doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Rare First World War Survivor

The one in the center of the pic, behind the two guys in the foreground, bears a striking resemblance to Osama Bin Laden.

Really? What makes you say that?

I appreciate Argo sharing those details. I enjoy learning about Enfields and related rifles. I don’t want to see the thread hijacked. I hope there’s more good history and info to come.

Stanley, the Baluch are not Arab and do not speak a Semetic language (Arabic) though they write in arabic script. When the Arabs took over Persia in 630AD the script had to have 4 vowels added. . .

The Persian alphabet (Persian: الفبای فارسی, romanized: Alefbâ-ye Fârsi), also known as the Perso-Arabic script, is the right-to-left alphabet used for the Persian language. It is largely identical to the Arabic script with four additional letters: پ چ ژ گ (the sounds 'g', 'zh', 'ch', and 'p', respectively)

because Persian is basically related to German, English, Italian. The word "Qui" ("who") is the same in Spanish, French, Dari, Pashtun, Baluch. So the guys in those photos are Indo-Europeans...and language doesn't lie.

Parabola, I apologize - I've hijacked your line. I have studied Enfields for a long time and let's get back to that.

No foul, , Gene, it was an interesting diversion!

Linguistic similarities can be interesting- and consequential.

Years ago a young Afrikaner complained to me “I told your British Police to “F*** off! - but in my own language- and they arrested me!”

I asked him what he had said in Afrikaans - “Vuk ov” - even in Sussex they could understand that.

Anyway getting back to my thread I have been scrolling back and found this with a little bit about the same rifle at approx 50 minutes in:-



I had hoped there was more, and he never seems to have done the separate video on it that he promised.

I was glad to watch it again as immediately after that rifle there is Nick Holt, clearly in hypnotic mode, telling me why I had to buy May Greener’s .410.

My maternal grandfather volunteered for the British Army in September 1914, along with his younger brother. He was sent off to the 16th (Public Schools) Service Battalion (the Duke of Cambridge’s Own) Middlesex Battalion. He became a battalion sniper; he was a talented football player and very good shot.

When aged around nine years old I recall him telling me about the trenches and his sniping. He did not enjoy the taking of another's life in what was, for that war, a somewhat personal way. I also recall him telling me about spotters who would stand out in no mans land inside a made up tree. I researched this and apparently a suitable tree remnant would be reproduced by the Royal Engineers from a metal cage with a hessian or similar material around it, then painted and made to look as much like the real thing as possible. The real tree would then be extricated during the night and replaced by the replica, into which was inserted a spotter, who reported back to the sniper with potential targets.

Like many Englishmen he went over the top on 1 July 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, near Beaumont Hamel. He was injured and lay in a shell hole out in no mans land under the burning sun. He was a religious man anyway and there he prayed and promised God that if he survived he would devote the rest of his life to the church. When early evening came he crawled to another shell hole, where he had heard someone crying out. Together they crawled back to their battalion lines. He was sent back to England and eventually re-joined his regiment for the rest of the war. He subsequently went to theological college and was ordained as a Methodist minister, devoting the rest of his life to God, as he promised.

And what has this to do with Lee Enfield's? He would have used one to snipe with. And when I was thirteen, in the mid 1960s, I became a member of my schools shooting team, using the .303 Short Magazine Lee Enfield No 4 service rifle, fitted with target sights. I ended up in the shooting VIII, shot at Bisley and subsequently went on to shoot for my own Regimental shooting team when I served.

Must run in the genes!

Tim

Another survivor of that dreadful 1st July 1916, but in less traumatic circumstances was Cyril Mackworth-Praed, the father of my late friend Philip Mackworth-Praed of the British Sporting Rifle Club.

Due to go over the top that day, Cyril was laid up when an Army dentist managed to break off a hypodermic needle in the angle of his jaw, almost certainly saving his life.

When his Scots Guards Battalion re-mustered at the end of the day, Cyril was the sole Subaltern remaining on the strength.

Distinguishing himself as a Sniper, he went on to win Olympic Gold in the Running Deer Doubles in 1924, and was the main author of a standard work on the Birds of Africa.

Seeking to sign on for the Second World War he was initially rejected as being too old, but was hastily called back when an Officer who had overheard the conversation and knew his history asked if they knew who they had just turned down?

He later taught sniping at the Commando Training School in Scotland.

All this history stuff is amazing. Thanks to all of you.

Gene- You've led a very adventurous life.

I I have now heard from Dr. Nicholas Harlow, the Purdey Archivist and Historian and with his kind permission quote him as follows:-

“That is an interesting discussion indeed. I did cover the Purdey production of Sniper rifles for the Journal (Vol 5, No. 1) in 2019, and so that has everythng I was aware of at that date. When I was doing the research, I never came across an invoice to Sir Abe Bailey directly for sniper rifles, and in some ways I don't think I ever could. From what I understand from Martin Pegler, seemingly backed up by our accounts, once any existing scopes in hand were used up all UK production was routed through the military. This means that it would have been impossible for Purdey to obtain scopes for a 'private purchase' order. I think that it is more likely that Bailey requested rifles from those that we had setup, and paid the British government for them, which could explain why Methven got to keep his.

I hope that makes sense as a theory. What I can confirm is that, as far as I am aware, there was no record kept of the serial numbers of the rifles that we worked on, and so I cannot confirm the provenance of individual rifles”

The Journal to which he refers is that of the Historical Breechloading Smallarms Association (HBSA)

somewhere down the road i have happened upon an fine condition copy of martin pegler's book - Sniping in the Great War - published in 2008, by Pen & Sword Military. it is a fascinating (and very well researched; including nine pages of footnotes to his sources) book that provides many insights into both the technical and human sides of the craft, as well as numerous photographs.

i have no idea about the availability of this book, but i would recommend it to any one with interest in the history of the great war.