Thread: refurbished 303

Originally Posted by paremata

Where was your dad? Mine was in Malaya 1957-59 . As well as the jungle carbine there was a few that carried Sterlings and their lead scout carried a Browning auto shotgun , I think was fairly typical for the kiwis there at the time.

No5 Platoon (Jungle Squad) in British Police, there from 1949 to 1963 although he was no longer fighting in the jungle by the late 50’s. Lead scout in his platoon also carried a Browning auto loaded with buckshot, the cases were solid brass as cardboard cases swelled in the humidity and frequently jammed - not something you want in a firefight!
Dad said the initial order for brass 12guage was for a million cartridges!

Sorry a about the thread hijack.

Originally Posted by Finnwolf

No5 Platoon (Jungle Squad) in British Police, there from 1949 to 1963 although he was no longer fighting in the jungle by the late 50’s. Lead scout in his platoon also carried a Browning auto loaded with buckshot, the cases were solid brass as cardboard cases swelled in the humidity and frequently jammed - not something you want in a firefight!
Dad said the initial order for brass 12guage was for a million cartridges!

Sorry a about the thread hijack.

No worries about the thread Jack . Was that Malaya too? Initially they had plenty of M1 carbines there but not a lot of magazines and a deal was struck with one of the engineering departments of a tin mine to make magazines in exchange for some m1s to give to their security.

The locals would get rewards for giving away the locations of arms caches , not all off the weapons recovered went to the police . My dad said him and his mates had a lot of fun one afternoon shooting up rubber trees with a world war 2 Tommy gun and the ammo they found with it .

Getting back to the no5 carbine isn’t there a saying about how great they are if you want to shoot one man in a room , burn the two guys either side of him and make everyone else in the room deaf?

Originally Posted by paremata

No worries about the thread Jack . Was that Malaya too? Initially they had plenty of M1 carbines there but not a lot of magazines and a deal was struck with one of the engineering departments of a tin mine to make magazines in exchange for some m1s to give to their security.

The locals would get rewards for giving away the locations of arms caches , not all off the weapons recovered went to the police . My dad said him and his mates had a lot of fun one afternoon shooting up rubber trees with a world war 2 Tommy gun and the ammo they found with it .

Getting back to the no5 carbine isn’t there a saying about how great they are if you want to shoot one man in a room , burn the two guys either side of him and make everyone else in the room deaf?

Yeah, it was in Malaya,, while my father was in the Police there his duties involved jungle patrols which in turn resulted in an exchange of bullets and grenades between his platoon and the CTs (Communist Terrorists).
He met a few Kiwis which night have influenced his decision to NZ when the fighting stopped.
He always carried more M1 Carbine mags than the average person but in one incident was down to five rounds left when things ‘settled down‘ at an incident.

Those old guys really lived in a way few of us ever will.