Stash Of WWII French Resistance Weapons Found

[woodbutcher]

A previous poster mentioned the OSS.A late comer for sure.Here`s a little trivia for you folks.Do any of you know the name Sterling Hayden?He served in the OSS,IIRC in the Nordic Countries area.Pretty interesting read.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I thought he served in the Baltic states, Croatia, Serbia etc.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

Yea, and also recall many police stations dumping weapons in the ocean or otherwise destroying them sometime back...maybe even now though I am not personally aware of any.

It happens every year in the City of Angels. Every year they dump all the weapons they have in a large stack bed truck and complete with motorcycle escort, head down the freeway to the smelter at the harbor. The mayor and sheriff along with the chief, don hard hats and pose for the slobbering press and their cameras. All the news networks carry the story with, of course the pictures.

[JBinMN]

Oh, don't get me wrong, that is exactly what is happening here as well, it's just that the conversation was about Europe. Luckily we do have a Constitution and a populace that has so far rejected many of the things that goes against it, so far, that would have us be as bad as they are out there. So far recruitment has been stable, but the quality of soldier we are getting now seems to be of the kinder gentler variety and it takes much more to produce the kind of soldier it takes to defend our country. But on the upside, many of our weapon systems mimic their PlayStations and whatnot, so the learning curve is shorter.

I am pretty sure we are on the same in thinking here..

[Artful]

Omega, I understand and appreciate what you are saying. It seems stupid and suicidal to you and me for Europeans to deprive Christians of any chance to oppose the invading hordes of Muslims that far out numbers the army of the Ottoman Empire that tried to invade about nine centuries ago. What I should have added in my post was the fact that it made no difference to the morons that destroy weapons what guns they were. They would have just as gleefully destroyed a stash of Lugers. They just don't care as long as they can smash weapons. We also have such a place and it is located in Anniston, Alabama. It is in the arsenal there and the machine is called Captain Crunch. Jimmy Carter had the machine working around the clock destroying all the guns stored in armories around the country including 22 target rifles. A picture of this was printed on the cover of the American Rifleman many years ago. An Illinois scrape dealer blew the whistle on the operation. I watched a tour of the plant about two years ago and the women in charge of the destruction machine explained that the receivers about to be destroyed were declared unserviceable. They looked to me to be new and packed carefully, as though they had come directly from the MFG. If they had been declared unserviceable why weren't they in a scrap bin. Remember who was in the White house at the time?

I asked someone in Army reserves, he said they were ordered to send in stuff by date of acquisition, stuff that was brand new but old stock was sent back for destruction - he had a half of a M16 receiver that was a paperweight on his desk. He said it had never had a magazine inserted.

[woodbutcher]

Hi Gopher Slayer.You might be right.It has been a while since I saw the program on the subject.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

[Ballistics in Scotland]

A previous poster mentioned the OSS.A late comer for sure.Here`s a little trivia for you folks.Do any of you know the name Sterling Hayden?He served in the OSS,IIRC in the Nordic Countries area.Pretty interesting read.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.al
Leo

If Croatia and Serbia want to move to the Baltic I won't stand in their way. But they were last heard of in the Balkans. Anthony Quayle, the Colonel Brighton in "Lawrence of Arabia", served as an SOE agent in Albania. Of course working with guerrillas was probably easier than blending into a civilian population with a language plenty of Germans understood. A lot of spy movies are based on the public forgetting that people speak different languages in other countries. I can read French about as well as English, and communicate effectively, but I couldn't begin to pass as French. Even the British military intelligence operatives who worked under cover in Northern Ireland, including women, reckoned on only being able to stand a minute or two's casual conversation.

The story of Jean Moulin is worth reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Moulin

So are the blue plaques you find on walls all over Paris, to resistance members and spur of the moment insurgents who died liberating the city, without an English-speaking uniform in sight. I was twenty when I saw one on a street corner near the foreign ministry where the tank "Quimper" was destroyed when General Leclerc's Free French got in, and I had a ticket to Quimper for my summer course in my pocket at the time. I believe it is the picture in the top centre:

http://liberationparis70.paris.fr/fr/oeil-d-expert/

A British war correspondent who had seen a very great deal, said that the bravest thing he ever saw was General de Gaulle walking up the half-dark aisle of Notre Dame de Paris with people firing submachine-guns, and not knowing whether it was feux de joie or something else. Being French they didn't damage the great rose-window, though.

I think it was WB Yeates that said "Unhappy the land that has need of heroes". But France did, and had them, as many as anywhere else could ever have.

I have a couple of very interesting little booklets. One is the British army's booklet for soldiers in France after the invasion, preparing them to meet a population impoverished, malnourished, culturally different, intensely nationalistic and often eager to be more generous than they could afford. The other is the American army's "112 Gripes about the French". Both are highly admirable books. But "112 Gripes" seems aimed primarily at smoothing over friction. The British version encourages men to actually enjoy the French, as if they were only twenty miles away and likely to be on friendlier terms than they used to be.

https://www.e-rcps.com/gripes/

[GOPHER SLAYER]

If Croatia and Serbia want to move to the Baltic I won't stand in their way. But they were last heard of in the Balkans. Anthony Quayle, the Colonel Brighton in "Lawrence of Arabia", served as an SOE agent in Albania. Of course working with guerrillas was probably easier than blending into a civilian population with a language plenty of Germans understood. A lot of spy movies are based on the public forgetting that people speak different languages in other countries. I can read French about as well as English, and communicate effectively, but I couldn't begin to pass as French. Even the British military intelligence operatives who worked under cover in Northern Ireland, including women, reckoned on only being able to stand a minute or two's casual conversation.

The story of Jean Moulin is worth reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Moulin

So are the blue plaques you find on walls all over Paris, to resistance members and spur of the moment insurgents who died liberating the city, without an English-speaking uniform in sight. I was twenty when I saw one on a street corner near the foreign ministry where the tank "Quimper" was destroyed when General Leclerc's Free French got in, and I had a ticket to Quimper for my summer course in my pocket at the time. I believe it is the picture in the top centre:

http://liberationparis70.paris.fr/fr/oeil-d-expert/

A British war correspondent who had seen a very great deal, said that the bravest thing he ever saw was General de Gaulle walking up the half-dark aisle of Notre Dame de Paris with people firing submachine-guns, and not knowing whether it was feux de joie or something else. Being French they didn't damage the great rose-window, though.

I think it was WB Yeates that said "Unhappy the land that has need of heroes". But France did, and had them, as many as anywhere else could ever have.

I have a couple of very interesting little booklets. One is the British army's booklet for soldiers in France after the invasion, preparing them to meet a population impoverished, malnourished, culturally different, intensely nationalistic and often eager to be more generous than they could afford. The other is the American army's "112 Gripes about the French". Both are highly admirable books. But "112 Gripes" seems aimed primarily at smoothing over friction. The British version encourages men to actually enjoy the French, as if they were only twenty miles away and likely to be on friendlier terms than they used to be.

https://www.e-rcps.com/gripes/

I had read before that Sterling Hayden had spent his time in in the OSS smuggling arms to from Italy to partitions in what later became Yugoslavia, which happens to be in the Balkans and no where near the Baltic. He was well suited for the job since he held a Masters ticket on sailing ships before the war. I just went on Google and read it again.

[Smoke4320]

you heard I found what .. well the neighbors said last week I had a Lion before that it was a tank ...go figure

[lightman]

Thats an interesting find, and an interesting period of history. Thanks for posting the pictures.

[Artful]

25 sterling pounds for a STEN?
This link https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war...ring-wwii.html says a Mk II was only $11.
I think the liberator pistol was a better bargain.
The complete pistol kit included a waxed cardboard box, 10 cartridges (headstamped FA-42 for Frankford Arsenal, 1942), an instruction diagram (no words) and a wooden shell-extractor dowel. It was completed at a cost of $2.10 each, while the Liberator itself was produced for only $1.73 per unit.

I don't remember where I read it but Ike didn't want the pistols dropped as it made the population harder to control after the Allies pushed the Germans out of an area. A lot easier to catch a man with a STEN then a pocket pistol.

I understand that a larger number were dropped in the Pacific Theater of operations.

[texasnative46]

Artful,

A great many Liberator pistols were airdropped into the Philippines, according to a display at the Ft Bragg Museum, with the hope that the local civilians would "cause trouble for" the Japanese forces.
(I was told by a docent there that many a Filipino civilian got himself/herself a Japanese rifle/pistol/grenade/money by using a Liberator, cane-knife, spear, knife or club. - Even a common rock/piece of lumber was sometimes used to take out a Japanese soldier/policeman.)

ADDENDA: One Filipino guerrilla, who is only known as "Little Pedro", reportedly KILLED at least 2 dozen Japanese officers, Japanese Secret Police agents & at least a few Filipino collaborators with various weapons, including grenades & poisons.
(After VJ Day, he was never identified & may not have survived the war. = It is also possible or perhaps even likely that "Little Pedro" may have been a woman from Manila.)

yours, tex

[texasnative46]

To All,

On a daytrip to Cibolo park yesterday PM, one of our local ex-GIs said that when he was stationed in France in the mid-1960s that his unit found FOUR MG34 machineguns, with some crates of 8x57mm MG ammo, in a "little cave near the Luxemburg border".
("Les" said that the unit turned-in the MG to the local German Border Guard Service station & that he's wondered ever since, "who hid them away".)

yours, tex

[Ballistics in Scotland]

25 sterling pounds for a STEN?
This link https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war...ring-wwii.html says a Mk II was only $11.

I think the liberator pistol was a better bargain.
The complete pistol kit included a waxed cardboard box, 10 cartridges (headstamped FA-42 for Frankford Arsenal, 1942), an instruction diagram (no words) and a wooden shell-extractor dowel. It was completed at a cost of $2.10 each, while the Liberator itself was produced for only $1.73 per unit.

I don't remember where I read it but Ike didn't want the pistols dropped as it made the population harder to control after the Allies pushed the Germans out of an area. A lot easier to catch a man with a STEN then a pocket pistol.

I understand that a larger number were dropped in the Pacific Theater of operations.

Twenty-five shillings, of which there were twenty to the pound, and I think the price came down a little. It wasn't a time when companies wanted to gouge the government. It wasn't a bad answer to what was needed - a very fast supply of weapons suited to fairly briefly trained users, which could be made in workshops not previously adapted to firearm manufacture. Their limited range was pretty much what was common to all submachine-guns, but I have seen palm-sized groups made, probably not at the closest of ranges, by the extremely experienced ladies who tested them in the factory. It was easy to have an accident with the Sten, for if it was dropped on its butt, the inertia of its bolt was enough to strip a round from the magazine, into an empty chamber and fire it. Fingers could also be inserted into the ejection port, resulting in severely bitten fingers, a failure to fire, and an alerted enemy.

Its predecessor was the Royal Navy's Lanchester, a heavy, wooden-stocked copy of the German M28. This was very well-made and thoroughly efficient but large and heavy. Most of the Sten's deficiencies were cured in the Sterling, which officially was introduced around 1953. But a small number were sent for troop trials in wartime, and special forces tried them interesting places.

I still think very few Liberator pistols were issued. It was really only suitable for use in a moment of extreme disorder - for example when German troops were struggling to reach Normandy, and it was difficult to count casualties and organise the civilian reprisals. In those circumstances the Sten was of much more general use. While the Germans were in what they would call peaceful administration or part of Vichy France, a large supply of Liberator pistols among those who weren't trained agents would just have got a lot of people into trouble for minimal real benefit.

BSA designed the Welgun suppressed submachine-gun for guerrilla use, which was intended to be more reliable than the Sten, but this seems debatable. Very few saw use, and the Sten MkIV, better made than the earlier versions, took its place. What did see some use, and possibly still does, was the Welrod suppressed pistol. This rather than the Liberator was intended for "official" assassinations, or whatever you call them when the target is in uniform and wes here he wasn't invited. It was a manually operated magazine pistol, because with an automatic you get quite a bit of noise from the ejection port. At least the .32ACP version might have a claim to be the quietest of all firearms, but the rubberised fabric baffles needed replacement after very little use.

This one didn't have markings of any kind, possibly so that if any were found, the Germans would have the even more unsettling experience of wondering if there were illicit factories in France. They would execute hostages at the drop of a hat in reprisals, but probably not in reprisal for wasting resources searching automobile workshops where nothing was found.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welrod

The de Lisle carbine, on the other hand, required no baffle replacement for a long time, if ever. This one, so far as known (though would it be?) was used exclusively by British forces. It was found unsatisfactory in 9mm., presumably because of either higher terminal pressure or supersonic velocity. But it worked extremely well with .45ACP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Lisle_carbine

Incidentally modern copies of the de Lisle are or recently were ownable in the UK with the same kind of licence as any other rifle. Fitting a suppressor required special authorisation - previously cheap but difficult to argue for, until the grim spectre of being sued for hearing loss occurred to them, and now they will practically press them into our hands. But they had never thought about integral suppression.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

“The long, low sobbing of the violins of August

Wounds my heart with a monotonous languor.”

You bet they helped the invasion, and made the German occupation as uncomfortable for the occupying army as possible. The question is, would “we” be able to rise to the occasion like they did, under similar circumstances.

The Polish Resistance got even less credit than the French Resistance did. They had just finished collecting enough bits and pieces from crashed experiments so the Allies could reverse engineer a V-2 rocket when a whole one landed in Sweden, a gift on a silver platter. But the point back then was to get the mission accomplished, not how much self-esteem could be garnered.

Polish military cryptanalysts were also the first to make useful progress in breaking the Enigma codes, and it is difficult to overestimate the effect of their sharing their information with the British and the French before the war. Even in my quiet little corner of Scotland there is a row of war graves in the local cemeteries, and several are Polish, probably from flying accidents. My Polish uncle was never really my uncle, just someone billeted on the farm, although there may have been a tale my aunt never told.

He had two odd pieces of luck. One was rejecting advice to play it safe by staying in Poland and making his peace with the Russians, which would probably have meant his last sight in life being General Vasily Blokhin, with his leather apron and briefcase of .25ACP Walthers, who probably holds the record for 7000 personal executions in a month, and with luck will keep it. Peter's second was to have an instructor crash and kill himself while landing a Stirling, one of the first of the four-engine bombers, due to equipment failure in bad weather. Almost nobody survived a tour in Stirlings, which flew lower and slower than the later ones, but the crash got Peter a relatively safe target-towing job.

Today I got a copy of Jack London's "Michael, brother of Jerry", which I bought through my life support system, www.bookfinder.com . It is one of the great dog stories of the world and a searing indictment of cruelty in animal training. Forgive me if I cater for a small minority by saying that it is what is known as a book, like people used to have before game consoles and prejudice-massaging websites were invented. I like old hardbacks, don't care much about first editions, but this one did turn out to be the Macmillan American first edition, in the UK, for £3.48 when it is commonly offered at over a hundred.

But there was more, and some of it as complex as decoding mixed markings on an old gun. It bears a New York bookseller's sticker, a bookplate for the American Library in Paris, and (more recent, because overlapping it), the rubber stamp of the American University of Paris. It does seem like education is a dangerous thing, eroding the contempt some naturally (for them) feel towards the French. As Oscar Wilde said, "Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americ...g_World_War_II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americ...rsity_of_Paris

It also has a most unusual bookplate, with a portrait of a young man, but it can't be just identifying a book of his as they usually do, for it gives the date of his death. I think it identifies a gift of books to the American Library in his memory, possibly by the Phi Beta Memorial at Amherst, whose name appears in very small print. It is, in fact, a picture of his memorial there.

He was Guy Levy-Despas, a Frenchman and very possibly a Jew, who studied briefly at Amherst then enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in July 1941, using the name Guy Carlet to protect his family under occupation - just as my Uncle Peter did, resulting in a small sprinkling of Scottish Slavs today with the name of a village in eastern Poland. Levy-Despas had a pretty fair excuse for waiting that long, as he was eighteen.

His flying career was unexceptional, but he earned his keep. He flew one of the 31 Spitfires which reached Malta at the height of its 1942 siege, and shot down two bombers and an Italian fighter on the 9th June. On the 12th he was killed. Here he is, and if you have Google Toolbar it should offer to translate:

http://www.cieldegloire.com/004_levy_despas_g.php

Here is a narrative of events in Malta, which includes a picture of the memorial itself:

https://maltagc70.wordpress.com/tag/carlet/

"LOSS OF A VOLUNTEER

Malta’s Spitfire forces lost a remarkable volunteer today when Flying Officer Guy Carlet was killed during an operation to intercept enemy raiders over Malta. Guy was one of eight Spitfire pilots of 603 Squadron attacking a formation of German JU 88 bombers at around 1 o’clock this afternoon. Messerschmitt fighters launched a counter attack, dividing the Spitfire force and F/O Carlet was shot down.

The son of the wealthy owner of a French chain of department stores Guy – real name Guy Andre Levy-Despas – was sent to the United States by his parents when war broke out. He was studying at Amherst College, Massachusetts, USA, when France fell in 1940. Guy immediately volunteered for the Royal Canadian Air Force, saying “A life without the idea of sacrifice is not worth living.” He has been awarded the Legion d’Honneur and Croix de Guerre (France)."

Nobody in the North African campaign, or perhaps anywhere, fought a better action than the Free French at Bir Hakeim. This played its part in preventing a German invasion of Malta (the key to strangling Rommel's supply lines), and in the campaign which first brought about a German army broken and in full retreat. Around the same time Major Vladimir Peniakoff, a Belgian of Russian parentage who, despite an exceptional instinct for land piracy had initially been rejected for service due to his age, waistline, blood pressure and neutrality, was watching German airfields in Libya and reporting on air transport movements. Free French airmen died infiltrating and extracting other agents, using formerly Norwegian Heinkel seaplanes with false markings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bir_Hakeim

Of course France endured a disastrous and unnecessary failure in 1940. But if anybody was to say the same about America in SE Asia, you would say "It wasn't as simple as that" and "It wasn't the fault of most who were there." Those who lived through the following years remember them as an inclusive time, when valuable service was given by often terrified people of innumerable odd nations, women, fashion designers, borderline lunatics, career criminals, the aged, the sexually unusual, Spanish Civil War communists, former fascists etc.

[richhodg66]

The liberator pistol was intended as a stepping stone in the acquisition of other weapons.

Shoot your opponent in the head, take his weapon. Repeat as necessary.

This was the intent of them and certainly valid, but just think of the psychological effect it would have on the occupying Germans to worry that anybody you saw could have a pistol concealed on them just looking for a chance to kill you. The ones that fell into German hands may have had more of an effect on the effort than those that actually got into the hands of the good guys.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

That was precisely the intention - even if none were ever used. Imagine the effect on German logistics the day after the invasion, if they knew that hundreds of thousands of those things were still out there.

Another little-known item which was dropped to the resistance was reamers to do the very slight rechambering job that would be necessary to fire .45ACP cartridges in the 1873 French ordnance revolver. It is actually an excellent double-action revolver, far ahead of anything the heirs of Col. Colt did at the time, except for a heel-obullet cartridge which was usually very weakly loaded in its service version, but needn't have been. I have seen them with the smaller springs broken, but never a mainspring or any other part impaired in any way, and you can dismantle them by undoing one large screw, without any part falling out till you want it out.




It is basically a strong pistol, but does have a record of breaking its topstrap when GI .45ACP was used. I have seen a French engineer's calculations which suggest that the load ought to have left a satisfactory margin of safety, but the abrupt impact of the hardball jacket was the cause of the problem. Powerful handloads should have worked well, and perhaps did on the turn of the century civilian market. What could the Germans have done if they caught someone using non-Hague Convention lead bullets? Shoot him twice over?

[10-x]

No one has mentioned the Mills Bombs, deactivated in this condition are worth about $100. Fix them and put them on the market!
Yea, some guys need to research SOE and OSS history and the resistance in any occupied country in WWII. Good and bad in everything, we joke about the " Frogs" but they were some tough guys and gals. Read the right books.

[HangFireW8]

That had to come up sometime in this thread. The French resistance was an almost miraculous organisation, such as no other nation has ever produced.
....

The biggest liability in intelligence work is the tendency of so many people to shoot their mouths off as soon as they think of something that will make them sound big. I don't know what made me think of that right now.

"French Resistance", what headed up by the famous war heros/collaborators?
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011...t-collaborate/
-President Charles de Gaulle intervened and pardoned him, commenting that "you don't arrest Voltaire."

Or this one?
http://observer.com/1999/02/everybod...ics-and-nazis/

Declared a "hero" after the war, ha!

1/2 the "French Resistance" was run by England. The other half by Nazi Germany, heh. The other 400% is post-WWII "history" trying to hide the shame. The best the British-run French agents did is smuggle back a few fliers, before getting betrayed by countrymen.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ed-online.html

If you want to talk about a REAL occupation resistance, that tied up enemy forces, dealt death and absorbed huge civilian punishment for it, BEFORE the Allies landed, let's talk Philippines. NO COMPARISON.

[Thumbcocker]

The Dutch and Poles weren't slouches either. There is footage of a Philippine woman running under Japanese fire to fill canteens for U. S. soldiers or Marines during the battle of Manila. She is carrying multiple canteens in each hand. Worth finding.