History Comes Knocking

Our friendly neighborhood UPS man came by yesterday and left two heavy, long packages with Darwin's name on them. I'm told the girls wanted to open them themselves, but Mommy prevented them, and so the contents were not discovered until evening.

The contents consisted of a German K98 Mauser and a Russian 91/30 Mosin Nagant rifle, both manufactured in 1942 (the Russian one I'm sure on, the date is stamped on it, but the German one might have been manufactured in late 1941, I'm still researching) -- and since the Mauser is one of the few made with an enlarged trigger guard to allow a soldier wearing gloves to fire it, it's probably a good bet that both were headed for the Eastern Front around the time of Stalingrad.

They need some good cleaning up, but both appear to be in pretty good condition. The girls are thrilled -- perhaps a little two thrilled as the first thing they asked me early this morning was: "Where are your guns, Daddy? Can we see them again?"

I've informed girls that guns are locked away until the weekend when Daddy will work on cleaning them. Good to seem them showing and interest, but there's a definite limit how much interest in guns a 2.5 and 3.5 year old should have...

I'm thinking the 1-2 year goal is to get one each of the combat rifles issued by the major powers in the European theatre in WW2, which means I still need an Enfield and an M1 Garand. We shall see.