WWII Collector Posted March 1, 2020 Report Share Posted March 1, 2020 Hello all, wanted to share a little history on the usage of Lewis guns in Icelandduring WWII. During WWII, Icelandic fishing ships regularily sailed with fish to England. Onemore 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 boardthese boats to defend against the Luftwaffe aircraft. They received: Lewis M1918 Aircraft gunsMarlin M1917 Aircraft or Tank gunsHotchkiss MG, type unknown. From my collection, 2 of these Lewis M1918s: 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 thesewere aircraft type guns, this may have been "home made" improvements done by the locals. Anyone seenthis before? RegardsHinrik SteinssonIceland 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWII Collector Posted March 1, 2020 Author Report Share Posted March 1, 2020 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: This gun came out of the fishing boat: Skaftfellingur. On 20 August, 1942 this boatwas 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 shotrifle 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/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWII Collector Posted March 1, 2020 Author Report Share Posted March 1, 2020 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 corrosionprotection on the sea. The casing tube was rusted badly, but was able to take itapart without damaging the gas cylinder tube. Missing the trigger housing assy and aircraft spade grip assy. Cant find it, so thinkingof having copies cast and machined locally. I see some of the US parts sellers haveparts for this, but not the specific aircraft parts. And sadly impossible to import fromUS anyways. Does anyone know of a parts source outside of US? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWII Collector Posted March 1, 2020 Author Report Share Posted March 1, 2020 From an original Lewis aircraft manual I have: Some parts very different then on the ground gun. I plan to restore thisgun to a non functional display status and hopefully one day place it ina 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 reversedthreads. Maybe I can repair this one with JB weld and paint. Any help appreciated. RegardsHinrik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyDixon Posted March 1, 2020 Report Share Posted March 1, 2020 its been asked before, whats the statis on owning machineguns in iceland ? just askin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWII Collector Posted March 1, 2020 Author Report Share Posted March 1, 2020 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. RegHinrik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
APEXgunparts Posted March 2, 2020 Report Share Posted March 2, 2020 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. Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWII Collector Posted March 2, 2020 Author Report Share Posted March 2, 2020 Richard, Thank you for sharing these great photos. I just have a grainysmall photo in an old Icelanic Fishing company book. That shows adual mounted Hotchkiss like in your last photo. In text it is stated thatthe sailors prefered the Hotchkiss over the Marlin / Lewis. RegardsHinrik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWII Collector Posted March 2, 2020 Author Report Share Posted March 2, 2020 Another funny history fact. I was told by an old man, that after the war thefishing companies had MGs all over. They started using them to hunt sealsand small whales. As per this old man, the Icelandic Coast Guard was notto happy with this and started to confiscate the Lewis drum mags, turningthe guns into a single shoot gun Hinrik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
APEXgunparts Posted March 2, 2020 Report Share Posted March 2, 2020 It struck me that I have not run across more pictures of ship mounted LEWIS LMG.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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWII Collector Posted March 2, 2020 Author Report Share Posted March 2, 2020 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 letterdated 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: RegHinrik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m3bobby Posted March 3, 2020 Report Share Posted March 3, 2020 Have you heard of Rod woods in NZ, he is/was a big MG collector and has a couple of Hotchkiss and may have ideas of who if anyone would have an example of that item. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWII Collector Posted March 4, 2020 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2020 Bobby, thanks for the tip. Now in contact with Rod. Hinrik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelkih Posted March 7, 2020 Report Share Posted March 7, 2020 Thanks a ton for the post and photos. My Lewis Gun is one of my favorite machine guns I own to shoot. Serial number A55. Im SUPER happy to hear that you can own these guns live in Iceland. Keep enjoying them and keep the posts coming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dalbert Posted March 11, 2020 Report Share Posted March 11, 2020 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 Albertdalbert@sturmgewehr.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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