Posted on 03/20/2002 10:48:33 AM PST by thinktwice
In the dark days following the British Expeditionary Force's evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940 ...
Help for the beleaguered nation came from both the American government and from the American people, the latter through the "American Committee for Defense of British Homes." In late 1940, the committee sent an urgent appeal -- which, of course, appeared in American Rifleman -- for Americans to send "Pistols - Rifles - Revolvers - Shotguns - Binoculars" because "British civilians, faced with the threat of invasion, desperately need arms for the defense of their homes." Thousands of arms were collected and sent to England, one of which was a .30-'06 Model 1903 target rifle owned by Major John W. Hession. Hession was one of the pre-eminent highpower rifle target shooters of his day, and he used that rifle to win Olympic gold at Bisley Camp in England in 1908. The rifle, unlike the majority sent, was returned and can now be viewed int he national Firearms Museum.
The U.S. Government responded to Britain's peril as well with passage of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941. Almost immediately, quantities of "U.S. Rifle, Cal. .30, M1" were on their way across the Atlantic, and those guns are the subject of an article by noted M1 Garand historian Scott Duff starting on p. 42. The "British Garands" have an interesting history but the importance of arming the British at that time is made clear by the fact that the rapidly growing U.S. Army itself did not have sufficient numbers of the then-new M1 Garands. Winston Churchill wrote in Their Finest Hour: "When the ships from America approached our shores with their priceless arms, special trains were waiting in all ports to receive their cargoes. The Home Guard in every county, in every village, sat up through the night to receive them. ... By the end of July we were an armed nation ... ."
Now, sadly, Britain is again a disarmed nation, where even Olympic athletes wanting to represent their country cannot own a handgun and where an act of self-defense can land a subject in jail. As with virtually all rifles and handguns, those likely few remaining guns sent to England in its time of desperate need have been confiscated and destroyed. Despite the very near enslavement of England being so close a mere six decades ago, the lesson of the false promises of gun control and personal disarmament were not learned.
Sincerely, ... Mark A Keefe, IV -- Editor
We must never let America fall to so sad a state of affairs.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Proof was demanded, and I couldn't resurrect an uncle who told ne that.
Amen to that! People who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. We can at least learn not to waste our time on a bunch of socialists, who will never learn.
I've got dozens piling up.
Only kiddin' Chapita. You're right and accurate. Besides some of my best friends are named Chapita.
1940 Defend A British Home
After the defeat of the British at Dunkirk and with the threat of an invasion by Nazi Germany imminent, a group called The American Committee for the Defense of British Homes appealed to Americans to "send a gun to defend a British home." An ad appeared in the American Rifleman and a direct mailing to the membership featured a plea from a British officer:"Send us anything that shoots." NRA collected more than 7,000 arms for the defense of Britain, which had virtually disarmed itself with a series of gun control laws enacted between the wars.
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