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Author: Grumpy
The Battle of Bouvines which was fought on 27 July 1214 in one of those endless wars between France & England. (France won this fight by the way) Grumpy
These 104th ID Timberwolves are tearing about in a captured German Stug III
assault gun. Note the MP44 assault rifle in the gunner’s shield on the left.
Public domain photo.
He was the last one. Like the dodo, the Tasmanian tiger, the passenger pigeon, or the Great Auk, William Strickland was the very last of his species. Mr. Strickland was the last of my close personal friends who served in World War II, and now he’s gone. I’m honestly struggling with that.
The man died at age 95 after a rich, long life, exceptionally well-lived. He left behind a devoted wife and expansive family along with battalions of buddies like me. He had been in the local VA nursing home. Thanks to COVID-19 he and his wife had gone a year without touching one another. On a cosmic scale that was just wrong.
Mr. Strickland was an avid student of history and enjoyed a razor-sharp mind. He described events from seven decades ago like they happened last week. There will never be another like him.
I met Mr. Strickland as a patient. I somehow found out he was a veteran and asked the standard questions. The stories that followed moved me.
Mr. Strickland landed in France in September of 1944 at the age of 19 with the 104th Infantry Division, the “Timberwolves.” Eight months later the teenager was an old man. By VE Day he was the War Daddy, the soldier the younger troops were told to stick close to if they wanted to live. War uniquely ages a man.
Mr. Strickland wasn’t really a gun guy, but he definitely knew guns. He landed packing a Garand. They called it the M1. The M1 Carbine was the Carbine, and the M1A1 Thompson was the Thompson. There was, however, always only one M1.
One night he got tagged for a night patrol and wanted something handier than that long, heavy Infantry rifle. He traded his M1 to a 37mm antitank gunner for his Thompson submachine gun and just never gave it back. He said that 37mm was worthless against the German tanks they faced, so it wasn’t like that guy needed it.
We asked so much of those awesome old guys. They were indeed the very best of us.
The Tommy gun came with five 20-round stick magazines and no web gear. Mr. Strickland carried his magazines in the pockets of his field jacket along with piles of loose .45ACP ammo. He said that during every lull in the action he would drop down behind cover and thumb rounds into his magazines. He packed an M1911A1 pistol as well and extolled the many manifest virtues of ammunition commonality.
I’ve got several tales, but this was the most poignant. They were days from the end of the war, and everyone on both sides knew it. The 104th was pulled up on one bank of the Mulde tributary of the Elbe River, while the battered remnants of the Wehrmacht occupied the other. Everybody involved wanted to run out the clock and go home. Some overachiever in the chain of command, however, decided they needed a few prisoners to interrogate. That meant one last combat patrol.
Mr. Strickland’s best friend was a kid from New York named Sol. He and Sol had been together from the beginning, and they took point going into the village. They snatched a pair of beleaguered Krauts in short order and made haste to return. However, their patrol leader was a green Lieutenant who had not yet tasted proper war. He wanted to press on and find some trouble.
Mr. Strickland and Sol found themselves together crouching behind the corner of a brick building. The two young veterans decided this was as far as they were going, orders or not. They passed word back that they were turning around. However, Sol said he was going to take one quick peek around the corner.
Mr. Strickland said he tried to talk his friend out of this. The war was over, and there was nothing in that village that was ever going to make a difference. Sol was not to be dissuaded. He stepped around the corner and immediately caught a burst of 9mm to the chest from a German MP40.
Mr. Strickland leapt around his friend and tore the offending German soldier to pieces with his Thompson. They all then scurried back into the building, Sol under his own steam. Sol then sagged against the wall, sat down heavily, and died.
There wasn’t time to mourn. Mr. Strickland pushed the captured Germans ahead and ran out the back door headed for the river. They hit a tripwire in the backyard, and the two German captives were killed by an anti-personnel mine. The rest of the patrol, now minus his best friend, made it back across the river safely. The war ended mere days later.
In those seven months the Timberwolves suffered 4,961 casualties. In the same timeframe Mr. Strickland earned three Bronze Stars for Valor and a Purple Heart. When he returned home, he sought out Sol’s family in New York and told them what a great friend he had been. Even in his nineties Mr. Strickland was still justifiably bitter about that last patrol.
If you have old people in your life who are special, seek them out. Parents, mentors, friends, or heroes, believe me when I tell you that you are all on the clock. The opportunities to soak up their experience and wisdom are transient and fleeting. I will be forever grateful to call William Strickland a friend. They’ll never make another like him.
The No. 4 Lee-Enfield rifle carried Commonwealth troops
through World War II. It was rugged, accurate, and fast.
They say that the first step toward freeing oneself from addiction is admitting you have a problem. I do formally announce such today in this venue. By way of explanation, I offer the following anecdote:
Collectors are drawn to firearms for a wide variety of reasons. Just like some might favor blondes while others are inexplicably partial to brunettes or redheads, gun nerds typically have a favorite genre. Mine is classic military weapons.
Little gets my blood pumping faster than some cool vintage martial firearm. The weirder and more obscure, the better. The only way to improve on that is for the gun in question to manifest some cool story as well. As such, I am ever on the prowl.
The best of the lot might sport the actual stigmata of combat. Military weapons used by troops in action carry an almost holy ambience. At some point, some young man clutched such a trinket amidst the most intense of human experiences. The fear, anger and exhilaration associated with combat are unparalleled in the human experience. The weapons used in such action carry just a little bit of that secret sauce back with them to more peaceful spaces.
This particular No. 4 Lee-Enfield was, at some point in its service life, blown up. Despites its being objectively worthless, I just had to have it.
Back Story
The rifle in question was a GunBroker find. For those of you who might not have had the pleasure, GunBroker.com is a 24/7 coast-to-coast gun show. If you cannot find it on GunBroker, you really don’t need it.
GunBroker itself has a fascinating history. Just before the turn of the millennium, eBay decided to do some virtue signaling and prohibited the sale of firearms on their website. In response, Steven Urvan started GunBroker, a dedicated auction site catering to firearm enthusiasts. GunBroker has never sold a gun; They just connect legal sellers and buyers across the country and around the world. Their business model turned out to be fairly sound.
Today, GunBroker.com has six million registered users and averages seven million visitors per month. They list about a million guns and gun-related items at any given time. They used to have a dedicated iPhone app before Apple kicked them off the App Store. Now, you have to access GunBroker on your phone via web browser.
With literally billions in cumulative sales, GunBroker.com is the third-largest auction site on the internet, right after eBay and eBay Motors. It’s counted among the top 400 most popular websites ever. In retrospect, perhaps eBay and Apple just don’t like money.
Whatever struck this thing, a piece of shrapnel from an artillery round most likely, did a serious job on the barrel and forearm.
A Certifiable Piece of Junk
Anyway, the gun in question was a nice British No. 4 Lee-Enfield. The No. 4 was a World War II vintage evolutionary development of the previous Short Magazine Lee Enfield (SMLE). British Tommies affectionately referred to the SMLE as the Smelly. Both guns remained in production throughout WWII. At a glance, you can differentiate between the two rifles by the muzzle. That of the Smelly is flat, while the No. 4 muzzle sports a stubby bit of barrel.
The No. 4 was a bit cheaper and faster to make and saw service with Commonwealth troops in all theaters of war. This particular example had a nice action and a well-preserved finish. It had also been blown up.
At some point in its military service, this particular rifle had been subjected to the kinetic effects of some kind of fragmenting weapon. The wooden forearm was shattered, and the barrel cocked off at a jaunty angle. There were deep gouges in the steel. The action still worked fine, but firing this weapon would have transformed the rifle into a bomb. The old vintage gun was a certifiable piece of junk, yet I absolutely had to have it.
In my defense, there aren’t a whole lot of idiots like me wandering the world. Therefore, I got the derelict old gun cheap. It transferred in painlessly via my C&R FFL and now resides comfortably in the corner of my man space. I pawed over the shattered implement of destruction, mentally cataloged its many battle scars, and let my mind wander as to the specifics of their origin. The seller had found the gun in an estate sale and had no idea of its story. I had to fill in the details myself. Fortunately, I have a vivid imagination.
It’s quite possibly the most worthless gun thing that I own. While I could theoretically re-barrel the rifle and source a fresh stock, that would be stupid. That onerous chore would require some special tools and special talent. The restoration project would cost far more than a comparable original rifle in good shape might be. It would also further ruin this already ruined rifle. The intrinsic value of this beat-up old gun stems from its many mechanical warts.
If I had it to do all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m still glad I threw a couple of hundred bucks away on this battered old combat veteran rifle. It has absolutely no practical utility, but it looks cool in a quirky sort of way. As my sunset years approach, I might just aspire to something similar myself.