doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com An LC Smith turns up in England

Hi guys,

Just browsing the catalogue for the auction on 26th November held by Gavin Gardiner here in England, and spotted the following:

Lot 200
L C SMITH
a 12 bore Field grade sidelock non-ejector gun, No. 41488

28 inch barrels with 2 3/4 inch chambers, about 1/4 and 1/2 choke borings, machined rib with crossbolt extension, the plain frame , locks and top lever retaining faint traces of original hardening colour; 14 1/4 inch figured stock with pistol grip and ribbed butt plate. 7lb. 4oz. , nitro proof.

The vendor states that the gun was acquired from American Air Force personnel at Shipdham airfield in Norfolk during the Second World War.


A quick bit of research shows that the USAAF 44th Bomb Group were based at Shipdham in Norfolk. Could this be one of the guns that were used to train air crew for aerial gunnery?

I have an interest as my father flew 83 missions with the 5th USAAF.

HB

There was one at Southams a few sales ago, erroneously catalogued as “English” presumably because it had English Proof marks.

Unfortunately the SN dates the gun to 1921.
Hunter Arms' military purchase shotguns were shipped in 1942 and 1943, in several orders, to the Rochester Ordnance District, Rochester, New York. The serial numbers are between 197321 and 202813.

It could have been one of the many guns donated by American sportsmen to Britain in 1940, when the Hone Guard was drilling with broomsticks and armed with pikes.

I will never forget how the Brits begged for guns to defend their homes after the government took their guns away. A lesson learned, not a political statement.

I remember reading about that in grade school, and Dad telling me about gun drives in St. Paul to try to scare up literally anything to send to England for the war effort. They wanted Dads single shot.410 and a similar .22, but, his father made it clear the family depended on the protein the two guns in my father’s hands provided. A regular part of dad’s weekly kid chores was squirrel or bunny hunting. A brace of squirrels, field dressed, but not skinned, was worth .25 at the farmers market. The price went down on skinned animals because people tried to pass cats off as squirrels. After my dad had a brace of squirrels for the family, and a brace for grandma to sell, he could sell whatever else he had on the ground. Ammunition was a problem, but, friends and neighbors, and, employers who were desperate for some teenage help after school often came through.
Dad caught sunnies and crappies off the dock when it was warmer, also.

I would have thought the English, in spite of lacking the belligerent streak of their American cousins, would have taken the fact that the Japanese understood why an invasion of the US continent was a suicide mission, and, perhaps more importantly, that being an island nation complicates defense of same, to heart, and perhaps done something about it.

I would be, clearly, wrong.

Best,
Ted

They did do something about it. They took our donated guns. What they did with them is a mystery.

Not really a mystery:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Committee_for_the_Defense_of_British_Homes#British_response

You do get an unfortunate dose of leftist hysteria when you read the article (anytime you see the letters “NRA” the opposite of what the article reads is the truth) but, to a large degree, the guns weren’t really useful to a war effort, the English civilians were mystified as to what they were supposed to do with them, many were civilian weapons, in American civilian caliber that were unsuited to use in England, and, I’d bet a bunch just sat and rusted until they were useless.

The 50 aging WWI era destroyers we sent were likely a God send, but, it was a foolish notion that we needed them back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroyers-for-bases_deal#Deal

Best,
Ted

I chose not to read all the drivel about the donation of guns to the UK during the "emergency". Suffice it to say that no future emergency will result in the shipment of personal guns to any country, especially the UK.