Uncle Bill's Airborne Armory - including an FN 1910

[Jäger]

My Uncle Bill is the man from that side of the family who gifted me the Webley revolver seen elsewhere on this forum.  The Webley actually came with the rest of Uncle Bill's Flying Arsenal.  Bill's real arsenal was 4 x 20mm Hispano Mk II cannon, along with 6 x .303 British machine guns.  But the events of war ended up pushing Bill to fly with an arsenal inside the cockpit as well.



Bill's flying hours actually began in a Hawker Hurricane, until his wing transitioned to Spitfires in August of 1940 during the Battle of Britain (note to airplane junkies; Bill said the Hurricane wasn't as sweet to fly, but it was a better platform for a knock down/drag out when intercepting a bomber raid).  Things took a bad turn for Bill when he had a wobbly pop or two more than he should at the pub one night; riding home to the aerodrome on a "borrowed" bicycle in the early hours, he managed to go off the road into a ditch, breaking his leg pretty good.  There was some doubt that Bill would fly again, and he was shipped home to mend.  Being pronounced airworthy again, it was back on a ship to return to Europe and the war.  That became a story in itself when the ship he was on, the M.V.America was torpedoed. Of 154 men aboard, Bill was one of 53 who made it to life rafts. Of those 53 only 16 survived, most succumbing to hypothermia. 

The war had moved on while Bill healed back home; and by the time he was back in Europe, he was a handy spare pilot and got shoehorned into a Bristol Beaufighter, despite his protests that he was a single engine pilot.  Things took a turn for the worse when that subsequently meant trading the climate of England and neighboring Europe for the wonders of New Guinea and surrounding environs.  And that's where the Airborne Armory originated.

Bill told me he came to love the Beaufighter - it shredded anything you pointed it at, from aircraft to naval vessels, and if things got tricky, you just firewalled the throttles and ran away: nothing the Japanese had could catch you.  Anyways, shortly after getting there, Bill was shot down, as was one of his close friends in another Beaufighter during the same raid.  Bill was rescued by the natives; his friend wasn't so lucky and the Japanese got their hands on him.  Bill got the details and what happened to his friend when his friend's body was brought in by the natives.  When Bill told me this story, he said that's when he decided that a) if he went down again, the Japs would never take him alive, and b) if he went down again, he was going to have a hell of a lot more than a .38 S&W revolver in his hands when he went down fighting.  Bill would not fit in well if he were still alive today; he hated anyone Japanese until the day he died a little over a decade ago, and would tell anyone in earshot his opinion on them should the word "Japan" or "Japanese" ever be mentioned.

And so, Bill scrounged, stole, traded, or somehow or other built his Airborne Armory... he must have clanged when he walked out to his Beaufighter.  Anyways, the Webley and the kukri aside, there was the FN 1910 (and I never thought to ask him the story behind how he acquired each of these weapons.  Bill's war ended with three confirmed kills along with his tally of shipping and assorted other ground targets, shot down twice - and the bout of dysentry that finally ended his war and put him on a hospital ship where he met the woman that would become his wife and my aunt.

Anyways, the FN...  Beside one of my HPs for comparison purposes:




 


I wonder where he scrounged the ammunition while stuck out in the jungle...  The Webley I can kind of see, but the FN?

I take the Webley and the FN out a few times every year to shoot a bit to remember my Uncle Bill.  And each time I remember how he came over to the house the day before I left for my first deployment overseas, handed me a heavy, slightly oily rag, and said "Here, these might come in handy if things go bad for you over there".  And what you see above is what was wrapped inside that rag.

I have actually thought a time or two this just might be okay for a super small compact pistol, if I could just find the parts to convert it to the .380 ACP.  My understanding is that you just need the barrel, mainspring, and magazine to make this change.  I should put that on my list of things to do in the near future.  Seeing as how my wife has commandeered the Shield, that might be just the ticket when not carrying the HP.

[Carolinaman]

Hello Jager,

What a fascinating story and its a dang good one! If you guys keep posting pictures of such nice Brownings than you are going to make me jump on one.... I do have a Kukri knife laying around here somewhere.... I love the pictures of the FN 1910 and officially declare you an "enabler"....

Best,

Chris

[Jäger]

Being as so many of us are kind of history buffs, I scanned and saved a letter Bill sent me back in the 1980's when I wrote asking him about operating out of India, Burma, and New Guinea (before the internet, when you had down time you wrote lots of letters when deployed overseas because there was nothing else to do).  It's a bit of a long read, and nothing about the FN in it, but I think some of you might find this glimpse of history interesting.



Hello, Lawn Dart.  I see you are still keeping your head down and they haven't gotten you yet.  I still don't know why you persist in jumping out of perfectly good aircraft.  I did it twice.  Not by choice and that was enough for me.

Your questions have caused me the loss of a lot of sleep. The reason for the long wait for your answer is this was 40 years ago and my memory is pretty poor about Dabaing. I know there were four strips on Akyab Island, Akyab Main, Joari, Dabaing and Manuy Bin. I can only remember the location of Akyab Main. Joari was a thousand yard fighter strip. Very short when we were used to two thousand yard strips. I remember a DAK from FLYING HORSE SQUADRON cartwheeling into Akyab harbor in the monsoons. No Survivors.

Relative to your question about the L-5s. We were on jungle rescue and I, as acting C.O., went to Maundaw to pick up the crew of a Dak that had crashed on an emergency landing. They tried to land on the Casevac strip 250 yards long, a little short. They were all in good condition. I had checked out on the L-5 the day before and took off to pick them up. I took the two smallest the first trip, one in the others lap. This was the monsoon and rain or birdshit in the pilot head made my AS indicator U/S very sporting. I went for the other two and made it in the two trips. You should have seen each pair as I told them on take off that I had just learned to fly it yesterday. Finger nails chewed off to the first joint.

The earliest Beauforts we flew over there were MK VI’s, de-rated for low level operations, no two stage blowers. The newest were MK X’s and XI’s fitted with a two stage blower to be kicked in at 10,000 feet. When cut in they had to rev to 25,000 rpm and felt like the a/c was going to come apart. The VI’s had two Bristol sleeve valve Hercules engines at 1650 H.P. With a 12 foot diameter, three blade constant speed prop. The X’s and XI’s had 1750 H.P. The sleeve valves made the a/c very quiet. You could see one coming a mile away and not hear it till it was on you. The Japs were supposed to have called it Whispering Death. At economical cruising, about 150-160 knots they used about 45-50 gallons per engine per hour, with a fuel capacity of about 680 gallons. To and from the target area we cruised about 200 knots. When in the target area we went to about 220 knots, and raised the speed a bit in an attack. Stalling speed wheels and flaps down, 87 knots. Take off 110 to 120 knots, safety speed on take off 140 knots.

Armament: The Beaufort had four 20 mm Hispano Cannon about 9 feet long located under the pilot, firing through the nose. The ammo tanks were in front of the navigator, behind the armour plating for the pilot. The armour plating had two doors but we always left them open so the navigator could see the pilot. There were 250 rounds per cannon. There were an additional four .303 Brownings in the starboard wing and two in the port. On some aircraft these were removed to give the additional fuel. The navigator had one .303 firing aft with an inverted T to prevent shooting off the whole tail assembly. For specific targets we could carry eight Rocket Projectiles with a choice of armour piercing, semi armour piercing, or 60 pound high explosive incendiaries. Some were necked down six inch cruiser shells. We could fire a greater broadside than a six inch cruiser. The 20mm cannon had a choice of ball, armour piercing, tracer, high explosive incendiary. Usually loaded in the belts were four mixed ball and high explosive incendiary and the fifth tracer.

My first navigator, F/O Mick O’Brien, a Liverpool Irishman and an ex London Metropolitan policeman, was one of the original observers. He was a navigator, bomb aimer, air gunner and wireless operator, able to send and receive 30 plus words a minute. We crewed up on August 12, 1943 and flew together until he was killed March 26, 1945 just after our last offensive operation. He did a lot to keep me alive. We flew together, lived together, got drunk together; a real man. The war really came home to me when I found out about his death. After 28 successful operations he was killed on the booze run to St. Thomas Mount strip at Madras. The pilot, F/O Tommy Thompson, as Aussie, piled it in in the middle of the strip in the monsoon. I took over his navigator after this. F/O Geordie Lockwell was a Tynesider from Newcastle.

In regards to navigation. We used dead reckoning and map reading. On trips into Central Burma we used to fly to a pagoda in the Chin hills and set course for our target area. In the Arakan we took off and flew at deck level to our target area and any targets of opportunity were attacked, if seen on our way. On trips such as Taungap pass we flew at treetop height. This gave the Japs no warning. Our navigation was rather loose. On the earlier days the squadron flew in two’s and threes but it was decided before I got there that a single a/c was more effective and gave less warning. All operations were deck level. On road, rail and river we flew to the side, a lot of the roads and railways were lined with trees, so you had a better view from the side. On the rivers the Japs had a nasty habit of stringing one quarter inch or bigger cables across the rivers with some strings hanging down. Some Hurricanes were lost by hitting them. One of our Beauforts hit one but brought it back. The navigator got a nasty cut from the end of the cable.

The B-form came in from the wing, telling the C.O. where they wanted the operations to be flown. After reading General Slims book account, I used my log book and found out why we flew some operations. The form told at what intervals they wanted a/c over a certain area, also time. Night operations were always flown so you would be over the target area in good moonlight. Some times we took off in the dark to be there at moonrise or shortly after. Sometimes take off in the moonlight or darkness to be there about dawn. We used no illumination when approaching the target your night visual acuity developed as your eyes were exposed to the darkness. Sometimes in daylight or dark we took off by instruments due to low cloud cover, hoping the strip was cleared on return. The same in the monsoon. I took off one day with ceiling zero and on return they fired a Very Flare up through the cloud to let me know where the strip was located. The visibility in the moon period was generally very good. The trucks usually had some lights on. The railroad ended at Donazar, so there were no trains in the Arakan.

Our main opposition was sneaky .50 calibre and 20 mm cannon strategically placed at bridges, villages, air strips etc. I still have my operations map as far south as latitude 20 degrees north. I must have misplaced the one south of that. On this map there are 35 trip wires marked on my map. On one trip I collected five 20 mm slugs in my main plane. All in gas tanks. Another trip I collected one 40 mm Bofors slug in an outer tank but most of the gas was used up. On two other occasions I collected one or two in wings and fuselage. Another trip at deck level near a bridge I was fired at several times by a 4.7 inch ack ack gun. I heard the initial bang from the ground and successive bangs as the shells burst ahead of me. One night I was night flying officer and F/O Thompson and F/O Geordie Lockwell called in that they had lost all rudder control and were coming in. I called out the meat wagon and fire truck and had my jeep handy. They landed wheels up and survived. They had attacked a bullock train at night and I guess a Jap soldier took a shot at them and clipped the rudder controls.

On October 20, 1943 Sgt. Ron Thorrogood, and navigator F/O Edgar Welsh destroyed the 100th locomotive. 27 Squadron had an elephant on its crest, hence The Flying Elephants.

From its performance on locomotives The Train Busters. Our duties were strafing lines of communications, ie: road, rail, rivers and coastal shipping. Some of the boys had chances to attack aircraft on the ground. On the roads we were supposed to attack trucks, cars, bullock trains, elephant trains and any troop movements. Once I had a go at a bunch of troops but my gun site was unoperational. I sure scared hell out of them, but I don’t think I hurt many. On the rivers all steamers had been destroyed before my time but there were lots of other river craft. The largest was LAUNG, carrying over 20 tons, a Sampan carrying up to 20 tons, KISTIES carrying smaller loads. Also smaller dugouts. A lot of these were used to carry ammunitions, same as bullock trains and elephant trains. Quite surprising when an inoffensive river boat blew up in your face. I got one locomotive in Central Burma.

Our first C.O. was W/C Nicholson VC. The VC won in the Battle of Britain. Nick was going down in flames and bailing out when a Hurricane went by with two ME 109's on its tail. Nick climbed back in and shot down the ME 109's. The next C.O., W/C McMichael had a long service good conduct medal. A good guy but the LSGC describes him. Not a good pilot, but busting his ass to get a gong. Next came W/C Bradley. DSO and BAR, DFC and BAR. He flew one of the first operations of the war in an Anson. He and his navigator were killed when they hit a Shiite hawk in the circuit. On jungle rescue we got Lt./Col. Strever DFC and bar a South African. He got his DFC in the Mediterranean. He was in a Beaufort with crew when he was shot down. They were picked up by the Germans and taken to Sicily. They were transferred to a Cant flying boat to be taken to the mainland. He and the W/op took over the aircraft by jumping the guard. Strever flew it to Malta and was shot down by the RAF.

At the time of these operations I think AKYAB and RAMREE were occupied by the Japs. The TAUNGUP pass operations were to prevent the Japs being supplied or evacuated. These operations were out of CHIRINGA, a paddy strip.

Oct. 20, 1944. I was on a supply drop in the KABAW VALLEY in a DC 3. Our C.O. thought it would be good experience to see how the poor people lived. So we went with the boys. We had to make our circuit over the Jap lines to get an approach to the DZ. Pretty hairy at 800 feet with the door open. That afternoon another bunch of DC 3's went out and six were shot down by Jap fighters.

# 7. Dec. 15, 1944. Patrol TAUNGUP PASS west of OKSHITPIN. Nothing seen. 3 Hours 25 Minutes.

# 9. Dec. 26, 1944. Patrol TAUNGUP PASS. Saw one truck but no chance for an attack. Heavy Jungle. Two hours daylight. One hour 25 minutes night. Three hours 25 minutes.

#11. Jan. 1, 1945. Patrol TAUNGUP PASS - OKSHITPIN. Night operation. No visibility. Night one hour 25 minutes.

#12. Jan. 4, 1945. Patrol MYEBON - TAUNGUP PASS - OKSHITPIN. Night operation. No visibility. One hour 10 minutes.

#13. Jan. 8, 1945. Patrol MYEBON - TAUNGUP Village. I made several attacks and damaged 20 plus Sampans. One attack was fairly prolonged and on the next I was shooting low. On return I told the armourers to check the cannon. They checked and told me I had sustained fire too long and had overheated the barrels. They had all bent from the heat. Two hours 50 minutes.

#14. Jan. 9, 1945. Patrol DALET CHAUNG - MYEBON - TAUNGUP. The Japs were thought to be evacuating RAMREE to the mainland. We were supposed to have fighter cover, hence my boo boo. As I have said we always operated at deck level. Here we were to search at 1000 feet. Two radial engine fighters climbed in front of me, and not even thinking of Japs, Oh they are T. Bolts, I told Mick to keep an eye on the two fighters. Where? Bong! Bong! Bong! There. He fired one shot and his gun jammed. He had neglected to pull 20 or 30 rounds to remove any bent kinks in his belt. The first time ever that he forgot to clear the kinks. We weren’t even to fire the guns unless necessary because you had to swing the compass after firing. I had pulled a stupid thing and got away with it. They expected a turn into them, but I turned away into a dive with all the knobs in the left hand corner, heading for the deck and out to sea. No contest. I just left them. One other of our aircraft was in the area and saw the negative G going into the dive which cuts the engines momentarily and gives off a puff of smoke. He thought my engines were hit and I was going in. They yelled over the R.T. “Jesus Christ, Rogers just bought it”, but when I got on the deck and things straightened out I came back with, “He did like hell but am heading home, I’ve been hit.” They put seven .50 calibre slugs in the aircraft. One hit a cylinder and knocked off a bunch of cooling fins. One partially cut my throttle controls, one my armour plate and one of Micks armour plate. I still have the Jap .50 they took from the aircraft. A Bear operational load aboard weighed in at 22,000 pounds, an Oscar, which attacked us was less than 5,000 pounds. We couldn’t mill with them but were faster.

I would have hated to fly Jap aircraft, they were made out of cardboard.  On one op I was going balls to the wall on the deck after diving through the clouds and running away to get out of a hit and run fight I had picked with some Japs.  An Oscar appeared in a long looping climb about a thousand yards in front of me.  I guess he was late for the party and wanted to get in on the fun of tearing me up.  He wasn't paying attention, and I pulled up into him and let loose with everything at about 300 yards.  The Oscar just disappeared.  Didn't blow up or burn, just a cloud of little shreds of debris.

#15. January 11, 1945. MYEBON - TAUNGUP. Daylight. Nothing seen. Three hours five minutes.

#27. Patrol waterways south of BASSEIN. The Japs were retreating and we were to harass them. I hit and damaged four Laungs, six sampans and three Kisties. One Laung left smoking.

During my tenure on 27 Squadron we lost eleven crews. One of my first operations was to search for one of our aircraft over AKYAB, shot down by Americans. I found the aircraft and had to say no survivors. It was badly broken up. We found out later F/O Trigwell, the pilot and F/O Chippendale survived, but Chips had a couple of .50 calibre slugs through him. The Japs were going to make them walk to Rangoon. Trig was carrying Chips, but was holding up the column, so the Japs put the boots to Chips and killed him. We got Trig back when Rangoon fell.

Another crew was shot down in the same area. The pilot, a New Zealander called Kiwi Osboldstone, survived and was picked up by the ARAKAN tribe called Mugh’s, Pro Jap. Kiwi had a handle bar moustache but the Mughs didn’t like it so they pulled it out by the roots. He didn’t like Burmese after that. We got him back. I think a couple of crews were killed in training flights.

Animals! As you know we were very careful of centipedes and scorpions in our shoes and clothes. In the monsoon all the livestock moved into our tents. In the time I was on the Squadron we had three monkeys, one wildcat and a couple of Mongoose. One of the monkeys was a Rhesus monkey called Ginger, female and affectionate to everybody but two guys. She would hide behind a tent when she saw either one of them coming and run out and bite them on the leg and chitter at them as either one of them ran down the road. I had a mongoose called George, very affectionate but very savage in regards to food. He’d follow me into the tent at night and clean up the tree frogs climbing the walls. One night one of the boys caught a Krait, a 12 inch member of the viper family, very poisonous and the guys were stupid. I brought George in and he must have smelled it or sensed it because he went crazy. The guy released the Krait from under the glass and from there it was no contest. George ate it head and all. Ginger had a bad habit of sitting on your foot nuzzling your leg and with a sudden jump she had you by the testicles with a derisive chitter. You learned. Just before I joined the Squadron we had two Himalayan bears. Rupert and Elsie. One of them liked to drink and got hangovers.

Halfway through my tour six DFC’s came up with the rations as it was called. They were awarded to six fellows who had particularly good tours. I would hate to be responsible for awarding them. None for any specific act. One had one because he had a finger shot off on an operation. Another had his skull creased by a slug and brought the aircraft home. Both strictly survival. On leaving the Squadron, tradition had it that the officers left a silver tankard with his name, rank and date of service for the mess. I would like to get mine back.

On V.E. day I was in hospital in Micktila with dysentery. On V.J. day I was in hospital in Farnsborough in England with a vitamin deficiency. I lost 40 pounds in a month. As the saying goes, I was eyeballs and asshole at 127 pounds.  I guess Marg liked whatever there was left of me at the time when we met in the hospital as we've been together ever since.

Now some disjointed thoughts. Our cannon were harmonized with 60% of the slugs in a 13 foot circle at 250 yards. When the guns were fired the compass went crazy and had to be recalibrated every time. I am not superstitious, but one trip I had a premonition that something was going to happen so I was very careful in inspecting my panic pack, hung on the top escape hatch release so I could hook an arm through it as I left. All that happened was that night I got a locomotive. Some aircraft coming back with a wounded pilot crashed. Shortly after starting operations I decided that Mick better learn about flying. After crossing the bomb line I made Mick come up and take over the aircraft while I stood behind him directing him. I’d get him to make a landing approach on a cloud and give him the drill for approach and landing. He got pretty good. I’m glad we never had to use it. When you finished an operation you wanted to get as far away from the aircraft as possible but I decided we were the ground crews only contact with the war. On landing there was an erk in the aircraft undoing your Sutton harness etc. What joy Sir. How was the aircraft? I stayed as long as they had questions and answered them. We had very little trouble with our aircraft. They were the boys that kept us alive. My aircraft was the only one in the Squadron with a name and insignia. Homer and Shamrock Leaf and Maple Leaf. Not our idea at all. I asked why the name etc. You always come back Sir. That was good enough. I saw ground crew cry when the aircraft didn’t come back.

I’m sorry I was so long answering. It took a lot of thought. The story is pretty disjointed but as I said it’s 40 years ago. There is a lot not applicable but it gives you some background. If you have any more questions don’t hesitate to ask. I have a couple of pictures for you.

J. William Rogers
a/c Aircraft.
F/O Flying Officer
W/C Wing Commander
W/op Wing operations




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[sistema1927]

What a legacy.

[Jäger]

Jun 22, 2017 20:53:59 GMT -5 sistema1927 said:

What a legacy.

Yeah, and my younger brothers and I are the last of the line - Les and I never had kids; my two brothers got so preoccupied with hunting and fishing they never married.  Not even a close relative yet, and Les's family are all progressives and socialists who think I'm a nice guy - but still a Neanderthal who led their baby sister astray.  They'd probably turn in for destruction anything remotely connected to weapons.  I spend a lot more time these days wondering how to dispose of stuff like these guns, the stuff that came to me from my great-great grandfather who was the RSM of the Gordon Highlanders, etc.  All kinds of stuff that isn't just family stuff, but is tied to military history as well.

Not so easy just donating stuff to military museums when so many these days either weld the hell out of weapons, or store them away to never be seen or touched again.  I need to start paying more attention to the young guys at the range and at the VFW, I guess... has to be some like minded, historically curious young soldiers running around out there.

[Deleted]

Jager,

Best stuff I've read in ages. AAAA++++
Thank you so much for taking the time to share the memories.

[huntershooter]

Willing to bet Uncle Bill was not a vegetarian.

[chris623]

Jun 22, 2017 21:51:23 GMT -5 Jäger said:

Jun 22, 2017 20:53:59 GMT -5 sistema1927 said:

What a legacy.

Yeah, and my younger brothers and I are the last of the line - Les and I never had kids; my two brothers got so preoccupied with hunting and fishing they never married.  Not even a close relative yet, and Les's family are all progressives and socialists who think I'm a nice guy - but still a Neanderthal who led their baby sister astray.  They'd probably turn in for destruction anything remotely connected to weapons.  I spend a lot more time these days wondering how to dispose of stuff like these guns, the stuff that came to me from my great-great grandfather who was the RSM of the Gordon Highlanders, etc.  All kinds of stuff that isn't just family stuff, but is tied to military history as well.

Not so easy just donating stuff to military museums when so many these days either weld the hell out of weapons, or store them away to never be seen or touched again.  I need to start paying more attention to the young guys at the range and at the VFW, I guess... has to be some like minded, historically curious young soldiers running around out there.

What a fascinating Legacy.  You are fortunate to have such recorded history.............and recorded in such detail.

I know what it's like to have no-one to leave your "things" to.  I have a brother, seven years younger than I, but his is extremely well off and we aren't really close.  He has 10 times the "things" I have and neither wants or needs more.  So I basically have to "find" someone to leave my stuff to.

Maybe you could adopt me.  I'll take good care of your firearms.  I'm still young and have a lot of years ahead of me to oil and care for firearms.

[Jäger]

Jun 22, 2017 23:52:37 GMT -5 @burgs said:

Jager,

Best stuff I've read in ages. AAAA++++
Thank you so much for taking the time to share the memories.

I don't suppose that has anything to do with the fact your Dad was also a pilot who flew fighters, eh?  Do you have all his flight logs, maps and stuff?  Unfortunately, all I got from Bill was the stuff in the oily rag pictured above - his maps and everything else went to his sons and I suppose by now are distributed among his grandchildren, most who are now in their mid-30's.  So actually, I'm lucky that I got the handguns and the kukri, being from another branch of the family.  I'd love to see those maps, though.

One of the good things about this age of technology is that history can be recorded far more easily than some scribe patiently trying to capture it all accurately in interviews.  There's a few virtual history projects going on right now where they interview veterans, photograph historical items, etc - but the technology to do that came along when almost all the WWI veterans were gone and many of the WWII veterans.  When I first attended Remembrance Day ceremonies as a young cub scout, there were still Boer War veterans marching in the parade.  They were in their late 70's, the WWI veterans were spritely seniors about my age now, the WWII veterans were men in the prime of their lives, Korean War veterans were in their early/mid thirties, etc.

At the Legion on weekends, the dinners afterwards, can you imagine the stories that were exchanged, friends remembered, etc as the soldiers of four wars sat in the Legions, talking with each other!  To have captured all of that - the mundane, the funny, the scary, the sad, etc.  Such a loss to not have captured that.  The pictures all those men (and women) donated to that Legion literally covered the walls; if you did nothing but ask for a pint to keep in hand as you examined the pictures and war bring-backs on the walls, you would be staggering drunk by the time you were done.

But when you're a young pup, you never think of history and capturing the stories and experiences for later times.  I have boxes of stuff in the basement that I've sent home from deployments, brought home, said "sure, I'll take it" when somebody else asked me if I wanted something they had that they were giving away, etc.  All gathering dust, haven't even looked at it in years, most of it - except for anything having to do with guns, of course.  I'm a packrat...

Oh well... 300 years ago my Scottish and Irish ancestors were probably sitting around rough tables, drinking foul beer, saying "Y'know, pity we couldn't find a priest to come over and write down Uncle Hamish's stories about the battles he was in against the bloody English"...

[Jäger]

Jun 23, 2017 6:48:41 GMT -5 chris623 said:

I know what it's like to have no-one to leave your "things" to.  I have a brother, seven years younger than I, but his is extremely well off and we aren't really close.  He has 10 times the "things" I have and neither wants or needs more.  So I basically have to "find" someone to leave my stuff to.

Maybe you could adopt me.  I'll take good care of your firearms.  I'm still young and have a lot of years ahead of me to oil and care for firearms.

There will be a test...

1.  Tell me what your tastes run towards concerning hunting rifles and shotguns, handguns, etc.

2.  Tell me about your sons - you're going to check out one day as well, partner, and I suspect you might not be in your early 20's...

[Jäger]

Jun 23, 2017 5:13:55 GMT -5 huntershooter said:

Willing to bet Uncle Bill was not a vegetarian.

No, he was quite the outdoorsman, actually - no vegetarians around here.  Mountain climbing, days long river canoe trips, etc. - and Marg was just as outdoorsy and adventurous as he was.   I have absolutely no idea what he had in the way of rifles and shotguns, or even if he had them at the end of his life or if he gave them away/sold them when he quit hunting.  I assume that he at least had a 30-30 of some flavour and a .40-82, because a handful of shells in both of those calibers was included in the oily rag with the WWII Airborne Armory items.

Of course, no surprise, I never asked any questions about those, either.  Damn...

[Jäger]

While I'm going down the rathole about Bill's FN 1910 and the part it played in the Pacific War against Japan, Burgs' questions about Bill had me doing the Google thing about the Beaufighter.

I'm burning daylight here, but one of the first hits was a YouTube documentary on Beaufighters in the same area as Bill fought in, except Aussie squadrons. It's over an hour long and I have to get on the road, but some quick looks into the video shows lots of gun camera film, film of the aircraft in flight, etc.

For warbird junkies, here's the link.  The mostly Beaufighter specific starts about the 30 minute mark - apparently Australia was building Beaufighters at a rate of one a day.  A lot of the earlier stuff has Beau gun camera footage, but appears to be mostly about Australia scrambling to get an air force of some kind in the air with the Japanese just a couple of hundred miles away.  Seems to be lots of veteran stories about wartime hijinks and whatnot.

[Deleted]

Jager,

Yes, my Dad flew Mustangs in Europe during WWII and stayed in the USAF for 31 years. Like a lot of guys from his generation, he didn't talk about the wars much (WWII, Korea & Vietnam) except for the humorous stuff.
For example, while his squadron was in France and Belgium, they had a hard time getting beer. They had wine coming out their ears, but they wanted beer.
So, the senior sergeant's network set up a system that fixed the situation beautifully.
The squadron would send a Mustang to England with a new unused drop tank. There it would be met by a tank truck from a brewery, where money was exchanged and about 100 gallons of beer would be pumped into the drop tank. The pilot would then fly back to wine country at high altitude, thus putting a good chill on the beer.

Meanwhile, the rest of the guys would be buying meat off the locals or fishing the local lakes with hand grenades. Perfectly timed for the return of the beer, a huge BBQ ensued.

The only "problem", Dad said, was that the squadron commander was kinda a harda$$ about the BBQ festivities. The CO reminded everybody that beer was no bleepin' good if it was warm of flat, so he insisted that none of it was wasted. In those days courtesy dictated that nobody could leave a squadron party until the CO departed first, and this CO wasn't leaving until all the beer was gone!

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[HRFunk]

Great stories guys. Some of the best! Thanks for sharing.

Howard

[Jäger]

Burgs!  Great story!

My kind of CO... and of course, the crusty sergeant mafia crosses all services, and can solve anything. The impossible merely takes longer...



Now you get lectures about excessive alcohol consumption, etc. Every CO has The Commander's Alcohol Policy prominently displayed around the base, and particularly in the Messes.  No more flaming roosters, zulu warriors, boat races, etc any longer in the Sgts & WOs Mess. No more fun.  At least for most of my service, we were treated as adults and still allowed to have awesome prop blasts. Doing a 2x10 the next morning was sheer misery...

Is that a picture of one of the aircraft your Dad flew? Picture doesn't seem to get very big sized.

Thirty years and three wars... had to be some fascinating flying stories that came out of that.