Bren Gun

Interviewer: Well, can you describe a Bren gun to me? Tell me everything you remember about the Bren gun.

Oh, I know that you could rapid fire with it, and it was pretty accurate. And you could, you know, you could spray quite an area with it, or you could designate a complete straight shot.

Interviewer: Was it a, a long gun, short gun, Heavy, light?

What...
It's heavy.

Interviewer: Yeah. Describe to me physically, what it looked like and shape of it and all that. I know nothing about it.

Well, a Bren gun is a . . . It's, it's normally on a tripod. It's a fairly long gun and it has a magazine on it, and so when you pull the trigger, you can either fire one or you can fire ten, just by holding the trigger. So, you have a chance of kind of spraying around the air like this, or shooting as a, as a direct target, but . . .

Interviewer: Did it have kind a mean kick to it or was it smooth?

Oh, if, if you didn't hold it right, yeah . . . was a mean kick, yeah. You had to hold it pretty solid to your shoulder.

Interviewer: And like some machine guns, some of them you're really only meant to have short bursts.

Yes.

Interviewer: Tell me about that. Were there limitations to the Bren gun?

Not really. There was no limitations to it, but as long as you, as long as you had rounds in it, you could fire it.

Interviewer: Now, I would imagine that firing a Bren gun at minus 20 degrees would be different than firing it in the summertime?

Oh, yes.

Interviewer: Tell me all about that.

Well, your hands were cold you know, and you, you can, you can fire a Bren gun. There's heat from a Bren gun. Not a whole lot of course, but there is heat. And you could fire it. But in the summertime, it was a whole lot different. In the wintertime, you were down on your belly and, and you were cold, but you had to do it. That was it. That was your job. You did it.

Interviewer: You wouldn't have wanted touch the metal would you, on that, when it was that cold?

Just . . . Well, you did. You touched it, but . . . You didn't want to maybe, but you did. The triggers were metal and you had to pull ‘em, so if you, if you were fortunate enough that your glove would fit in there, then you were fine.

Interviewer: Did your glove fit in there, or did you have to take your glove off?

I've had it on and off.