Soldiers bringing back weapons

[Flannelman]

To all the vets in this thread thank you for your service we are all deeply in your debt.

My step grandfather was in the Army Air Corps as support staff in North Africa and followed through into Italy. He was present as the German army laid down arms. He said there was piles of every arm the Germans made. He picked out a Luger and mailed it home. He also had a k98 I believe(maybe a G-43 I'm not positive Hes been gone 9yrs) that was stolen out of his footlocker in transit from Europe. The Luger is still around but I need to go through it to make sure its safe to fire since it hasn't been shot in years.

 

[villagelightsmith]

Hmm! I would sure like to find a footlocker full of Martini Cadets! Legal, of course.

 

[xxjumbojimboxx]

Lots of rich history in this thread. My heart go out to all the guys here who've recently, and not so recently lost loved ones. The story about the officer bringing home that orphaned baby is absolutly incredible. Sometimes the sentiment on this site is better then anything youll see on TV.

 

[Grapevine]

When I returned home from Viet Nam in 1971, I brought a SKS with me. I still have the War Throphy Registration, Temporary Export License and a copy of my orders with the ammendment showing that the rifle was registered. After I had been back home for about 3 months, I received the Export License from the Republic of Viet Nam. This is written in Vietnamese on very thin rice paper with the official seal and letterhead. In 1971, 7.62 "Russian Short" ammo was very difficult to find. I had a 7.62x54 Russian Lee hand loader turned down and had 10 7.65 Belgium rounds resized so I would have something to shoot. I spent more time looking for brass in the grass than I ever spent shooting. The rifle was/is rough with mismatched serial numbers and I'm pretty sure that the paperwork is worth more than the gun itself.

Grapevine
Phu Cat AB 70-71

 

[Ryanxia]

Good thread here, very interesting. Thanks to all who have served.

 

[PlayTheAces]

Wow, I can sure relate to this thread.

My dad brought back a FN Browning from the WWII. He left it with relatives when he went off to college. When he went back to retrieve his gun, the relatives claimed they didn't know what had become of it.

Like JMR40, I still have dad's capture papers for it. Anyone seen a Browning with a S/N of 39634?

Didn't think so.

 

[22250Rem]

Earlier in this thread I mentioned the Luger that my uncle brought home from Germany in 1945 and I inherited in 2002. He never had capture papers for it and we theorized that it was because the war was over when he acquired it. Then I noticed the O.P.'s capture paper picture and it's dated 15 Feb. 1946. Germany surrendered May 8th 1945 IIRC so it looks like they were still issuing capture papers after the surrender. I guess that shoots our theory. My uncle was in the Army Air Force and of German descent and also knew fluent German. When Germany surrendered Uncle Sam immedietly went in and cleaned out the V-2 rocket factory, ( the Mittlewerks at Nordhausen) and shipped everything back to the states. My Uncle acted as a translator dealing with some of the German civilians who were hired to help pack everything up. He got the Luger out of a glass display case in an office area of the plant that also held a large Nazi parade flag. It's a shame he never got capture papers for it as they would be provenance of where the gun came from; and now I know that they WERE giving out those papers after surrender. It just wound up in that P38 holster and got tossed into the duffel bag. This is a real interesting thread for me 'cause now I know that he probably could have got papers for it and it would have been pretty cool to prove that it really DID come out of the V2 Rocket factory.

 

[shootist2121]

The times have change so.. My father was Navy Amphibs in WW2 , served as one of many Beach Masters on Omaha Beach. Sent to the Pacific, eventually ended up in Korea for the invasion of Japan. Was issued his "Invasion pack" consisted of his 45, four grenades, Thompson, gas mask, rations, etc. Bomb was dropped.. Told his chief to send everything home...a few weeks later there it was in St.Louis.. Funny, when he contacted the Navy Reserve Station, it was only after asked what to do with the grenades did they come and get the Thompson and grenades. The 45 he couldn't give them if his life depended as they had stacks of them.

The times....

 

[CSC_Saint]

LeadCounsel is very correct in that it is very difficult/ damn near impossible to smuggle back any kind of trophy. Now he is mistaken in that gun parts are not allowed as customs does let you pass with certain parts. mags/grips/bayonets are ok. Not so much on bolts/barrels/etc. Customs is ridiculously thorough about their searches in Kuwait, but their hit and miss on vehicle and container searches. They had us pull and dump everything in our containers coming out of Iraq, even checked every pocket. But barely glanced inside our containers leaving Afghanistan. Just depends on the customs agent I guess.

The one thing that I really wanted to make it back from Afghanistan was a pistol mag that took a round for me on my side, still had the bullet in it, and in a later incident that ended up with me being medevaced so I didn't get to explain the mag to customs, just got a note in my box that said they took it because of the bullet stuck in it. Half inch left or right and I'd be toast, but at least I got the mag pouch.

 

[breakingcontact]

I know a guy who shipped a jeep home...wait...that was MASH.

 

[backbencher]

LeadCounsel is very correct in that it is very difficult/ damn near impossible to smuggle back any kind of trophy. Now he is mistaken in that gun parts are not allowed as customs does let you pass with certain parts. mags/grips/bayonets are ok. Not so much on bolts/barrels/etc...Just depends on the customs agent I guess.

The one thing that I really wanted to make it back from Afghanistan was a pistol mag that took a round for me on my side, still had the bullet in it, and in a later incident that ended up with me being medevaced so I didn't get to explain the mag to customs, just got a note in my box that said they took it because of the bullet stuck in it.

AR/Beretta mags are allowed - @ this time. AK mags may or may not be, depending on the agent. Technically, AK mags are not supposed to go.

Ammunition is not allowed to go home. Hence, they took your bullet. Glad you're ok.

 

[BrotherFrankie]

radar from mash sent a jeep home in the mail, piece by piece... LOL

(my did did have a luger from korea i think he brought back)


edit.. sorry just read breaking contacts post.. sheesh im old)

 

[hueytaxi]

Brought home an SKS in 1970, required an export permit:

http://smg.photobucket.com/user/hueytaxi/media/wartrophyregistrationb_zpsd955d4fc.jpg.html][ATTACH=full]668100[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=full]668099[/ATTACH]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v23/hueytaxi/wartrophyregistrationb_zpsd955d4fc.jpg

 

[JShirley]

Cool. Were these originals or Afghan copies?

for a few bucks each? Copies. You'd have an extremely difficult time just finding originals.

 

[Archaic]

What a great thread. Thanks for all of the stories guys, keep them coming.

 

[savhmustang80]

Bringbacks

Guys- some things are better left not talked about. A lot of people would go nuts if they knew half the stuff that made it back in the early days from the sandbox- without papers.

 

[MI2600]

In the early 80s, you could still bring back weapons from Germany. They to be inspected by the military police and there was an ATF form involved for customs clearance.

We bought over forty (unfortunately in my name) new Walther P-5s direct from the Walther factory. They had been purchased by various Wing/Base commanders and security police. I'm still waiting for ATF to come knocking some day.

 

[FuzzyBunny]

One day I'm watering my flowers and I hear the distinctive crack/thump of high explosives. I told my neighbor that was no gunshot!

Lady bought an older home across from the police station. She decided to put in a garden. While diging she turned up a pineappe grenade! Bomb squad from the big city came out and put a dab of C4 in it then covered it up in a pile of sand bags and blew it in place. I was 4 blocks away. This was a few years ago and this is an old town where almost everyone walking went to WWII.

I would love to go through her crawl spaces and attic but I'm sure many 3 letter agencies already have.

Get in touch with all the estate sale agents in your area. The ones that come in and count and add up the value of the stuff the dead person had and then sell them off. Almost every one has a "presale" date where they invite dealers and collectors a day early. Tell them you are collector of military items and to add them to the list. When they find footlockers and boxes of military gear they will call you. Amazing what turns up with 3 to 5 WWII vets dieing per day now.

 

[Averageman]

A friend was working on a weapons system and following some suspect wires and ka thunk out falls a makarov.
The crap that came out of that was a sight to see. MP's CID etc.
Based on the rust and crud I would imagine it had been tucked away since the first Gulf War and someone was afraid or had forgotten about it.
I did see one higher ranking moron's career nose dive in to a forced retirement due to a pistol hidden away.
I don't think it happens often anymore unless the weapons are for war museums.

 

[gopguy]

I have a buddy who is a USMC Colonel. He tried to bring back a bayonet from Iraq and they took the blade, let him have the scabbard. We have gotten so PC silly in this country and afraid of a sharp stick its stupid.

 

[armoredman]

When I returned from the Gulf in '88 they told us we had to declare anything we brought back. I had some knick knacks I had purchased in Hong Kong, Korea and the Philippines - we had been warned severely about trying to bring back guns or drugs. Not interested in drugs, and didn't find a single gun for sale, dang it.
We had NO customs inspection, just a form to fill out and turn in stating "I have nothing to declare"...that was it. No shakedown, no look see, no x-ray, no drug dog, no NOTHING, nada. Coulda tucked a T-34 in the hold and nobody in Customs would have noticed it...

 

[herrwalther]

Ugh. I have a bitter sweat time hearing about the good old days. Vets keeping their service weapons from WWII, Korea etc. When I came back from Afghanistan, all I had were a few knives I picked up from Pakistan, Bagram, and Manas AFB. Didn't have to fill out any paperwork for them, was just the Spanish Inquisition from the MPs going through customs to make sure they weren't war trophies. We and all our luggage was sent through a metal detector, Xray, and hand searched by an MP. Benefit of that is I they found a unit patch in one of my pockets that I thought I had lost. My only legit war trophy other than trying to bring back sentimental pieces of shrapnel was a destroyed Tokarev pistol made in Pakistan. Did all the paperwork, customs, JAG, chain of command and etc loopholes. Still taken away since it wasn't going to be a unit trophy. Probably made it stateside for someone, just not me.

 

[backbencher]

A friend was working on a weapons system and following some suspect wires and ka thunk out falls a makarov.
The crap that came out of that was a sight to see. MP's CID etc.
Based on the rust and crud I would imagine it had been tucked away since the first Gulf War and someone was afraid or had forgotten about it.
I did see one higher ranking moron's career nose dive in to a forced retirement due to a pistol hidden away.
I don't think it happens often anymore unless the weapons are for war museums.

Only legal antiques, & you have to mail them home, not bring them through Customs.

 

[HexHead]

My father in law had a Luger he brought back from WWII. He was a code breaker in Italy, and won it in a crap game on the troopship home.

It was "lost" for years, and turned up in the 80s in the drawer of a table out in the garage that had a bunch of stuff stacked on it. My business partner had a couple of Lugers, so he cleaned and oiled it and we took it to the range. in the 90's I asked my FIL about it, but he'd sold it to my ex-partner after we'd moved away. About two years ago, I found my ex-partner on Facebook and asked him if he'd sell me the Luger, as my wife wanted her "daddy's gun from the war" back.

He told me he'd sold it to a local doctor about six months earlier, the doctor was a collector who really wanted his Swiss artillery Luger. He offered to explain the situation to the doctor and see if he would sell it to my wife. He found that the doctor had gotten dementia, didn't recall the gun and his family had sold all his guns to some gun dealer in San Francisco. That was the end of that.

 

[cologuy]

I never got to bring back any weapons, but I did help find and restore someone else's "bringback". In 1999 some of us were detailed to inspect an old unused bomb dump at (unnamed Air Force base on East Coast) to see if it could be returned to use. Lots of empty igloos and storage buildings with lots of interesting wildlife, but in one of the last igloos we found a 463L pallet full of packing crates. We opened the biggest one, and we knew we'd found some sort of weapon, so we called the small arms maintenance guys that we knew and they drove out to look it over. By the end of the day, we'd assembled a complete 14.5mm Soviet AA machine gun, complete with tripod, sights, tool kits, etc, along with several AK-47's, some RPG's (empty) and other toys. The best part was that we actually found about 80 rounds of 14.5mm ammo that one of the maintenance guys had stashed away (you do NOT want to know where he got it!) and we got to take it to the range and fire it! We were trying to figure out how to keep all the goodies but one guy got cold feet and called someone, so that ended that.

The AF OSI folks told us later that they traced the pallet and crates with some paperwork they found, and it turns out an aircrew had packed the stuff onboard their C-141 right after the Grenada invasion in 1983, but apparently they chickened out when they returned to the States and talked the bomb dump guys into storing it for them. Don't know if anybody was prosecuted, but we were only scolded for firing the MG. Totally worth it, though.