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The stories below
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Bam Bam Well
it all started the night my friend Bill and I wanted to shoot something up
real big. So, I found my grandfathers three Tommy guns. Bill and I went
to my father’s farm in Attica. There was an old Chevy Nova. We loaded
the L-drums and took our places. We downloaded 100 rounds in under 15
minutes. As we sat down, we noticed that there was an old fire extinguisher.
We pulled from what used to be a Chevy Nova and sat on the ground. We walked
back away from it about fifty feet and opened fire. The extinguisher exploded
in the middle of the open field. Now my friend and I shoot at fire
extinguisher every Sunday. Bam
Bam
LTC(RET)
John T Herron While
serving in Somalia as the Deputy Chief of Logistics for the US component of
the United Nations relief effort, I had as an additional responsibility the
oversight of all captured weapons. As A long time, collector of military
weapons, I was familiar with most of what we were capturing. A lot of which
was WWII vintage equipment. In Jan 91 when we first got to Mogadishu we
found, on the university complex we occupied, two sub machineguns hidden in a
room. One was a British Sterling and the other an old Thompson 1928A1. I
was asked to come to the office next door to mine, the operations office, and
identify the Sterling. The finders of these two weapons had already figured
out the Thompson by its classic look. I took a couple of pictures and then
was handed the weapons and told "You're the Log guys, you take
them". Captured weapons were somewhat of a pain in the backside. We had
very strict orders about "no war souvenirs", and keeping or taking
weapons home was a career ending move. I had the two guns transported to the
captured weapons depot and forgot about them. Several days later I received a call
for help at the captured weapons depot. A lot of captured weapons had shown
up taken by our UN allies from all over Somalia and our crew could not
identify half of them. (They got better quickly). After a perilous journey
across Mogadishu, I arrived at the depot. Truckloads of weapons had been
recovered from the Clans. Within this mass of weapons were the unmistakable
lines of Thompson SMGs, most of which were 28A1s used by the British with
vertical foregrips and side mounted slings. There were also a mixture of M-1
and M-1As. We sorted through this great mess (I was secretly having fun) and
slowly taught the crews what all these weapons were. I did get stumped from
time to time but then we would cheat and bring out WHB Smiths Small Arms of the
World, which I learned to bring with me after doing this same thing in
Saudi Arabia. The
number of Thompsons was pretty significant but I did not keep track of the
quantity. I did take some more pictures when I had time. At first the amount
of British and Italian weapons we recovered was a mystery till we got
educated on Somalia's history. Half of which had been British and the other
half Italian till after the end of WWII. Sadly (for me as a collector) we had
to destroy the weapons after our allotted space for these things filled up.
There was always more coming in. We would take them outside of Mogadishu,
down the coast and dig great holes in the sand dunes. Our EOD would then put
the weapons in the holes, pile captured ammo, mines, bombs etc. on top and
then wire it all with C-4. We then backed away about two miles and detonated
the whole thing. I kept telling my boss I should be allowed to wear a
black arm band when we did this but he said it would clash with my uniform. I
have two Thompsons of my own, (I know what you’re thinking. No, I did
not bring anything home) and every time I handle them, I remember the
Tommie’s of Somalia. Rest in peace old friends.
Charles
Avery My
Uncle Ken was an infantry NCO and field-promoted to lieutenant in the
European Theatre of Operations during WWII. During his combat tour he carried
a Thompson Submachine Gun exclusively. It was his favorite weapon. He knew
the gun well enough that he could take it apart and adjust the cyclic rate of
fire to his personal tastes. When he was promoted to Lieutenant, they tried
to take his beloved Tommy gun away from him. He did the only rational thing a
soldier could do: refused the promotion. This caused quite a stir and came to
the immediate attention of his colonel. The colonel thought highly enough of
Ken that he talked him into accepting the promotion and made him a gift of
his personal Thompson. The gun was a pristine older Thompson (of the fine
machining and deep bluing). Ken immediate took it apart and adjusted the rate
of fire and carried the gun for the duration of the war. Ken's love of the
.45 Thompson leads into the story of the time my uncle used the Thompson as a
counter-sniper weapon against a German sniper that had been harassing his
unit. Those of you who know the Thompson know that this is stretching the
capability of the weapon, but you would have to know Ken to understand. Ken
was one of those die-hard Americans. He spent a lifetime bow-hunting. He was
a phenomenal archer and very skilled at woodcraft and stalking game. Even
during the war, he took time to hunt and varied the boring GI chow with
rabbits and deer for his squad, though he still complained 30 years later
about having to use a pistol for the task. The point here is that Ken always
studied his quarry and was very deliberate in his hunting. He was a life-long
smoker, but during the war he gave up smoking because of the odor and the
fact one had to use a flame to light the cigarette. As a smoker, he
understood the habit and that is central to the story. The
sniper began attacking his unit and the men normally used against snipers
were unable to stop this guy. Uncle Ken took it upon himself to stop the
German sniper and approached it the same way he did big-game hunting. He
obviously knew the area of operations for the sniper and set about hunting
him down. After several days, he caught the odor of German tobacco in the
breeze. The German was a smoker. Their tobacco was extremely harsh by
American standards and had a distinctive odor. He trailed the sniper by the
smell of the tobacco. Ken
spotted a cave he assumed the German was using. Ken did not approach the
cave, but set up about a hundred yards from the entrance and watched it for
two solid days. The sniper knew what he was doing and stayed to the back of
the cave where it was dark. Ken could not see inside to detect tell-tale
movement or metallic reflections. The German sniper's fatal error was
lighting a cigarette. The flair of the match in the back of the cave alerted
Ken to the presence of the sniper. Ken set the sights of the Thompson on the
spot he'd first seen the match patiently waited. Two hours later another
match was lit. Ken fired a single semi-automatic shot at the match flame. I
don't have the gruesome details, but the .45 ball killed the sniper. My uncle
always said that the Thompson was more accurate than people ever gave it
credit for and that smoking is hazardous to your health, especially in
combat. At
the close of the war, Ken was in charge of a squad that took possession of
one of the Nazi concentration camps. I think it was Dachau, but I really
can't recall and Ken passed away a number of years ago. He said the guards of
the camp were fanatical to the point of suicidal. The GI guards were armed
with M-1 carbines for some reason. The Nazi inmates attempted breaking out
regularly. One of Ken's men was killed when the .30 Cal carbine bullets
failed to stop the attack. Ken procured enough Thompsons to arm all his men.
The next attempted escape happened almost immediately after the change to the
.45 ACP Tommy guns. A single burst from a Thompson stopped the attack cold,
one round struck the escapee in the head. There were no further escape
attempts in that prison. I observed a head shot with any common military arm
would have stopped the attacker, but Ken said the Nazis were very impressed
with the Thompson and respected the power of the .45 cartridge.
James
J. Besemer I
spent some time this week vacationing in the sunny People's Republic of
California. Yeah, I know but I had family obligations... Among
other things, we toured Alcatraz prison, which turned out to be much more
interesting than I expected. Alcatraz was designed to hold the toughest, most
incorrigible prisoners in the nation. You had to be BAD to end up there. Anyway,
they told the story of a prison riot which was suppressed by a single guard
with a Thompson. Oddly enough, although the prisoners each had their own
cells, they routinely ate all their meals together in a large mess hall. By
design, the food was generally OK, but evidently one meal they regularly were
served progressively got worse and worse. Finally, the prisoners all agreed
that the next time they served that damn spaghetti they'd overturn all the
tables. Sure enough, when the spaghetti came up again, they all upended the
tables and started raising hell. The
prisoners were locked in the mess hall, so they weren't going anywhere. But
the guards had to regain control of the situation and they had to do it
quickly, as the three unarmed guards who normally supervised mealtime were at
risk. A
single, quick-acting guard grabbed a Thompson and entered the room. He slowly
squeezed off 3 rounds, one at a time, with a dramatic pause between each
shot, taking out a different window each time. This got everyone's attention.
Then he conspicuously flipped the selector to auto. Everybody in the room
knew what THAT meant (many of them having operated that very gun themselves).
Plus, the huge .45" hole was familiar to all and supremely intimidating.
Even though there were over 200 prisoners and only 50 or maybe 100 rounds in
that gun, nobody wanted to mess with the guard. The prisoners immediately
lined up and marched off to their cells like little lambs. The
mess hall was also equipped with tear gas dispensers which were never
deployed in the history of the prison. Good thing, as the prisoners
themselves admitted that it'd likely result in the immediate death of any and
all hostages. I think there's a lesson here about the relative effectiveness
of lethal vs. non-lethal responses. Even in their cells, prisoners were
continuously under armed guard. The "gun bulls" had their own caged
cat-walk and each carried a "rifle" (M1, I presume) and a cocked
and locked 1911. They said the guards were trained to draw their pistol and
take out an errant prisoner in 6 seconds. A
sign near the entrance notified each prisoner that they are
"entitled" to food, shelter, clothing and medical care. Everything
else in prison is a privilege. The
prison was decommissioned by then Attorney General, Robert Kennedy. Perhaps
it was falling apart and would have been too costly or impractical to keep
running. In any case, today's prison system could sure pick up a few pointers
from "The Rock." In
all, a fascinating tour. If you ever find yourself in the bay area, I
heartily recommend it.
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