Saved from destruction!!!

[jock auld]

These pair were up for destruction in Kosovo a few years ago. They are now safe in the Celle Garrison museum.
The markings on the MP 40 can be seen in the photos.
The Luger is DWM 1917 with a unit stamp in front of the grip (2nd photo).
Sadly both had to be chopped in order to be brought back as trophy weapons, the paperwork was horrendus and drained hours of my life but worth it in the end

Regards

Jock

[packin9]

Still,all in all they are a great save! Nice!

[Ty Revelo]

God bless you for saving them.

rgrd's Ty

[jock auld]

The luger is matching (not a good picture as it is behind glass) but someone has borrowed the magazine. I am still hunting it as our museum is a small private affair with limited key holders it can't be far. The MP has a few mismatched but on the whole is matched.

Jock

[NickD]

nice job mate ya better track down that culprit pretty sharpish & rap his knuckles

[Adrian Stevenson]

Well done Jock! It was worth all your efforts to see these saved for display.

Cheers, Ade.

[Jason L]

Excellent,can you give us a virtual tour of your museum?

[uber_soldat]

how was it saved from Kosovo? I have heard about ww2 equipment being used in modern conflicts and i presume it is one of these cases. Any info to add?

Luke

[John Brandon]

I missed this post, nice one Jock. It's good when you save something.
In Iraq, we had a container full of weapons including quite a few old SMLE's dating back to 1912. The WO1 that was doing the inventory said he would let me ship one back to the UK as a trophy, but he got sent home before the paperwork went through.......for fiddling

Even though we weren't allowed to take anything, being REME, and scratching backs, when the posties wanted their jenny fixed at midnight, it cost them a few under the counter packets home

[jock auld]

Luke,

That particular weapon was one of a batch that was being used as acting props, amongst 40 x K98K, 2 x P08, 1 x HSC? pistol and two MP40s, The rest were deactivated/destroyed in accordance with the policy at the time. There were also lots of WW2 weapons linked with partisan action during the war that simpley remained in the family out there. When we would visit a village the 'Slipovich' (a home made brew that would power a V1) would come out and so would the family weapons 'a very man thing'. Later we would invite them to hand them in for destruction which sadly the most were. I regret not getting some of the ancilary items like the leather Thompson pouches that were there in piles, but you live and learn. Talking to the old boys the Thompsons were dropped in crates by US/Brits for use by partisans as a result a lot of them arround there. Obviously the German weapons captured from the enemy. The curious thing was that most villages in our AO had Partisan graves but I did not find asingle German grave.

Regards

Jock