Photo notes: Unidentified soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, New Zealand Rifle Brigade, enjoy reading the recently published New Zealand at the Front while seated on a captured German anti-tank gun. Photo taken at ‘Clapham Junction’, a muddy part of the battlefield in Belgium on 20 November 1917. Photo by Henry Armytage Sanders. [1]
Books
I have undoubtedly spent more money on books than I have on all things Enfield, combined. I buy books on guns and bayonets that I am interested in, and after that it is just a short step to anything related to the times that item was in service. I snap up books written for specialists whenever I can, some scarce, some rare, most out-of-print, many hard-to-find, as well as a few unobtanium. I pick up books written a long time ago so I have a better understanding of what the world looked like to the people who lived through it. And I pick up books because I never know what I am going to find. Who would have thought that Sniping in France (Hesketh-Prichard, 1915) would have a chapter on Training the Portuguese, when I was having a tough time finding anything about the long-overlooked Portuguese on the Western Front during WWI?
As the Enfield-Stuff stories get written, I can start letting go of the rifles and bayonets – as well as some of the books and reference materials that I used to research these Old Soldiers. I hope you learn as much from them as I did.
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BOOKS FOR SALE
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GERMAN MILITARY ABBREVIATIONS (1943)
This is a Service Publications (1991-2017) (Ottawa, Canada) reprint of a 1943 US Army publication. Softcover. 246 pages, digest size (about 5.5 X 7.75 inches; 14x19 cm). CONDITION: Clean, tight, unmarked, in almost-new condition. ISBN 9780969984504 / 0969984502.
An alphabetical listing of over 6,800 military abbreviations used by the German Wehrmacht during WWII (1939-1945) followed by the full German text and the English translations. Includes a section on unit markings and abbreviations, as well as a helpful introduction.
Whether you’re a collector or a military historian, a very useful reference book to have at hand. You won’t find all this information collected in one place, much less as well organized, on any website on the planet. Which is why I bought this book. You should, too.
Price: $25 |
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HANDBOOK OF MILITARY RIFLE MARKS 1866-1950
If you collect – or you’re even thinking of collecting – old military rifles, you need this book. The authors looked at hundreds of military rifles and combed through every book they could find to compile a concise publication with detailed drawings of military markings, accompanied by identifying the rifle it was found on. (Example: “#52: SS acceptance mark on the left chamber of an S/27 made K98k dated 1938.”)
The books starts with Argentina and – sixty-nine countries later – finishes with Yugoslavia. Even the military rifles of the Papal States are included. Includes an appendix of numerals in Western (1,2,3 etc.), Roman, Kanji-Chinese, Thai, Farsi, Egyptian Arabic and Nepali, as well as Russian (Cyrillic) Alphabet with English Equivalents.
Softcover; sixty pages, b/w illustrations. Mapleleaf Militaria Publications, St. Louis, MO, USA, 1998. No ISBN. SIGNED by both Hoffman and Schott. Good condition; front and back covers have begun to curl from use. (If you go to the Enfield-Stuff website page on Government Marks, you’ll see at least nineteen reasons why this book is a must-have for collectors.)
Price: $35 |
Page Notes & Sources
[1] Photo notes: : Photograph courtesy of Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association; New Zealand official negatives, World War 1914-1918. G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22539048
New Zealand at the Front, (printed Cassell & Company, London, 1917-1918, published in two volumes, 1917 and 1918 “…is a collection of illustrations, poems and stories written by the men of the New Zealand Division stationed in France…The contributions for this book have come from Trench, Dug-out, and Billet. They are the offspring of the Battlefield."