Sig Posted December 18, 2014 Report Share Posted December 18, 2014 During TV news coverage of the recent US and Cuba activities, I thought I caught a picture on TV showing a Thompson carried by someone near Fidel Castro. Could not find the photo that I saw on TV, but found another. Just sharing for the board here. This one apparently of celebration after the Cuban missile crisis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giantpanda4 Posted December 18, 2014 Report Share Posted December 18, 2014 I think Tino has that pic - one guy is his son, the other guy is his right hand man...?? Very cool pic though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hntrdarren Posted December 18, 2014 Report Share Posted December 18, 2014 I saw it also. Pretty unique throwback picture on television. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smkummer Posted December 18, 2014 Report Share Posted December 18, 2014 (edited) I was trying to see if it was a M6 ingram. Hard to tell from the angle. US M3 grease gun on the right. Edited December 18, 2014 by smkummer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sig Posted December 18, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 18, 2014 I was trying to see if it was a M6 ingram. Hard to tell from the angle. US M3 grease gun on the right. good thoughtIMHOI think the front grip is extremely contoured for the fingers, like a Thompson and less like a M6. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james m Posted December 18, 2014 Report Share Posted December 18, 2014 If memory serves me correctly quite a few of the ill fated anti-Castro invaders were armed with Thompsons during the invasion.These of course would have been captured or surrendered to Castro's forces. It's quite possible that one of these Thompsons is the example in this picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canuck Posted December 18, 2014 Report Share Posted December 18, 2014 (edited) I have seen this picture before. I don't have the particulars in front of me but I believe the chap with the Thompson was one of the revolutions major players and very close to Fidel. I know his name just can't recall it right now. I believe that there was a parting of ways and his compatriot was murdered by some more fanatical revolutionaries or perhaps some that were not as fanatical and saw him as a danger. So I guess I have a project. I bought one of my Thompsons from a fellow who was in Cuba immediately after Castro entered Havana in 1959. Edited December 18, 2014 by canuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Fliegenheimer Posted December 18, 2014 Report Share Posted December 18, 2014 (edited) Castro with Greaser and Batista military with captured Communists supply of TSMG in 1959 Edited December 18, 2014 by Arthur Fliegenheimer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARK2112 Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 (edited) The guy with the thompson looks like freddy mercury,im sure most of you dont know who he is though. Edited December 19, 2014 by MARK2112 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThompsonCrazy Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 The guy with the thompson looks like freddy mercury,im sure most of you dont know who he is though.I'll go out on a limb here and say 95% or better on this board know who Freddie Mercury is. If they don't then they have been under one large rock for the last 30 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Fliegenheimer Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 No relation to Mercury Morris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Z3BigDaddy Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 Freddy Mercury? Sounds like a poisonous person.... I heard he pulled the trigger and now he is dead.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giantpanda4 Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 Surely those Thompsons are not Safe Queens either.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilroy Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 Surely those Thompsons are not Safe Queens either..Freddie Mercury pun? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunhistorian Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 I thought it was Freddie Fender. For those of us of an advance age,or are not "into" rock music, Freddie Mercury was a British singer with the group Queens (or Queen - can't remember which). Is this the silly season? I think Freddie Mercury died of AIDS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
First Sergeant Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 Queen.....that is a double pun !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MARK2112 Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 ok...maybe I overestimated the age of some forum members....lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim c 351 Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 The rascal with the Tommy may be Camilo Cienfuegos.Check out Frank I's book AT11, page 56.Probably the same TSMG.Anyone old enough to be reading gun magazines in the late 1950s will remember the adds run by the Cubans offering the buy M1 rifles and carbines in the U.S. I'm sure they would have bought Thompsons if one was offered.Jim C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunhistorian Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 If I recall correctly, at least some of Castro rebels were acquiring DEWATS and rewatting them. One of the stimulus (stimuli?) to the end of the DEWAT program was a Saturday Evening Post article by Ashley Halsey (?), Jr. (generally thought of as a pro-gun guy) telling that he bought a TSMG M1 or M1A-1 via mail order (a DEWAT) in his daughter's name (I think only 8-years old at the time) and "easily" removing the barrel, putting in a new barrel (probably from Numrich. . .) and testing the rewat on the range -- where it worked satisfactory. I had some records from Interarms (Interarmco) -- photocopies -- that included a letter from a retail gun dealer in New England in the late '50s inquiring when bayonets for the Johnson semi-auto rifles would be available because "hunting season was to start soon." THAT is not a joke! I had the actual letter or copy of it. I also heard (rumor from someone who knew Val Forgett) that Interarmco and or Service Armament Corp. were putting weak welds in the barrels of various automatic weapons during the DEWAT process so the welds could be almost knocked out with a steel rod. It was said that they just could not bring themselves to order the total deactivation (without the "ease of rewatting") of these weapons. I am not sure the story about Forgett and Interarmco is true, but that came from a guy who went into Service Armament when it was in Ft. Lee, NJ and was going to get a STEN. . . I think TSMG DEWATS had dried up by then, but you could still get M-3 Grease Guns ($49.95) and MP-44s ($49.95)in DEWAT form. BTW, even in the early to mid-60s, $200 for the tax stamp was still an awful lot of money. And I think Mark 2112 UNDERESTIMATED the age of many of the folks on this board. LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunhistorian Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 Should add, I believe that Ashley H. (whatever), Jr. was at one time an editor at American Rifleman magazine. I think that the NRA was at least ambivalent toward DEWATS and ultimately bought into the philosophy of "Who NEEDS a machine gun?" I think this has slowly (or maybe not so slowly) changed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emmagee1917 Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 A little off topic , but we've left there some while ago . Does anyone have ant pictures of the Cuban Winchester 94 lever action 9MM automatic carbine with the Luger snail drum ?Ain't that a combination of words you rarely see together ?Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim c 351 Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 Chis,I don't recall anything about a Win 94, but I do remember a article in a gun magazine in the late 1950 about converting a Win M1907 to 9 M/M.If I remember correctly it was an American gunsmith working with the Castro rebels doing the work. This was before Castro announced he was a commie.Even as a teenager I thought the whole thing was a ridiculous waste of time.Been better off using the 07 as is.Jim C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilroy Posted December 20, 2014 Report Share Posted December 20, 2014 I'm 29... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim c 351 Posted December 20, 2014 Report Share Posted December 20, 2014 Kilroy,With a little luck some day you'll be 30.Jim C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilroy Posted December 20, 2014 Report Share Posted December 20, 2014 Will that make me a grown up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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