CZ is marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with a salute to the often unsung “Free Czechs” who served with the Allies with a special Spitfire-themed CZ 75.
Occupied by Germany on the eve of the conflict, just months before the shooting started, thousands of Czechs escaped to continue the fight against a common enemy.
Some 2,500 Czechs served in the British RAF during WWII, filling three fighter squadrons (No. 310, 312, and 313), one bomber squadron (No. 311), and one night fighter squadron (No. 68) as well as flying alongside British pilots in other squadrons. They also played a vital role in No. 138 Special Squadron, an outfit that dropped agents and supplies into occupied Europe– including Czechoslovakia.
A Czech Spitfire pilot of No. 313 Squadron in conversation with his rigger and fitter at Hornchurch, 8 April 1942. (Photo: Imperial War Museum)
These men, exiles far from home, chalked up over 28,000 fighter sorties (at least 16 Czech “aces” flew with the RAF), dropped 2.6 million pounds of bombs on enemy targets, and made a difference from the Battle of Britain to the beaches of Normandy and beyond. Nearly 500 were killed in action.
The CZ 75 RAF special edition emulates the famed Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft, which was flown by many of the Czech fighter pilots serving with the British during the war. (All photos unless noted: CZ)
The CZ 75 RAF includes lightening cuts in the slide that recall the exhaust stacks of the Spitfire’s Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, as well as a finish that includes “riveted” body panels.
The grips include a set of Czech aviator’s wings.
The serial number sequencing starts with one of the Czech RAF squadrons, in this case, No. 310 Fighter Squadron. Note the British “bullseye” roundel.
And it is repeated on the front of the slide.
The magazine base has a stylized RAF.
The RAF’s Latin motto, going back to 1918, “Per Ardua ad Astra,” which translates to “Through Adversity to the Stars,” is carried.
Note the Czech roundel, which is still carried on the country’s military aircraft.
The CZ 75 RAF is a thing of beauty.
Besides the pistol itself, its unique case recalls the avionics panel on the Spitfire, while its key is in the shape of the aircraft. Also included are an embroidered squadron badge patch and a hand-painted and signed Spitfire illustration by the well-known Czech painter and illustrator Jaroslav Velc.
Price? Availability? Just 56 CZ 75 RAF models will be created and will be offered…soon.
On a side note, as CZ now owns Colt, it would be neat to think that, at some point in the future, there may be a similar line of 1911s that salute famed American military units. Send those emails, folks!
From the January 1969 deck log of the Cleveland-class gun cruiser/converted to Galveston-class guided missile cruiser USS Little Rock (CLG-4), a traditional New Year’s Day poem, in true bluejacket style:
Commissioned just 10 weeks before VJ Day, Little Rock was still on her shakedown cruise when the Big Show ended. Nonetheless, after her missile-slinger conversion, she was configured as a fleet flagship and served as one for the next two decades.
It should be pointed out she was the Sixth Fleet flag at Gaeta in the above deck log entry.
USS Little Rock (CLG-4) photographed circa mid-1960s. USN 1109531
Only decommissioned in 1976, she was one of the last two (with sister Oklahoma City) active 6-inch gunned cruisers in the U.S. fleet.
USS Little Rock (CLG-4) fires her 6″/47 Mk 16 guns during exercises on the Salto di Guirra missile range, off Sardinia, 23 April 1975. K-108728
She is preserved at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park, one of just three American cruisers who linger as museum ships, and the sole light cruiser.
Legendary Austrian firearms maker Steyr Arms has been purchased by the Czech Republic-based RSBC Investment Group.
RSBC, with its corporate headquarters in Prague, has been in the small arms business for almost a decade, having previously acquired Slovenian gunmaker AREX Defense in 2017. The group announced last week that it had assumed a 100-percent stake in Steyr from the German-based SMH Holding group.
Steyr, between its Austrian operation and Steyr USA subsidiary, employs over 200 and includes the legacy Mannlicher brand. It dates to at least 1864 when it was founded by gunmakers Josef and Franz Werndl.
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The Werndls had fast success in their innovative 11mm M1867 Werndl–Holub breechloading rifle, of which some 600,000 were ordered by the Austrian military and police. Changing the company’s name to OWG (Osterreichische Waffenfabriksgesellschaft = Austrian arms factory company), it followed up with Ferdinand Mannlicher’s bolt-action magazine-fed rifle platform in 1886, of which over 3 million were built before 1918.
And who can forget the Steyr 1912?
Remaining foremost a firearms company, it branched out over the years into bicycles, trucks, and automobiles and evolved first into Steyr-Werke AG in 1924 and then to Steyr-Daimler-Puch in 1934.
Following World War II, Steyr made the FN FAL under license for the Austrian military as the StG58, then found international success with the SSG precision rifle and MPi 69/81 submachine gun.
The Austrian Bundesheer’s MG 74 is an MG42/59 variant licensed from Beretta and manufactured by Steyr Mannlicher used since 1974
In 1977, Steyr introduced the revolutionary AUG bullpup rifle, adopted by the Austrian military as the StG 77, followed by the pioneering GB and M series pistols, and the Steyr Scout bolt-action rifle.
A Royal Oman Army soldier with an Austrian-made Steyr AUG, standard issue not only in Austria and Oman but also in Australia Bolivia, Ecuador, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malaysia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Pakistan
By 1989, with the breakup of the Steyr-Daimler-Puch conglomerate, the firearms and air gun business spun off into the firm of Steyr Mannlicher before morphing into Steyr Arms in 2019. It was purchased by SMH Holding in 2007.
RSBC plans to fold Steyr and AREX into a division headed by current AREX CEO, Tim Castagne, to “enable both companies to offer an all-encompassing portfolio in the future.”
It is no understatement to say that the B-17 bomber is one of the most famous airplanes to fly a mission. Today we look at the hardware that lived up to its well-deserved “Flying Fortress” name.
When it first flew in 1935, the original B-17 wasn’t very well equipped with defensive gun armament; after all, its main armament was its massive 5,000-pound bomb load.
The YB-17 prototypes had a single gun up front, two in side nacelles, one for the radio operator, and one below – just five all told, all with limited fields of fire. (National Museum of the Air Force)
Boeing YB-17 nose turret via National Museum of USAF
Boeing YB-17 flex gun turret via National Museum of USAF
Wartime experience soon changed this, and by the time the B-17G model took to the air, it carried 13 .50-caliber air-cooled machine guns and almost 7,500 rounds of ammunition to keep them firing. While a few of the bomber’s crew were dedicated gunners, everyone save for the pilot and co-pilot had a gun at their disposal and were expected to use it if needed.
B-17G Flying Fortresses Drop Bombs On Berlin, Germany 26 February 1945. [91St Bg] 59348AC 342-FH_000123
80 years ago today. Official caption: “Aviation Free Gunnery Unit, Barber’s Point, Hawaii. Shown: Bore Sighting Stand, August 18, 1943.”
Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-87883.
The machine gun on the stand seems to be an ANM2, a 30-06 chambered version of the M1919 Browning machine gun meant for aircraft use and with a wicked rate of fire that could touch 1,500 rpms.
Twin .30-cal ANM2s were mounted in the rear seats of Dauntless and Helldiver dive bombers, Avenger torpedo bombers, and in the blisters of the PBY-5 Catalina.
The rear ANM2 mount on the famed SBD dive bomber, seen here on a preserved aircraft at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Arizona (Photo: Chris Eger)
The ANM2 was also used in side blister mounts on the big PBY Catalina flying boat, here seen in a period Kodachrome image. (Photo: U.S. Navy/National Archives)
Interestingly, Savage made thousands of ANM2s during the war, taking a break from their regular commercial rifle production.
They were also pressed into service by Marines on the ground. One notable image from the attack on Pearl Harbor shows Marines on Ford Island using an ANM2, likely borrowed from a Navy PBY, set up to take shots at incoming Japanese planes.
(Photo: U.S. Navy/National Archives)
Other images show Marines on Okinawa with a full twin mount, likely plucked right from a wrecked Helldiver or SBD, used for defense in a ground attack role.
It seems to be placed on the tripod for a Browning M1917 water-cooled machine gun. Note the high anti-aircraft sights. (Photo: U.S. Navy/National Archives)
Construction workers in Eastern Europe recently stumbled across a vintage SMG left over from World War II.
The Lesser Poland (Małopolska) regional headquarters of the country’s Policja, or national police force, last month posted images of a recovered German-made MP40 sub gun, complete with its 30-round magazine and packets of tarnished 9mm ammunition.
According to the post, the WWII-era maschinenpistole was made in 1941 and had been recovered by workers in the historic Old Town tenements in the southeastern Polish city of Tarnow. Workers found the MP40 first, wrapped in rags, while dismantling a wooden roof, then the bullets, hidden in the rafters.
Tarnow, which had been part of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire after the 1772 partition of Poland, became part of the reunified Polish nation in 1918. It was occupied by the Germans during WWII in 1939, then by the Soviets in 1945. During the occupation, members of the city’s Jewish population– almost all of which were deported to extermination camps at Auschwitz and Belzec– mounted an armed underground resistance to the Germans.
“Contrary to myth of Jewish passivity, many Jews did fight back during the Holocaust,” notes 2A scholar and attorney David Kopel in his work on armed resistance to genocide. “They shut down the extermination camp at Sobibor, rose up in the Warsaw Ghetto, and fought in the woods and swamps all over Eastern Europe. Indeed, Jews resisted at a higher rate than did any other population under Nazi rule. The experience of the Holocaust shows why Jews, and all people of good will, should support the right of potential genocide victims to possess defensive arms, and refutes the notion that violence is necessarily immoral.”
The Policja stated the recovered MP40 will be either donated to a museum to be preserved or destroyed. We are hoping for the former.
Cue the “That Belongs in a Museum” memes, authorities have managed to recover and return dozens of rare collectible guns– some priceless– to the institutions from where they were stolen.
The pieces all went mission in the 1970s, back when security was lax in most public museums, and all that was needed was a big screwdriver and a flashlight to pull off a low-risk burglary.
In all, some 50 items, some dating to the French and Indian War, were returned to 17 institutions located in five states.
Among the more interesting items recovered were:
An 1847 Mississippi rifle stolen from Beauvoir in Biloxi, Mississippi.
World War II battlefield pickup pistols– a Luger and a Walther PPK– once owned by General Omar Bradley, stolen from the U.S. Army War College in 1979.
Assorted 19th-century flintlock rifles stolen from Pennsylvania museums.
An early Colt Whitneyville Walker revolver, valued at $1 million, stolen from the Connecticut State Library.
18th-century English and Scottish pistols stolen from the Valley Forge Historical Society Museum.
A Volcanic pistol stolen from Pennsylvania’s Hershey Story Museum.
A rifle from the Daniel Boone Homestead in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania.
A huge Colt Whitneyville Walker revolver (bottom row with CT tag) was taken back to its home state. A powder horn (center right) dating to the French and Indian War was stolen from a Belchertown, Massachusetts, museum in the 1970s. The Walker PPK and Luger in the top right corner had been donated by Gen. Omar Bradley to the Army War College in Carlise, Pennsylvania. An exceedingly rare Volcanic pistol stolen from the Hershey Museum is to the bottom right. (Photo: FBI)
The French Interior Ministry, on the basis that the country had as many as six million unregistered firearms in public hands, recently sought to get them surrendered.
This gun “surplus” in the government’s eyes came due to several factors. A crossroads of large-scale military campaigns going back centuries– the first recorded European battle where cannons were used was at Crecy in Northern France in 1346– the country has seen most of the modern armies of the continent fight their way across its soil at one time or another, leaving lots of gear behind. Added to this was an extensive underground Resistance army that swelled to 400,000 freedom fighters equipped by Allied weapon drops during World War II, which saw many guns quietly squirreled away afterward, just in case. Finally, the country saw a vibrant and active shooting sports community that, in more recent years, has declined.
Now, to get those “off-record” inherited or heirloom guns either recorded on the government’s books or destroyed, the French government held a nationwide “amnesty” for “armes héritées et trouvées” or “legacy and found weapons.” The event, held from Nov. 25 through Dec. 2 at more than 300 locations, allowed individuals to bring in undeclared guns and either relinquish them or register them with the government, joining the growing list of 5 million firearms already documented.
In other words, the event wasn’t aimed at getting guns out of the hands of criminals, but out of the average resident’s closet and garage.
In all, only some 150,000 firearms and 4 million rounds of ammunition were abandoned while another 50,000 guns were registered, falling far short of the government’s estimate of six million, meaning that non-compliance among many off-book gun owners remains high.
Some 80 years ago this month, a scratch force of Marines waded ashore on a little-known island in the Pacific, with their beloved ’03s in hand, determined to stop the Rising Sun.
Some eight months after Pearl Harbor was attacked, and long after Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines fell to the Japanese onslaught during World War II, the Allies in the Pacific moved to seize the initiative and launched the first Allied land offensive in the Theater as well as the first American amphibious assaults of the war. Between Aug. 7 and Aug. 9, 1942, some 11,000 men of the newly-formed 1st Marine Division landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Japanese-occupied Solomon Islands, a chain of islands far closer to Australia than to Tokyo. There, the Marines aimed to seize an airfield the Japanese were carving out of the jungle and use it for their own fighters and bombers.
However, while the Army in 1937 had opted to switch to the M1 Garand from the M1903 Springfield– a bolt-action .30-06 adopted during the administration of Teddy Roosevelt– the Marines were slower to move towards the semi-auto battle rifle. It was only in Feb. 1941, just ten months before Pearl Harbor, that Marine Gen. Alexander Vandegrift wrote that he considered the Garand reliable enough to arm his Marines. With that, it wasn’t until after America was in the war that the Corps officially adopted the M1 Garand and later the M1 Carbine.
“Captured Japanese Battle Flag, Guadalcanal Airfield, circa 1942.” (Photo: Thayer Soule Collection/Marine Corps History Division)
Guadalcanal Campaign U.S. Marines rest in the field on Guadalcanal, circa August-December 1942. Most are armed with M1903 bolt-action rifles and carry M1905 bayonets along with USMC 1941 pattern packs. Two men high on the hill at the right have vests to carry patrol mortar shells and one in the center has a World War I-style hand grenade vest. The Marine seated at the far right has an M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle. (Photo: U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.)
Arising from a need to rapidly build bases on remote islands for the push across the Pacific during World War II, today’s Seabee force turns 80 this month.
Tracing their unofficial origins to 300 skilled artisans who built an advance base in 1813 for Captain David Porter’s squadron operating against the British along South America’s west coast, the Navy officially formed and christened its first Naval Construction Battalions in March 1942.
Recruited from tradesmen in 60 skilled trades– both “vertical” such as in building construction and “horizontal” such as in the construction of roads and airfields– the new “Seabees” were also trained to defend their positions as the islands and beaches they would land on would often still be very much in an active combat zone. Fitting the job, Rear Admiral Ben Moreell set their motto as “Construimus, Batuimus” roughly meaning “We Build, We Fight.”
Early members received only three weeks of training and were sent overseas. They carried at one time or another just about every rifle and pistol in the Navy’s inventory and pioneered such exotic arms as the Sedgley Glove Gun/Haight Fist Gun.
Seabee recruiting posters of the time, aimed at pulling often-draft-exempt skilled construction workers into the service, also emphasized the carpenters and heavy equipment operators would be expected to fight if needed, ready to leave the controls of their crane or grader, grab a carbine or Tommy gun, and get to work.
“This sign, near the Torokina fighter strip on Bougainville Island testifies to the U.S Marine Corps admiration for the Navy’s construction battalions.” (Photo: Naval History and Heritage Command)
During World War II, some 350,000 men served in the Seabees, organized into no less than 315 regular and special construction battalions. They would construct over 400 advanced bases spanning from Iceland to New Guinea and Sicily to the Aleutian Islands, operating in all theaters.
In the Pacific alone, they would build no less than 111 airstrips while suffering over 200 combat deaths. A further 500 Seabees were killed during their highly dangerous construction work under adverse field conditions. In addition to 33 Silver Stars and 5 Navy Crosses, ‘Bees also earned more than 2,000 Purple Hearts in WWII, the hard way.
Korea and Vietnam
Drawn down to a force of just 3,300 by 1949, the Seabees remained a “Can Do” part of the Navy and Marines’ shore establishment and would rapidly expand to serve in the Korean War and Vietnam. During the latter conflict in Southeast Asia, the Seabees expanded to over 26,000 men in no less than 23 assorted Naval Mobile and Amphibious Construction Battalions by 1969.
In most cases, the bases in which Marines fought from during those conflicts were constructed and improved by Seabees, often, as in WWII, under threat from the enemy.
The Cold War, Desert Storm, and Beyond
Besides service in Korea and Vietnam, the “Fighting Seabees” engaged in new frontiers around the world during the Cold War, constructing bases everywhere the Navy went including in remote Diego Garcia, Greece, Spain, Antarctica, the Caribbean, and elsewhere. They served in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Restore Hope, in Bosnia, in Panama, in Iraq, and Afghanistan.
“Capt. Mel Hamm, left, commander, Fleet Hospital Operations and Training Command, and Lt. Vic Modeer of Reserve Naval Construction Battalion Hospital Unit 22 discuss the construction of Fleet Hospital Six during Operation Desert Shield.”
The Seabees today still train to “build with rifles on their back.”
“Camp Hunter Liggett, Calif. (April 27, 2016) A Seabee assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 5 yells out enemy locations to his teammates during a simulated attack during a field training exercise. The exercise prepares and tests the battalion’s ability to enter hostile locations, build assigned construction projects and defend against enemy attacks using realistic scenarios while being evaluated.” (U.S. Navy photo by Utilitiesman 3rd Class Stephen Sisler/Released)
The unique Seabee Combat Warfare Specialist insignia, issued to qualified Naval Construction Force members since 1993, tells a bit of the unit’s history.
It incorporates the old-school WWII Seabee “We build, we fight” motto of the sailor bee with a Tommy gun as well as an M1903 Springfield (one of the few times the Springer makes it to patches or insignia) and a cutlass. Interestingly, Seabees often carried all three weapons in WWII, using M1928 and M1 Thompsons, the 1903A3, and, on occasion, ship’s cutlasses (the latter as machetes).
