I wonder...On the M1911 Forum...

[sheepherder]

...Are there German guys asking questions about the captured .45 autos their fathers/grandfathers passed down to them???

[alanint]

Not very likely, as all good Germans turned in virtually every weapon to the military governors post war.
These operations, which usually went something like rounding up the Burgermeister and giving him orders that all weapons in the town were to be piled up in the town square yielded incredible finds. GIs who were involved in these operations tell tales of everything from modern weapons to medieval armor being turned over.
One of the few commertial Colt Walkers extant, complete in case with a hand written note from Samuel Colt was acquired this way.

[nukem556]

the horror!....the horror! J. Conrad

[alanint]

Not for many lucky GIs!!!!

[MikeP]

I got a nice older drilling from a friend who had it handed to him by anold man heading to the turn in point.
Those piles were the source of most vet souveniers.

I grew up surrounded by WW1 and WW2 vets and heard lots of good stories about acquired loot.
I had a pretty good collection before I got out of high school.
I got a HSc my dad acquired somewhere.

It was interesting to me that the WW1 vets, including both my grandfathers brought very little back except their own stuff.

I snuck back a .45 I carried in RVN.

[Lugerdoc]

Mike, I kept a foul-weather jacket from my ship during the VN conflict, and they sent me a bill for it about 6 months later. Unfortunately, it no longer fits. TH

[John Sabato]

MikeP

Being retired Army myself, I know many peers who brought back things from RVN...

I would be very interested to know the method you used to bring back a .45 from there

----------------

Not sure if I have told this story on the forum before, but an acquaintence of mine brought back two .45 Autos... he acquired them from a crate in a bunker that was abandoned in a hurry by NVA troops. Obviously they had been obtained (stolen) by the previous owners, and surely they had been written off as combat losses (At least I would think so).

To get them home he went down to the local Artillery unit and took 2 ea. 105mm howitzer empty casings... He had EOD mark them as DeMilled after drilling a hole in the side of them (where the lamp cord would eventually protrude) .... then he took them to a vietnamese machine shop and had them turned and polished into bright brass lamp bases... sort of trench art if you will.

He made no secret of the fact that he would be sending the lamps home as a Christmas gift to his wife.

Prior to the shipment however, he disassembled the pistols and put all the parts into the bottom of the lamp bases. Then he poured molten lead into the lamp casings so they would be bottom heavy and not so likely to get turned over... just enough lead to cover the parts...

Even x-rays wouldn't penetrate the lead weights in the lamps. Once he returned to the states and was discharged, he waited until his wife went out and disassembled the lamps. Placed each of them on a kitchen stove burner and let them sit on the heat until the lead was molten. Then he poured out the lead and retrieved the parts... probably not an easy process but it was successful....viola! Two .45 pistol war souveniers.

He even managed to put the lamps back together! It probably took a lot of polishing to get rid of the discoloration from melting the lead.

Never underestimate the ingenuity of a determined GI...

In case you are wondering, I am not the guy the story is about. While most of my peers were serving in Southeast Asia, the Army had me doing other things in East Africa!

I have lost track of the guy who told me the story and showed me the .45's. I haven't seen him in almost 25 years... they sure were nice looking lamps though... he wouldn't sell me the lamps OR the guns! Imagine that!

[policeluger]

The only thing I brought back was myself.......and happy to do that

[Ice]

I brought back a piece of shrapnal that they pulled out of my back and all of my body parts still function so thats enough souvenier for me. Still with I could have brought that Tokarev home.

Charlie

[tudorbug]

I served in the 129th Main Suport Company, 1967-1968, first located in Cam Ranh Bay and ending up in Quang Tri in the I Corps Tactical Zone in support of efforts to relieve Khe Sanh. We did some minor electronics maintence work for a Captain who became a company commander in a brigade of the 1st Air Cav and we also provided a shower unit for his soldiers when they returned from the field in one instance.

In return, after an operation in the Au Shau Valley, he bought to me a bolt action rifle still wrapped and in cosmolin that was part of a stock captured along with the truck it was being carried on. I don't know now what kind of rifle it was.

I believe I could have carried it back to the States but I was within days of rotation and didn't have time to obtain the necessary approval for the shipment of the rifle through the administrative process in Saigon. I ended up giving it to the battalion XO.

Many times since, I have wished I had been able to keep that rifle. It would have been a really nice souvenir.

David

[sheepherder]

I came home from WestPac twice in 1971; the second time was on a C9 carrying injured/wounded home to area hospitals...No customs...No baggage inspection...

The first time I came home was on the "Freedom Bird"; we went through customs at an air base in Hawaii [Hickam?] and we all piled out of the aircraft with our seabags & ditty-bop bags on the tarmac, lined up in formation but spread out a bit...and customs agents went through your bags...they had an "Amnesty Box" which they suggested you use because they *would* find your contraband...I didn't have anything (I was on compassionate emergency leave - my father died) but others did...The pile of seized stuff was six feet high when I was checked and told to reboard the plane...

As far as I know, no one was detained or written up...but there sure was a mess of spilled uniforms on the tarmac for a while...

The second time for me was due to an injury...and I only had time for a ditty-bop bag of stuff...The rest of my uniforms boots etc were scattered all over Okinawa...Laundry girls; shoe-shine boys; loaned stuff...My buddies packed it all up and it was shipped home as "Household Effects"...by ship, I think...It didn't get home for a month or so after I did...

My buddies packed my M16 bayonet in with my stuff...It made it...