Bill Yenne - Tommy Gun

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Table of Contents

First of all, my thanks go to Jake Elwell, my agent, without whom this book would not exist; to Peter Joseph, my editor, whose enthusiasm for the project fulfills the hopes and dreams that Jake and I had when we cooked it up; and to my friend and fellow author, Brian Sobel, with whom I always enjoy great conversations on topics of mutual interest, and who joined me on a fascinating road trip into the world of the tommy gun that contributed so much to this project.

Anyone who writes of the history of the Thompson submachine gun must stand on the shoulders of William J. Helmer, who did his original primary research and wrote of the Thompson half a century ago when many of the original figures from Auto-Ordnance, such as George Goll and Theodore Eickhoff, were still alive and able to be interviewed. He also had access to Thompson family scrapbooks, loaned to him by the widow of Marcellus Thompson. Mr. Helmers essential work on the subject is the cornerstone of any research into the Thompson.

Thanks also to Bob Gollberg, who opened the door that led me to many excellent sourcesand who lent me his Thompson for my first-ever competition shoot. Special thanks to Doug Richardson and Gordon Herigstad, whose commitment to the technical nuances of restoration and operation of Thompsons is legendary within the community of Thompson collectors and Thompson shooters.

In Hollywood, I spoke with Jefferson Zuma Jay Wagner, and with Syd Stembridge, whose family has been in the business of providing weaponry to the motion picture industry since his great uncle, the legendary James S. Stembridge, rented guns to Cecil B. DeMille in the 1920s. Across the water in the United Kingdom, I communicated with Simon Atherton, who handed a tommy gun to Tom Hanks for him to use in Saving Private Ryan . I also sat down with Mike Gibbons, who has served as the armorer to numerousfilms, and whose firm, Gibbons, Ltd., provides firearms to half a dozen television series and three to six features a year. Among his recent films that feature Thompsons are Road to Perdition from DreamWorks, and Michael Manns Public Enemies .

From within the walls of government, I was supplied valuable information by Dr. Fred Allison, Chief of the U.S. Marine Corps Oral History Branch; Darrin Blackford of the U.S. Secret Service Office of Government and Public Affairs; John Fox, historian for the FBI; James L. Jones of the U.S. Armys Rock Island Arsenal Museum; and U.S. Secret Service Archivist Michael Sampson.

Thanks for additional pictures goes to Gina McNeely, who plumbs the depths of the National Archives on my behalf; to Herberta Herb Schroeder; and to Chuck Schauer for the use of the photograph of the tommy guns used in the St. Valentines Day Massacre that he took in the Berrien County Sheriffs Office.

For essential information and enjoyable war stories, my thanks go to Don Johnson in Brisbane, whose father, also Don Johnson, carried a Thompson with the Australian army in New Guinea; to Jason Dietsch for sharing his stories and his pictures of his visit to the Thompsons in the gun vault at the Garda headquarters in Dublin; to Joe Kubert, the creator of Sergeant Rock and a boyhood hero of mine; to Mike Hensley, who shared the contents of Theodore Eickhoffs typewritten autobiography, a document that has been in his family for over half a century; and to Nancy Weldon, who opened for me a door into the world of the companies that succeeded the Auto-Ordnance Corporation.

Two people with whom I enjoyed lengthy conversations, as well as an exchange of e-mails are Seth Nadel, a retired senior special agent with three decades of service in the United States Customs Service; and Lieutenant Mike Kline of the Berrien County, Michigan, Sheriffs Office, where, as the departments quartermaster, he is charged with the safekeeping of those two tommy guns used in the St. Valentines Day Massacre. Occasionally he even gets to shoot them.

Finally, a special thanks goes to Idan Greenberg, whose business card calls him a firearms advisor, but who is more than that. He has a wealth of information about a whole spectrum of worldwide firearms and is someone who speaks with great eloquence about the enduring place in history that is occupied by the Thompson submachine gun.

Aces High: The Heroic Saga of the Two Top-Scoring American Aces of World War II

Sitting Bull

Guinness: The 250-Year Quest for the Perfect Pint

Rising Sons: Japanese American GIs Who Fought for the United States in World War II

Indian Wars: The Campaign for the American West

On the Trail of Lewis and Clark, Yesterday and Today

The Story of the Boeing Company

Superfortress: The Boeing B-29 and American Air Power in World War II

Thompson Submachine Guns Produced Before World War II

Predecessor prototypes resembling the Thompson submachine gun included the Persuader of 1917 and the Annihilator of 1918.

M1919

There were forty serial numbers assigned to prototype Thompson submachine guns that were handmade in or about 1919, although the exact number of prototypes was probably fewer than forty. These were the first Thompson submachine guns offered for sale.

M1921

There were 15,000 serial numbers, beginning with 41, assigned to the Thompson submachine guns produced under license by Colt in 1921 as Model of 1921 (M1921). A few of these were later modified and sold with designations including M1923 and M1927 (the semiautomatic variant). Fewer than half of the original M1921s were sold as M1921s before 1928, and most of the remaining guns sold thereafter were retrofitted with various updates, including the Cutts compensator, and redesignated as M1928 guns. Birmingham Small Arms (BSA) licensed production of the Thompson submachine gun in England in the 1920s, but fewer than a dozen guns were actually produced. Bootleg Thompson submachine guns were reportedly made in China before and after World War II and in Southeast Asia after World War II.

*NOTE: For more information, the definitive reference work on the initial production batch of 15,000 Thompson submachine guns, including all M1921 and M1928 guns individually described, is Colt Thompson Serial Numbers, the 1,200-page book written by Gordon Herigstad and published by him through GordonsThompsonAccessories.com .

Thompson Submachine Guns Produced During World War II

SOURCE: Springfield Ordnance District records held in the National Archives

1940	Monthly Total	Cumulative Total
April	201	201
May	627	828
June	2,051	2,879
July	2,784	5,663
August	5,372	11,035
September	5,607	16,642
October	7,554	24,196
November	9,678	33,874
December	9,937	43,811
Total Delivered in 1940	43,811
M1928A1	100 percent

1941	Monthly Total	Cumulative Total
January	9,222	53,033
February	13,068	66,101
March	18,679	84,700
April	17,145	101,925
May	21,875	123,800

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