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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: 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? Regards Hinrik Steinsson Iceland

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 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/