How it Started vs How it Ended, Vickers Edition
Two WWII images, five years apart to the day, bookended by the same weapon system.
Vickers water-cooled .303 machine guns of the 7th Battalion Cheshire Regiment, 1st Division, at Aubigny-au-Bac, 23 March 1940. This was just six weeks before the end of the Phoney War and the beginning of a very different one.
Note the immaculate Pattern 37 gear and uniforms. Capt. Len Puttnam, war photographer, IWM F 3273
“Crossing the Rhine, 23 March 1945: British commandos of the 1st Commando Brigade man two Vickers water-cooled .303 machine guns machine guns in the shattered outskirts of Wesel. The 1st Commandos had formed the spearhead of the British assault by making a surprise crossing in assault craft on the night of 23 – 24 March under a barrage of 1,500 guns.” This was just six weeks before VE-Day.
Meanwhile, the Commandos look much more comfortable. By Sgt. Norris, No. 5 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit, IWM BU 2329
Of course, the Vickers, which first entered service by virtue of List of Changes No.16217 in November 1912 and remained in inventory until 30 March 1968 when it was replaced by the L7 variant of the FN MAG 58
The best single-volume work on the gun is the 860-page Vickers Machine Gun: Pride of the Emma Gees, edited by Dolf Goldsmith, Richard Fisher, Robert G. Segel, and Dan Shea.
I got mine personally from Mr. Shea– who is a gentleman and a scholar of the first kind– when I bumped into him in Germany last year.
