What did my Grandpa carry?

stonemap

stonemap

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Hey guys, I have a question I hope some of you will be able to help me out with.


I've had my PAL for over a year now and have pretty much have my bases covered. Now I figure it's time to get a few of the guns that both my Grandpas carried. Unfortunately I can't ask them now, but I know there are some WWII buffs here that will know.

Grandpa #1 was a Dentist in the RCAF. When I was little he showed me his uniform and an old pistol he said he kept. I don't remember anything about the pistol except that it was black with wood grips. Any info regarding RCAF issued side arms would be awesome. I know he never carried a rifle, but what would he have been trained on during basic?

Grandpa #2 was with the Royal New Zealand Artillery. He told me he would maintain and fix atrillery sights, and saw action against the Japanese. I have no Idea what he would have been issued, but am very interested.


Any help here would be awesome, as I have always wanted to get a WWII collection going. And I want to start with what they carried.

Thanks,
Stonemap




ps. Don't worry, a Garand will also be acquired, and the m1 carbine is very ###y too.
 
Your NZ grandpa probably had an enfield. I have one from NZ. If you can find out what serial # was issued to him, and this happens to be the one, I will trade you.
Merry Christmas.
 
Standard arm in NZ was SMLE MkIII/III* and No4 and US M1903 were also used.
RCAF used S&W M&P revolver in .380 cal plus small number of Enfield No2 .380 cal.
 
Canadian WWII vets I have talked to told me that rear echelon airmen guarding aircraft in England and other safe jobs carried obsolete revolvers from WWI or earlier. All the various allied commands knew that with a shortage of modern arms and old arms and ammo available in the system or donated by civilian Brits, that places that had a next to 0 percent chance of land attack, would get the obsolete arms. A Dentist would get an out of date revolver too.
 
Enfield No2

EnfieldMK1.jpg
 
What was issued & what they carried were 2 different things.

My grandfather was in the Canadian Black Watch, one of the few to survive the war.

He was a Bren gunner, but also carried a Walther No. 7 - .25 auto, Nazi marked FN Browning HP, Pieper-Bayard 9mm & a Sheffield butcher knife.
I still shoot these on a regular basis.

His handguns , he liberated from a few Germans, and in turn used them all to save his life.
His butcher knife saved his life one night in a trench. My Grandmother used that same knife daily untill I got it last year.

He also voluntired to fight the Japs, but by the time he got back here, the war was over.

He didn't talk much about the war , but when he did, it was scary!

Good luck on finding your needed items as I too am now collecting items relevent to my grandfather.

I am restoring his 1943 GPW, & I have his 1943 Enfield No.4 that he rebarreled after the war with a PH barrel & site.
After the war , he served in the BCD's untill he retired in 1968
 
oh and just so you know, that it is very unlikely the pistol he had shown you was his service pistol. The army doesn't let soldiers keep their issued firearms. What he probably showed you was a bring back German souvenir, which were extremely common as a soldier could easily hide one in his kit on the way back to Canada, but his issued side arm would have been turned in.
 
Gary:

I would modify your comments with a couple of observations -

- as a Dentist, Stonemap's grandfather was likely a commissioned officer, and thus may well have provided his own sidearm at personal expense .... in which case it would be his personal property.

- at the end of WWII, the government did not want to retain all of the small arms which had accumulated in inventory, and I understand it was quite easy to purchase them at modest cost .....
 
OK will accept Grant's suggestion regarding modification and state: If his sidearm was issued, it would have likely been turned in. Grant, were officers still providing their own sidearms in WWII? I thought that practice ended during WWI?
 
Gary D said:
.... Grant, were officers still providing their own sidearms in WWII? I thought that practice ended during WWI?
Click to expand...

Gary:

During WWII, commissioned officers were no longer required to provide their own firearms, but were still permitted to do so. (Thus my wording that this chap "may" have provided his own handgun ....)

For example, my lovely 1914-production Colt Government Model pistol (which you have seen) was the personal sidearm of a WWI Major (purchased by him from the 5,000 such pistols acquired by Canada from Colt) and, of course, remained his personal property after the war. It was privately purchased from him during WWII (1942, IIRC) by the fellow I got it from. As a newly-commissioned Canadian Army Lieutenant, the latter fellow took advantage of the fact that he could provide his own sidearm, and in fact told me that the .380 cartridge already had a reputation of being inadequate, and he wanted to have something with more stopping power than the .380 revolver he would have been stuck with if he accepted an issue handgun .... (There were still enough .45ACP handguns in the system - and Canada in fact acquired quite a few more during WWII - that .45ACP was an official "service" cartridge .... heck, even .45 Colt still fell into that category, for Canada at least!)
 
IIRC I have read that more then one person brought along a .357 pistol for a personal arm during Korea as well.
Apparently it worked well against the body armour some of the Chinese had.
 
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