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This is a Popular Science magazine cover from October 1943. Pictured is 27yo Sgt. Thurmon Horton from Clarkton NC on a M10 Panther. The article notes they are armed with Tommy guns and grenades. there are no other pictures or discussion on the TSMGs.DOC061219 1943-111538.pdf

Edited by Vettom
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Thanks. It's often fascinating to me to see these old colored photos of these guys when they were so young. It gives me an interesting feeling like they are still here and look like that. I'm quickly reminded that is not the case though. He was born in 1916 and passed away in September, 1988. I was 2 years old. I thank him for his service.

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Thompson's were standard issue on tanks ... I believe each tank had two SMG's ... Here are tankers in a Stuart Light Tank on Bataan with their Thompson's (At least that is how the photo is identified)

 

attachicon.gif Thompsons.jpg

From what I can find the picture is of Marines from company A of the 1st Marine Tank Battalion next to there M3 Stuart light tank near the river Tenaru on the Guadalcanal, yeah at the beginning of WW2 Thompson where shipped with each tank that is why there is so many Thompson parts in Russia because we sent them Sherman tanks and they didn't like/didn't have ammo for the Thompsons so they just put them in storage

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Thompson's were standard issue on tanks ... I believe each tank had two SMG's ... Here are tankers in a Stuart Light Tank on Bataan with their Thompson's (At least that is how the photo is identified)

 

attachicon.gif Thompsons.jpg

From what I can find the picture is of Marines from company A of the 1st Marine Tank Battalion next to there M3 Stuart light tank near the river Tenaru on the Guadalcanal, yeah at the beginning of WW2 Thompson where shipped with each tank that is why there is so many Thompson parts in Russia because we sent them Sherman tanks and they didn't like/didn't have ammo for the Thompsons so they just put them in storage

You're probably correct ... A lot of these photos on the web are not identified correctly ...

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To quote the last article line

one by one, the problems of the conquest of the stratosphere are being solved.

Now I have pondered taking the staples out so other scans can be done with the pages flat.

This is a neat magazine during wartime with a number of articles on enemy weapons and look back in time.

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Note that the magazine in the Thompson is a drum. I understand that a lot of the magazines for these tank Thompsons were drums rather than box magazines, at least early in the war.
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Thompson's were standard issue on tanks ... I believe each tank had two SMG's ... Here are tankers in a Stuart Light Tank on Bataan with their Thompson's (At least that is how the photo is identified)

 

attachicon.gif Thompsons.jpg

From what I can find the picture is of Marines from company A of the 1st Marine Tank Battalion next to there M3 Stuart light tank near the river Tenaru on the Guadalcanal, yeah at the beginning of WW2 Thompson where shipped with each tank that is why there is so many Thompson parts in Russia because we sent them Sherman tanks and they didn't like/didn't have ammo for the Thompsons so they just put them in storage

 

 

While I do believe that during WWII the Russians received Thompsons with tanks and other "Lend-Lease" vehicles, I also believe they received them and .45 ammunition as aid.

Every weapon we provided would have been supplied with a "basic" load of ammo, otherwise the tanks would have not been of any use!

Years ago a large quantity of "repacked" .45 ammo came into the US from Russia.

Also, I recently read a de-classified article part of which covered the US Army evaluation of building the STEN gun in the USA.

The Russians were approached to see if they would accept STEN's as "lend lease" aid and their answer was no, keep sending Thompson's.

Not the answer you would expect from a country that just intended to store the guns away and not use them.

 

Its possible that whoever imported all the Thompson kits from Russia marketed them as never having been used.

I have had the same story with other former Communist stored material, only to find a mix of not used, used a little and refinished before storage (looks like new til you look closely)

 

Richard

 

 

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Years ago, a friend of mine had and restored a M5A1 Stuart light tank. He tried to make it as complete as he could, including a working .30 cal. Browning in the bow and coax position, a working 37mm M6 main gun, and a 1928A1 Thompson that was listed in the TOE above the radios in the turret. I always wondered how close the issue of a 1928A1 Thompson was kept, and not just a M1 or M3 submachinegun.

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