78th (Highlanders) Regiment of Foot (The Ross-shire Buffs): Raised in Scotland in 1793 by Francis Humberston Mackenzie. It fought in the French Revolutionary Wars, the Second Maratha War (Battle of Assaye), the Napoleonic Wars, the Anglo-Persian War, and the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 (earning in that fight 8 Victoria Crosses).
It was amalgamated with the 72nd Seaforth (Highland) Regiment in 1881 to form the 2nd Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders.
The quest for treasure has consumed human imagination for centuries, whether buried pirate gold or submerged, shipwrecked Spanish doubloons. But what about finding long-lost firepower? Florida-based Bowman Arms says it’s bringing a load of surplus Thompson submachine guns to the market after they spent decades “submerged” in a secret location.
Bowman Arms hasn’t said the actual location of these submachine guns, but originally, they were Model 1928 Thompsons owned by the British military in World War II. After World War II, the Brits packed them with grease and hid them away—they stored them so carefully that according to Bowman, they figured the Brits planned to come back for them later.
Bowman showed the Thompsons in a thread on Reddit, starting off with these details:
“These are British surplus WW2 (Model 1928) Thompsons. Dumped on 1946 at a now submerged zero oxygen Alpine location. Recovery efforts are slow but all will be saved through time. These fire after simple power washing and often times are still covered in oil and grease.”
That’s purposefully vague, and it sounds like wherever these guns were wasn’t originally flooded. Maybe they were in an old mountaintop bunker or a mine?
Some of the first-recovered sub-guns were pitted, but functional, says Bowman. And, hard as it may be to believe, there are thousands at the dump site, wherever it may be—”Almost the entire British supply of 1928 Thompsons,” they figure.
That’s a lot of surplus Tommy guns, and Bowman says that despite the indignities that must be performed to bring these full autos into the States, they have a market for them. Once they’ve met customer demand in the U.S., they plan to sell them in the EU as well, as dewats. And, Bowman says “We hope to by then store them in an FTZ stateside to save them.”
Oh I don’t know but maybe because the only thing between the White House and some REALLY TOUGH Troops were a small bunch of want to be part timers? All in all this was not a glorious page in our History!
Grumpy
While researching the National Archives for “American Rifleman Television,” I came across a method of “supplemental” marksmanship training taught at Fort Hood in late 1942 or 1943 called “Battle Fire” (shown above).
It is rudimentary or embryonic form of point shooting designed for close combat, and it is not just with the M1911. The officer instructor runs his troops through the pistol, the M1928A1 Thompson submachine gun, the M1903 Springfield (point shooting from the hip with a bolt-action) and then the M1919 Browning air-cooled machine gun. The instructor indicates this method was used effectively in “the Solomons,” referring of course to early American battles to retake the Pacific.
The NRA Certified Instructor inside me winced a few times watching this grainy film from more than 70 years ago, but it is an important footnote in the evolution of combat marksmanship.
Point shooting was, of course, taught by Col. Rex Applegate starting when he was with the Office of Strategic Services and is a big part of his close combat training codified in his landmark book, “Kill or Get Killed.”