WWII Collector

Hello all, Just got in an MP41 to work on. Does not work properly. Found out the bolt installed is a MP40 type without cut groove for SA trip bar. Does anyone have a bolt drawing of the MP41 bolt please?

No, gun shows are rare. The rules and regulation are changing all the time. Right now, Iceland is a non EU member. A premier website in the UK, selling deactivated EU spec guns, also has a section, for Non EU export. Meaning, that countries outside of the "EU mafia" can import less destroyed guns. Or right now, in our case, we can get live guns, from the few European contries that can leagally sell them. Import / export is becoming a nightmare. Reg Hinrik

Hello. There are 4 catagories: A Licence, which is the first one you get. You need to be 20 years old, clean criminal record and get a physc eval from a Dr. Then its is a 3 day course, theaory, practical and a test. When I did this yearssss ago, and was picking up my new licence, a strange looking boy was coming to get a refund, because he was denied a licence. The A licence only allows you to buy small cal rifles like .22 and non semi auto shotguns. Once you had the A licence for one year, with no offences recorded, you can apply for B licence. That gives you the right to own large cal rifles up to 8MM max and semi auto shotguns. C licence is a speciality for demolitions guys. D licence is for hand guns. Need to be in a gun club for a min of 2 years, and the club has to sign your Police application.This gives you also a licence for semi auto rifles, which are already on the registry. (not to import new SA rifles. That was banned in 1977) For larger them 8mm rifles or large cal hunting rifles, you need to take an additional course or show that you are a big game hunter. Collector licence is in a catagory of its own. Lots of requirements. Burglar alarm, you storage area inspected by Police and fire dept. I think a gun licence for 10 years min. With this licence, you can own machine guns, deactivated or live. But you need to apply for a permit to use them which is valid for 1 year. Gun ownership in Iceland is very high, I think 14th ranking in the world. Yet, In the past 30 years, I can only think of 3 murders where guns were involved. Reg Hinrik

Bobby, thanks for the tip. Now in contact with Rod. Hinrik

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: Reg Hinrik

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

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

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

From an original Lewis aircraft manual I have: 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. Any help appreciated. Regards Hinrik

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. 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?

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/

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

Haenelistklaase, Actually in ca. 1990 the sister of Oblt Durfeld was interviewed by an Icelandic reporter. It was in that newspaper article I found this wedding photo which I copied. That is why its so poor quality. I tried to get in touch with reporter / sister, but so far no luck. Will maybe try again now, think I found the reporters contact. You are in Germany? Mit Grussen Hinrik

TMSGguy, Thanks for taking the time to reply. I am surprised to hear some parts of this gun may have been modified. This one came in a batch of few guns from a dealer in Germany who did the SA conversion. I meet and spoke with a staff member of that company. He stated that these arrived at their shop in original config, or so was my understanding, and main reason I bought it. Seams some post here say that M1s can have the wing mount rear sight. So I am a bit confused. See: http://www.machinegunboards.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=22148 Here are detailed photos of rear sight and front grip mount bar. The bar looks milled to me (?) Regards Hinrik

Hello all, Here is my German WWII flare gun. It was recovered out of the wreck of a Heinkel He-111 bomber which crashed in Iceland in May 1941. It is dated 1940. The Iron cross is also recovered from the wreck. It belonged to the pilot, Oblt Hans Joachim Durfeld. Later I found a copy of Durfeld´s wedding photo. He was in the Kriegsmarine, before transferring into the Luftwaffe.