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The Lewis Guns in Iceland WWII


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Hello all, wanted to share a little history on the usage of Lewis guns in Iceland

during WWII.

 

During WWII, Icelandic fishing ships regularily sailed with fish to England. One

more life line for the British. After the Germans invaded and occupied Norway,

Hitler declared the waters from Norway and around Iceland a war zone.

 

German Luftwaffe aircraft started attacking the small Icelandic fishing boats.

Iceland was at that time, occupied itself by the British 49th West Riding Div.

The Fishing ministy requested arms from the British to be placed on board

these boats to defend against the Luftwaffe aircraft.

 

They received:

 

Lewis M1918 Aircraft guns

Marlin M1917 Aircraft or Tank guns

Hotchkiss MG, type unknown.

 

From my collection, 2 of these Lewis M1918s:

 

post-262079-0-68252000-1583066352_thumb.jpg

 

Note the added leather handguard and shoulder stock. I looked through "The Belgian Rattle snake" book,

but could find no photo of similar attachments on the guns in that book. I am thinking that since these

were aircraft type guns, this may have been "home made" improvements done by the locals. Anyone seen

this before?

 

post-262079-0-14230800-1583066743_thumb.jpg

 

post-262079-0-96841100-1583066759_thumb.jpg

 

post-262079-0-62056400-1583066782_thumb.jpg

 

post-262079-0-05421700-1583066796_thumb.jpg

 

Regards

Hinrik Steinsson

Iceland

 

 

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After years of tracking down another Lewis, with known interesting history,

I finally found and bought it. This one is in a sad state with missing parts,

as seen here:

 

post-262079-0-78289200-1583067170_thumb.jpg

 

post-262079-0-24657200-1583067194_thumb.jpg

 

post-262079-0-89216900-1583067265_thumb.jpg

 

This gun came out of the fishing boat: Skaftfellingur. On 20 August, 1942 this boat

was sailing to England when it spotted a sinking U-boat, the U-464 which was a

"Milk cow" a special U-boat supply boat. The U-boat crew were rescued by the

Icelandic fishermen, with only 2 cassualties. Captain Páll Þorbjörnsson was

worried having all these Germans onboard, as he was only armed with a 5 shot

rifle and a "90" round machine gun.

 

This Lewis, is that gun. It came from the family of Capt Páll (Paul) So this Lewis

was likely pointed at a U-boat during the war.

 

For detailed info in this incident, see:

 

http://dubm.de/en/the-skaftfellingur-and-u-464/

 

 

 

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Are there any Lewis "specialists" here? Would be interested in talking about them.

The last photo above, it looks like the gun was painted black?

 

That white paint on the barrel and gas cylinder casing was likely added for corrosion

protection on the sea. The casing tube was rusted badly, but was able to take it

apart without damaging the gas cylinder tube.

 

post-262079-0-97975800-1583068383_thumb.jpg

 

Missing the trigger housing assy and aircraft spade grip assy. Cant find it, so thinking

of having copies cast and machined locally. I see some of the US parts sellers have

parts for this, but not the specific aircraft parts. And sadly impossible to import from

US anyways. Does anyone know of a parts source outside of US?

 

 

 

 

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From an original Lewis aircraft manual I have:

 

post-262079-0-64685300-1583068865_thumb.jpg

 

Some parts very different then on the ground gun. I plan to restore this

gun to a non functional display status and hopefully one day place it in

a WWII museum I hope to open one day.

 

Gas chamber is sad state, machined for AA gun sight. Think will be hard

to cast and machine this. The gas chamber gland has very small reversed

threads. Maybe I can repair this one with JB weld and paint.

 

post-262079-0-84222900-1583069119_thumb.jpg

 

Any help appreciated.

 

Regards

Hinrik

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Billy, Iceland is not officially a part of the anti gun EU. So we have our own gun laws.

But you need a gun collector licence to own these. There are a few European

countries which allow this. Getting harder to be a law abiding gun collector.

 

Reg

Hinrik

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A lot of WW1 vintage Hotchkiss Mark 1 in .303 were rebuilt at the beginning of WWII (10,993 according to Ian Skennerton)
I have read that a lot of these guns were issued to the Royal Navy and fishing trawlers, along with Lewis guns.
The Admiralty had noted the Germans were strafing fishing boats and provided the guns for AA defense.
The small secondary vessels in the British, New Zealand, Australian and Canadian Navy also received these guns.

 

post-258486-0-67554600-1583108819_thumb.jpg
post-258486-0-62043300-1583108674_thumb.jpg
post-258486-0-22083500-1583108849_thumb.jpg

Richard

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Richard, Thank you for sharing these great photos. I just have a grainy

small photo in an old Icelanic Fishing company book. That shows a

dual mounted Hotchkiss like in your last photo. In text it is stated that

the sailors prefered the Hotchkiss over the Marlin / Lewis.

 

Regards

Hinrik

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Another funny history fact. I was told by an old man, that after the war the

fishing companies had MGs all over. They started using them to hunt seals

and small whales. As per this old man, the Icelandic Coast Guard was not

to happy with this and started to confiscate the Lewis drum mags, turning

the guns into a single shoot gun :)

 

Hinrik

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It struck me that I have not run across more pictures of ship mounted LEWIS LMG.

post-258486-0-91249700-1583173070_thumb.jpeg

post-258486-0-48781200-1583173034_thumb.jpeg

post-258486-0-36193000-1583172997.jpg

There are way more images of them on aeroplanes.

BTW, the Hotchkiss .303 shown are all the Mark 1* as they use the segmented feed strip, fed out of a hopper that mounts on the right side of the gun.
The left side has to use the spent cartridge catcher bag else the empty hanging segmented feed strips will foul the ejection port and cause stoppages.
I have been trying to find detailed images of the hopper and mount that attaches it to the gun.
So far I have only found images in a manual that are not very good.
If one of those adapters still exist there are a couple of people who would like decent photo's!

Richard

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Richard, very interesting photos. 1) Ground guns with 97 rd aircraft mags. 2) Aircraft gun with ground gun butt stock. I

wonder if that photo was taken when Churchill meet President Roosevelt... I have in my collection a White house letter

dated Feb 45, signed by FDR.

3) Full ground guns.

 

This is the Hotchkiss photo I mentioned. Not sure it helps. Tiny photo from an old book:

 

post-262079-0-88205200-1583181672_thumb.jpg

 

Reg

Hinrik

 

 

 

 

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I have enjoyed reading this post! Thanks for all the photos and details, WWII Collector! I'm glad to know we have at least one member from Iceland.

 

My only Icelandic connection was during the Christmas of 1984, during my Freshman year in college. I was at a ski resort in California with some friends from Hawaii, and one of the parents had traveled to Iceland, and brought back some Icelandic Brennevin Schnapps, aka "Black Death." I was not a fan back then, but I'd try it again now...

 

David Albert

dalbert@sturmgewehr.com

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