Lady Be Good .50 cal. Machine gun to be sold at auction

[oscardeuce]

It's hard to believe there are so few WWII original, transferable M2 50 cals left, out of a staggering war production of almost 2 million guns!

I too, would like to know if any records were kept in regards to which gun serial number was installed in what aircraft.

It should be on the Missing Air Crew Report. The ones I've seen in the past certainly listed the weapons on board the a/c by serial number. The military kept very close track of where its weapons were supposed to be, even during World War II.

Are they listed numerically, or by aircraft?

[Jay]

Ironically, the manifest for the last flight of the Lady Be Good does not list this gun as being onboard. This gun was said to be from the tail gun turret position of the LBG. The manifest shows the Left gun to be serial number 238677 and the Right gun to be 230074.The only gun missing by serial number from the report is one from the ball turret. As mentioned by others, this was war time and a lot of parts got mixed and matched when rebuilding these guns

[CoastieJohn]

Ironically, the manifest for the last flight of the Lady Be Good does not list this gun as being onboard. This gun was said to be from the tail gun turret position of the LBG. The manifest shows the Left gun to be serial number 238677 and the Right gun to be 230074.The only gun missing by serial number from the report is one from the ball turret. As mentioned by others, this was war time and a lot of parts got mixed and matched when rebuilding these guns

IMO....that is why I think you are buying this piece on faith, not fact.

[tom d. friedman]

amen, when you lay out big $$$ for an item you had better have the item's history documented by the person who originally got it at the time of the historic event, or a notarized statement. there is 1 loophole though, & that is the fact that any joe schmoe can be a notary for the people, which in many ways holds water as much as your spaghetti strainer does!! I've seen it all over 30 years dealing in military / aviation / nautical antiques. another undocumented problem arises w/ historical embellishment. if i'm selling antique toilet & claimed that Lindbergh sat his ass on it twice, then there had better be some dna their to back it up.