WWII 50 Cal Casing?

kelpike

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Dec 4, 2011
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Agawam, Massachusetts
I recently found a hood ornament (actually rad cap) from a 1928 Buick. In the same yard I found this shell casing. The headstamp is DM 43. I found a site http://www.nebraskaaircrash.com/50caliber.html to help ID it but that just tells where it was made and what year. Do you guys think this was brought back from the war? Any other thoughts would also be appreciated.
 

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That's a .50 cal, 1943 vintage...I've found casings before, the bullet itself...and a live round a couple weeks ago, so yeah, they're out there...Nice find!
 
But the question remains, was it brought back from the war.
I would say it was, I mean, what is the likelyhood someone was shooting a 50 cal (1/2 inch) gun in your yard? This is pretty big iron, used to shoot down enemy aircraft. As to if it was actually "from the war" is not clear, I'm sure they used them a lot in training over here, or practice, are there any places around there that were used for WW2 training for the Air Corp?? I don't know if the other branches used 50 cals as much, the Army I think was smaller, generally 30.06 (M1) and the Navy used larger stuff, even for anti-aircraft use I think was bigger than 50's.
 
Most likely not brought back after the war.... Probably dropped by an aircraft on a training run. The .50 cal was american by design but was used by the British in WWII as well. So in all it was probably shot from a turret mounted .50 on a tank or it was shot by an Army Aircraft during practice just my opinion....also DM stands for Des Moins Iowa (SP) =)
 
Not sure if there were any training areas around here. I live in Massachusetts. The closest base I can think of would be Westover Air Force Base which was built in 1939. I will have to research to see if it played any part in WW2. Wasn't it common for men to send souvenirs back from the war? I would like to think thats where it came from. At least I hope it did.
 
You'd want to find out if your home is an an area that may have been some kind of gunnery range, either ground or air. I didn't think about a turret mount on a tank, they could have been 50's.
Fighters typically ejected the casings out of the wing, bombers I think they ended up in the bomber and they would reclaim them (remember how they scrapped so much metal during WW2, they must have either added them to a scrap pile or reloaded them? Not sure, interesting to find out though).

My impression is that the damage where the bullet went caused a jam. This happend more often than people think, even on fighters, sometimes all the guns ended up jammed before they were out of ammo. On a flexible mount (say a side gunner) they could clear the jam, but not on a fighter, they had to access the gun to clear it. So am guessing it may have been kept by an armorer for some reason, then discarded later on and ended up in the yard, say maybe during an auction when the house was sold at some point? May be how the radiator cap ended up there too.
 
Looked up WW2 training fields, there was one near you, Barnes Airport it was called then, 3 mi NNE of Westfield, was a WW2 AAF base, not sure what they did there, you can wiki it for info though.
 
wiki says:
During World War II young men from the Massachusetts State College received flight training at the airport before being shipped off to various war sites. Soon after, the Air National Guard was formed and its presence was soon established at Barnes. The Air National Guard first began using P-47 Thunderbolt aircraft, but soon began using the P-51 Mustang after Runway 2/20 was extended from 5,000 to 7,000 feet (2,100 m). Barnes received jet aircraft when the Air National Guard began to operate F-94 Starfire aircraft.[2]

So someone may have lived there post-war who was a member of the MA ANG, the P47 and P51 of course were both armed with multiple 50 cals, the P47 has EIGHT of the dang things! boom boom.
 
wiki says:
During World War II young men from the Massachusetts State College received flight training at the airport before being shipped off to various war sites. Soon after, the Air National Guard was formed and its presence was soon established at Barnes. The Air National Guard first began using P-47 Thunderbolt aircraft, but soon began using the P-51 Mustang after Runway 2/20 was extended from 5,000 to 7,000 feet (2,100 m). Barnes received jet aircraft when the Air National Guard began to operate F-94 Starfire aircraft.[2]

So someone may have lived there post-war who was a member of the MA ANG, the P47 and P51 of course were both armed with multiple 50 cals, the P47 has EIGHT of the dang things! boom boom.

First off, thank you for all the research you did on that. I do know where Barnes is but never really thought about that being an option, I would have thought maybe Westover before Barnes. Well I guess at this point, the shell more then likely never reached the war. Maybe I'll pretend I never read any of these posts when I show it to friends. None of them are bright enough to disagree.
 
Yeah it's so hard to tell where it may have come from anyways, it's definitely of WW2 vintage anyways, the one guy further up IDs the 43 as being 1943. No one can really disagree on what it is, they can try to dispute it was from "the war", but then again no one really knows. They can't dispute it is of that era.

What's the bike on your avatar?
 
K1200GT here.
You got luggage for it for touring?

Yea, I have saddlebags that also have the tailbag, and I usually strap a backpack on top of the tailbag, and also have another backpack if I need more storage. I am a carpenter by trade but still try to take my bike to work as much as possible. You would not believe the amount of tools I carry on that thing. A buddy at work needed my dolly and this is how I got it to the job. I had to remove the tailbag but it worked. Saved me from taking my truck to work. The job was three towns over but I went city, didn't want to take a chance on the highway with this strapped to my bike.
 

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2007, the "slant" 4.
Thats a nice machine. At a quick glance it reminds me of one of my favorite bikes, the Aprila Futura. My budget kinda dictated what bike I bought. I think the Superhawk is kind of underated. It's not quite fast enough to run with the full sports and it's a little to sporty for people wanting a tourer. For me, it's a perfect blend. And kinda like yours, you don't see them on every corner.
 
An old thread but still...That is from a 42 Browning. If the casing is 4" long then it's a 50 cal. Smaller would be the 30 which was also fairly common. There were two types of Brownings used during the war, the lighter barreled variant for aircraft and the heavy barreled for field use. Impossible to tell what specific round without the shell, those with aluminum tips are armor piercing. DM is for Des Moines, and the 43 is exactly as you guys have said, 1943. They are super cool i have a couple of live ones I found in an old storage shed.

http://www.nebraskaaircrash.com/50caliber.html
 
I was in the military in the 60s and we fired the 50 cal in OCS. We got to fire five rounds of tracer bullets. Much fun.
 
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