SAR 18#6

ADVERTISER’S INDEX
10 Ace Limited
83 Americansnipers.org
4 Apex Gun Parts
3 Barnes Bullets, LLC
115 Battle Arms Development, Inc.
12 / 13 Battle Arms Development, Inc.
78 Black Hills Ammunition
33 Chipotle Publishing, LLC
28 Dealernfa, Inc.
109 Dillon Precision Products
111 DS Arms Inc.
59 Elite K9 Cop
96 Elite Survival Systems
106 Elzetta Design, LLC
108 Galati International
116 Gemtech
63 Global Security Asia
81 Gun Mountain
90 Gun Mountain
82 Indo Defence
25 J & T Distributing
49 K9 Cop
104 KNS Precision Inc.
66 Langlotz Patent Works, Inc.
40 Leupold & Stevens, Inc.
97 Lone Wolf Distributors
2 LWRC International
94 Molon Labe
54 Nightforce USA
11 NRA
5 Ohio Ordnance Works, Inc.
41 Ohio Ordnance Works, Inc.
61 Precision Weapons Corp.
103 RDTS Manufacturing
58 Rock Island Auction
32 SAR West
110 Shooter's Book
99 Small Arms Defense Journal
88 Small Arms Review
98 Soldier of Fortune
92 Spyderco, Inc.
87 SRT Arms
105 SSK Industries
69 Sun Devil Manufacturing
107 Thompson Machine
114 www.smallarmsreview.com
SAR Vol. 18, No. 6 112 Nov., Dec. 2014
EMMAGEEMAN’S
CORNER
Machine Gun
Memorabilia
BY ROBERT G. SEGEL
1) White Russian (Russians with Tsarist sympathies
in the period immediately following the Russian
revolution 1917-1919) handmade machine gun
company headquarters flag of black velvet material
with white stitched image of Colt Automatic Gun and
abbreviated Cyrillic text reading “3rd Special Machine
Gun Company Colt.” Flag is approximately
2 feet square.
2) South African Regiment Louw Wepener metal
and enamel arm flashes. Yellow, black and white
enamel on gold gilt metal backing. Left and right
facing Vickers water-cooled machine guns against a
stylized view of the mountain fortress at Thaba Bosigo.
Each has three straight pins to rear. Regiment
Louw Wepener was one of six Afrikaans-speaking
Active Citizen Force regiments established in 1934
as part of the expansion of the Union Defence
Forces. Recruits were drawn from the Orange Free
State. The regiment was named after the Free State
commandant, Louw Wepener, who was killed in
1865 during the 2nd Orange Free State—Basuto
War at Thaba Bosigo, the former mountain stronghold
of Moshoeshoe, founder of the Basuto nation.
The Regiment was absorbed into Regiment President
Steyn at the start of WWII, which served as
a machine gun battalion with the 1st South African
Division in North Africa in 1941.
3) Italian World War I veteran’s armband from the
inter-war period showing the FIAT Revelli Model
1914 machine gun with the red and blue collar insignia
of the two different machine gun divisions.
The letter “A” in the Red sections represents “Association”
and the “N” in the blue section represents
“National” denoting the “Associazine Nazionale
Mitraglieri” or the “National Association of Machine
Gunners.” Beneath that is “Mitraglieri della Regina”
or The Queen’s Machinegunners.” The red with
white stripes side represents the collar insignia for
the “Reparto Autonomo Divisional Migraglieri FIAT
(The Autonomous Department FIAT Machine Gun
Division) and the blue with white stripes side represent
the collar insignia for the division that used the
St. Etienne machine gun. Further around the back
of the armband shows Fascist columns to the right
and left. The Armband is connected together at the
rear by two elastic bands.
4) Remembrance lapel button that reads around the
edge, “Australia Day 1917” to the top and “Somewhere
in France” to the bottom. The central image
is of a silhouetted Australian Machine Gun Corps
soldier manning a Vickers machine gun. Attached is
a red ribbon with a blue tin map image of Australia
that also reads “Australia Day 1917.” The button is
side maker marked “A.W. Patrick Maker, 440 RAF
St., NH Fitzroy, Melbourne.”