[Image] Tommy got you covered

1st September, 1941. Tobruk, Libya.

VX31704 Cpl. Warwick Brownrigg & his Thompson.

VX31704 Cpl. W. Brownrigg aims his American made Thompson sub machine gun out a firing slot in the sandbag defences of his position in the Red Line of Tobruk's outer perimeter.

Cpl. Brownrigg, of the 2/23rd Infantry Battalion out of Victoria, featured in a number of photos taken at the time by members of the Military History and Information Unit. In this one he has a rare Tommy Gun with a larger 50 round drum magazine inserted. It also has the fore grip fitted, which with the added weight of the larger magazine made it a necessity for semi-accurate firing.

Cpl. Brownrigg is listed as having been discharged from the Army on 22nd October, 1942. As his service record has not been digitised by the National Archives I am unable to say for certain why. I suspect that his discharge date being so close to the date of the Second Battle of El Alamein that he may have been so severely wounded that he was not expected to be able to return to service and thus discharged. At this stage this is nothing more than an educated guess.

image 020503 Australian War Memorial.