What Rifle?

S

Stan

Senior Member
This photo of the polar bear on a U-Boat popped up again on another forum. I always wondered what rifle the man in the center is holding. Looks like a Swedish M38 with the bottom mounted sling, but no stock disc noted. Spanish M1916? Think they had a side sling arrangement. Did the German Navy use either of those rifles?
 

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Stan said:
This photo of the polar bear on a U-Boat poped up again on another forum. I always wondered what rifle the man in the center is holding. Looks like a Swedish M38 with the bottom mounted sling, but no stock disc noted. Spanish M1916? Think they had a side sling arrangement. Did the German Navy use either of those rifles?
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Hi Stan,
Judging by the barrel jacket and protruding box magazine, it appears to be a captured Belgian Mle 1889 carbine. Since it doesn't have the 1916 stacking awivel, which usually was mounted high on the stock, the carbine is likley not the Mle 1889/16.

I wonder how that thick-skinned white monster reacted to irratating bursts of 9 m/m slugs from the Schmeisser? Good thing there were two rifleman there....or maybe they used their 20 m/m AA gun on the bear. Or maybe a torpedo. :)

Great photo. Thanks for sharing it!
Regards,
John
 
Great photo indeed, and what John said. I hate to seem soft and too PETA in my old age, but polar bears are mighty cool and it saddens me to see that one shot for little reason. Probably it was swimming between bergs or something, looking for a seal to eat. A 9mm would eventually take it out, but that chap is probably just posing with a handy weapon, not one used on the bear.

What's bizarre is I didn't think so much about the ships that crew torpedoed as I did that bear. Kind of embarrassing.

Thanks for posting the pic.
 
Thanks for the replies! I think the Belgian 1889 carbine is more plausible than the Swedish M-38 that I thought it was! I think the sling was hiding that magazine box a little.
A related photo shows the crew skinning the beast on deck. So maybe some bear steaks for the crew.... and perhaps a polar bearskin rug for the torpedo room????
 
Hambone said:
Great photo indeed, and what John said. I hate to seem soft and too PETA in my old age, but polar bears are mighty cool and it saddens me to see that one shot for little reason. Probably it was swimming between bergs or something, looking for a seal to eat. A 9mm would eventually take it out, but that chap is probably just posing with a handy weapon, not one used on the bear.

What's bizarre is I didn't think so much about the ships that crew torpedoed as I did that bear. Kind of embarrassing.

Thanks for posting the pic.
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Ham,
You seem to be a bit embarrassed by your reaction to this. No need - I feel exactly the same as you - PETA has nothing to do with it.....:thumbsup:
 
In the early 1950s I borrowed a book on German weather stations from he Concord NH public library in which it was mentioned in passing that weather station personnel requested .45s as protection against polar bears. Unfortunately I did not make a note of the title at the time. For some reason that stuck in my head and although I went back and did a thorough search of the subject catalog 20 years later I couldn't find the book... probably discarded.

I'm not so sure that a .45 would do the job in any case but evidently the Germans thought it might.
 
denny gaither said:
Ham,
You seem to be a bit embarrassed by your reaction to this. No need - I feel exactly the same as you - PETA has nothing to do with it.....:thumbsup:
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Thanks Denny. I do know that if that polar bear caught one of those U-boat chaps out on the open ice, he would be run down and eaten. A polar bear wouldn't miss one of us as a meal, but they're still majestic noble animals just doing what nature wired them to do.

Found another pic.
 

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Winchester Cowboy said:
U-601

Sunk 25 Feb, 1944 in the Arctic Ocean north-west of Narvik, Norway, in position 70.26N, 12.40E, by depth charges from a British Catalina aircraft (Sqdn. 210/M). 51 dead (all hands lost).

http://uboat.net/boats/u601.htm
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Good info. WC, thanks! Bad juju to the crew for doing that to the polar bear. Would be pretty ironic if some of the surviving crew were devoured by polar bears. That would be a grime way to go, slowly pursued across ice by a plodding polar bear who knows you're going to get tired well before he does.
 
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