Hi Scott,

It sounds like the study was based on a few boats that were available for inspection at the end of the war. I wonder if they actually observed guns in the racks? Being an avid shooter myself (I try to get to the pistol range at least three times a week) I just can’t imagine anyone leaving a firearm exposed in a rack in a U-boat with the extreme humidity, salt air, etc. that was normal there. Condensation frequently dripped off the bulkheads. Perhaps the racks were only used occasionally and the guns kept locked up elsewhere most of the time or perhaps the racks were inside a cabinet of some sort.

Guns left exposed like that would have to be cleaned constantly. Even if they were (and I have never heard anyone mention the crew cleaning the handguns & rifles in a U-boat although they would have had to no matter where they stored them) with that kind of humidity the small parts inside that were not easily removed for cleaning would probably have rusted. I own a couple of Lugers and a P-38 and I am pretty sure they would have had a problem if they were stored under those conditions for a prolonged period of time.

It is interesting to note that the exterior of early Lugers was protected from rust by a process known as “rust bluing”. They were allowed to rust under controlled conditions for a certain period of time then the rust was removed with a fine abrasive. At some stages the surfaces were polished. The process was repeated a number of times until a deep blue/purple finish was developed that was very resistant to rusting. This is the prettiest form of bluing ever developed as far as I am concerned. The process is too labor intensive to be used today though. Of course the bore was still very susceptible to rusting.

The ammunition for the deck gun (steel cases instead of brass) was stored inside the ammunition locker under the floor in individual containers and the crew still had to remove each round and clean and grease it on a regular basis. The following is from the U.S. Intelligence debriefing of Archie Gibbs after his 4-day stay as a prisoner on U-126 (IXC): “NOTE: There were about one hundred shells for the large gun. Gibbs saw the shells cleaned and greased one day. These shells were 3 ½ or 4 feet long.”

Also U-boat crews after the early part of the war would have rarely had a need to get to rifles and handguns in a hurry. The ammunition and magazines would have had a problem if they were stored exposed as well.

I guess it is also possible that the small arms were just replaced after every patrol. In the overall scheme of things, and considering the very expensive maintenance required between patrols, replacing the small arms would have just been a drop in the bucket.

I wonder if anyone on the forum knows where the small arms were stored on U.S. subs during the war and under what conditions. I think the conditions would have been somewhat better on our subs than on a U-boat and I still doubt that they were kept exposed anywhere but I don’t know for sure. Also I wonder if anyone on the forum has seen the racks or has a photo of them on U-505. I know a number of forum visitors have been inside U-505.

Thanks for the info Scott. You are one of the very few that have come forward with any answer at all to the question so far.

If I find out anything definite, I’ll update this post. I have been curious about this for some time now. It seems to be such a simple question I would have thought we would have been swamped with answers.

Any help anybody can give would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Ken Dunn