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A buddy of mine works with the NG museums program here in NY. Last month while doing an inventory on a unit that's shutting down, he found over 300 Thompson MG magazines. They saved 6 for a museum display and crushed the rest for scrap.The National Guard in my state had four or five Colt Vickers 30-06 guns and tripods stored for years after WWI. In the 1970's The State decided that all the weapons they had stored for state emergencies would not be needed again. They destroyed 2,500 M1903 Springfields, a couple hundred M97 Winchester shotguns and yes several Vickers MGs and their tripods.
An NCO in my unit worked at the National Guard facility and was instructed to clean the preservative grease off of the machine guns with a steam hose. He got them nice and clean and asked his superiors when they wanted him to take them to the post museum and was told "oh no they're going to the scrap yard." Apparently you can't through anything in the blast furnace that is dirty. Fortunately two very nice vickers and their tripods did end up at the post museum and are still there. That NCO was instructed to select a couple that were different from one another for the museum. I told him had I been there I could have found lots of little differences and save a couple more. One of those guns has slots in the water jacket and was apparently designed for use in aircraft. Every time I see those guns I cringe a little at the waste of all those historical weapons but am glad we saved a couple.
I saw two nice Lewis Guns and other items that were given by the NY National Guard to the West Point Museum. This was sometime between 1971 and 1974. These came from Camp Drum, which became Fort Drum in about 1974.The National Guard in my state had four or five Colt Vickers 30-06 guns and tripods stored for years after WWI. In the 1970's The State decided that all the weapons they had stored for state emergencies would not be needed again. They destroyed 2,500 M1903 Springfields, a couple hundred M97 Winchester shotguns and yes several Vickers MGs and their tripods.
That's :nuts:A buddy of mine works with the NG museums program here in NY. Last month while doing an inventory on a unit that's shutting down, he found over 300 Thompson MG magazines. They saved 6 for a museum display and crushed the rest for scrap.