantity.

In WW1 and WW2, it was normal practice for weapons and equipment belonging to casualties to be sent to the rear as salvage. Otherwise the units in the field would have soon ended up with piles of spare weapons, as new battle casualty replacements (BCRs) turned up with the weapon they'd been issued with at the reinforcement depot. After a few months of active operations, probably only a small percentage of the unit's original weapons would still be in its possession.

In the case of Dunkirk, a returning unit would have mustered somewhere and then prepared reports and returns detailing the personnel and equipment on hand. The parent division would then have placed bids for reinforcements and resupply of equipment. Similarly, all surplus equipment (like the rifles in the photos) would have been dumped at collecting points, and backloaded to depots for sorting and re-issue. Rifles like the ones in the picture would probably have gone all the way back to a major base workshop or even a factory, in order to be properly gauged, restocked and repaired as necessary.