Jump to content
The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Machine Gunners' Pocket Book


N White

Recommended Posts

A good friend is an fan of all things Vickers, and recently told me about a find of his, a Machine Gunner's Pocketbook, belonging to a Lt d'Assis-Fonesca (65 MG Coy, according to the book).  He sent some pictures I could share.  I found a little basic information for him on the man, but Machine Guns and Machine Gun Companies are out of my usual area of research, so any comments or information are quite welcome!

 

 

121164.jpeg

121155.jpeg

121147.jpeg

121146.jpeg

121150.jpeg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Over the years I have had about 9 of these - used by all ranks. Great that you have the protractor too.  They are a goldmine of information for the machine gun enthusiast and often there are pencil notes inside. There is a larger book called MACHINE GUN NOTES which is the 'father' of these pocketbooks. How to build MG posts and indeed how to hastily convert a captured MG post are fascinating and was used by the Time Team episode on Grantham and the MGC - worth a watch too.

Mark

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

We've got a few different examples of these in the Association's collection. They've been scanned and are available as PDFs here: https://vickersmg.blog/manual/other-official-publications/ As they were individual pages, there are different combinations in a couple of them. It would be interesting to know if you spot anything different between this and the one you have.

 

We also have a couple of copies of Machine Gun Notes which, as Mark says, includes pages from these pocket books with further explanation as to the content of the courses taught at the Machine Gun School. That's not something we have as a PDF download though as it's only available on DVD (it's a huge document). I have posted various pages from it on our different social media outlets, including some of the battle action lessons that were brought back from the fighting.

 

Always great to see other examples and really nice it's a named example with the protractor still intact and some of the additional pamphlets.

 

Richard

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Indeed 'King Richard the Vickers God' has spoken. Great work you do and on the publishing of all your material. Love your threads explaining different elements - great education.

Mark

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...