Legendary light machine gun - the Bren Gun

On September 18th, 1944, during a phase in the Italian campaign known as the Battle of San Marino, a unit of the 1st/9th Gurkha Rifles came under fire from German machine guns. Suddenly, two figures charged forward from the Gurkhas, firing their weapons, and silenced the machine guns. One man continued on alone to fire at the enemy positions, which allowed his unit to withdraw. He then rescued two wounded Gurkha soldiers before he too was mortally wounded.
That man was Sher Bahadur Thapa, aged 22 years, who had been in the army less than two years, having enlisted in November 1942. The weapon he used was a .303 calibre Bren Gun, a gas-operated light machine gun which had entered service with the British army in August 1938. For his actions, Thapa was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, thereby adding another chapter in the history of a weapon that already had a reputation for reliability and excellent accuracy.

The not-so-British Bren
Weapon collectors and re-enactors know the origins of the Bren Gun, which is often seen as a quintessential British weapon, but for those not in the know, it may come as a surprise to learn it was designed and developed in the Czechoslovakian Zbrojovka Factory in the town of Brno. In the mid-1930s, before Hitler made his land grab on Czechoslovakia, the country’s armaments industry was very productive, and one of the weapon designs included a series called ZB, followed by a suffix number. One of these was the ZB30, which interested the British army, seeing in it the replacement weapon for the Lewis machine gun. A small quantity was acquired, and the weapons were taken to England for trials.
Duly impressed, the main sticking point was the calibre of ammunition it fired. The British asked if it could be chambered to accept the standard British rifle calibre of .303”. The modification was made, along with other details, and the gun was accepted for service as the Bren Gun Mk I. One of the distinctive features of the weapon was its curved magazine, which held 30 rounds, and this came about as the result of the British ammunition, which had a rimmed cartridge case. The magazine was mounted on top, and it was common practice to load only 28 rounds to prevent potential misfeeds. The weapon would be manufactured in England at the Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield, which is how it came to be given its name. So, ‘Br’ from the Brno factory and ‘en’ for Enfield.
By the time WWII ended in 1945, Enfield had turned out 280,000 Bren guns, with more than 17,000 produced in Australia, 186,000 at the John Ingliss factory in Toronto, Canada, and thousands more came from the Rifle Factory at Ishapore in India. It was used in every theatre where British or Commonwealth forces served, from North Africa to Burma (modern-day Myanmar), Italy and north-west Europe. Produced in four Marks, it was utilized by all branches of the armed forces and mounted on vehicles ranging from trucks to tanks. When the British Expeditionary Force was deployed to France between 1939 and 1940, it had a complement of 30,000 Bren guns.

Adaptations and modifications
After the withdrawal from Dunkirk, it was discovered that only 2,300 Bren guns had been brought back to England. Allowing for losses and those destroyed in the fighting, meant the Germans probably had at least several thousand of these useful weapons. The Germans are known to have used these captured weapons, re-chambering them to 7.92mm calibre and giving them the designation ‘Leichtes Maschinengewehr 138 (e)’. During Commando raids, including Dieppe and Bruneval, the participating forces were armed with Bren guns, and the weapons were also dropped by parachute to resistance groups in Holland, Belgium, and France.
The Bren continued to be used after the war and saw service during the Korean War and many other so-called ‘hot spots’, such as the Malay Emergency. Many countries took it into service and its reputation for reliability and accuracy made it popular. When fired in the prone position, on the bipod, it was effective out to ranges of 600 yards. In some instances, ranges out to 1,000 yards could be achieved, and it could also be mounted on high-angle anti-aircraft mounts to engage low-flying aircraft. The curved box magazine limited its rate of fire, so a 100-round ‘drum-type’ magazine, like the one used on the Lewis machine gun, was developed. It had a feed port like that on the box magazine and a special adaptor was fitted to the top of the weapon to support the diameter and additional weight.
Trucks and lorries had circular openings in the roof of their drivers’ cabs, which allowed a soldier to stand ready for self-defence with a Bren gun. Tanks, armoured cars, and scout cars also carried Brens. The most famous of these was the Universal Carrier, known as the ‘Bren Gun Carrier’, which served in North Africa and northwest Europe. One experimental vehicle was the ‘Praying Mantis’, which carried two Bren guns in an elevated box-like structure to allow the gun to be fired from behind the cover of hedgerows, but it never got any further than a prototype and did not enter service. Most infantry sections in the British army and Commonwealth forces had at least one Bren gun as a support weapon throughout the war.

A long life in service
The .303” calibre ammunition was gradually replaced by the NATO standard 7.62mm, but rather than get rid of such a reliable weapon, the decision was taken to re-bore it to take the NATO standard. This change meant modifications and some strengthening to the design, and with the cartridge being rimless, the magazine was not so curved. These types were designated as ‘L4’ and had suffix letters and numbers added as further modifications were made. These versions were used during the Falklands War of 1982 and the Gulf War in 1991. Some countries still use these L4 versions, and the original Bren, in one of the Marks, continued to be used until 2006 and was still being produced until 1971. The list of armies or other military formations which used the Bren gun is impressive and includes countries from five continents.
Today, the Bren gun is an important item of interest to collectors and re-enactors alike and they can often be seen displayed at shows in a variety of roles. The most usual is the bipod version, but examples fitted on mountings for anti-aircraft roles make for an interesting display, as do the different vehicle mountings. There are replica versions available which are very good, and examples of the original types come up for sale. The ‘cut-away’ version exposes the internal mechanism, and it is used for training purposes. It is unusual and something which many weapon collectors like to add to their displays. This versatile weapon certainly had what it takes to keep people interested, even after all this time.