Thompsons in Russia

[Frank Iannamico]

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2019/09/19/forgotten-history-of-thompson-smg-in-secret-police-and-army-of-soviet-russia/

Some images of Russian with Thompsons I have not seen some of these before.

By Vlad Onokoy who is assisting me with edition III of the AK book

 

[colt21a]

The  PAPERWORK IS OUT THERE i made contact with a old auto ord employee in the late 80's after years he contacted me to meet at Knob creek. and dropped off boxes of auto ord records. Hal Spiro and Dave from d.s. manned the tables. as i was off buying serial #5050 Colt. When i got back. Hal told me Tracie snapped it up. and the boxes gone.{ which was to be held for my deal}} Hal gave me one file with the Thompson Colt order letter. and some police chief info and some old orders. from the mid 20's.even the French and England shipments. which he removed from the boxes while there.

 

TRUE  STORY: I LIVED IT. Dave is now DOING HIS OWN THING, HAL IS LONG DECEASED. and so is the original guy.so yes those files are out there. also in the boxes a bunch of old pictures.

[Taliaferro]

Not sure about sales in the 1920s, but these documents seem to indicate sales in the 1930s.

 

Tracie Hill

[Taliaferro]

Just some more interest.

 

Tracie

[Motorcar]

I am still amazed at the history that continues to show up here.

Tracie, will this or has it been included in the new encyclopedia series you are producing?

Edited September 20, 2023 by Motorcar

[Taliaferro]

YES Volume 6 in work on layout stuff now and the accessories volume tbd.

 

Tracie

[Motorcar]

Great! First four volumes on the center of the bookshelf, looking forward to the next installments.

[Ryo]

This should be called Thompsons in Ukraine. A old Soviet vault in Ukraine has them in a mountain. 

[APEXgunparts]

I ran across a document where the WW2 Russian's were asking for as many Thompson's as they could get.

There were / are a lot of Thompson's in Yugoslavia / Serbia.
Provided in the 1940's and 1950's they were standard issue to a Soldier of a squad on patrol.
Somewhere I have images of a junk yard in Greece with piles of cut up US FMA provided M1's, M1919's, M1918's, Thompson's and even BOFOR's guns.
A lot of M1A1's also were used in Vietnam as well as the Phillipines.
Basically everywhere!

Richard
 

[rpbcps]

Peter Kemp, in his book, 'No Colours or Crest', wrote about Tommy guns and gold being delivered to Tito's guerillas during WW2 by the British SOE, in which he was serving at the time.

I was not sure if the term 'Tommy gun' in this context was actually Thompson guns or SMGs in general. Over the years I gave seen all sorts of SMGs referred to as Tommy guns in Europe, by the less informed.

Below are some photos of Thompsons being used by Greek partisans and post WW2 Greek army, followed by some photos of Thompsons being used by Yugoslavian partisans and thier post WW2 army / border guards.

Greek:

Yugoslavia:

Edited October 15, 2023 by rpbcps
Added photos