Handbook of the Marlin Aircraft Machine Gun Model of 1917. No. 1933. . . .

Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1918. 12mo. 72 pp. With 9 plates (a couple photographic, 2 large folding). Light blue printed softcovers (minor edgewear, dustsoiling, very minor creasing to corners), still VG copy, from the library of former Sergeant Errol George Sinclair (1895-1971), enlisted in 1917, trained with the Machine Gun Company at Fort Logan, CO, and Fort Douglas, UT, and then transferred in 1918 to the 10th Division at Camp Funston, Fort Riley, KS. First edition of this very scarce, and excellent United States Army manual on the updated M1917 Machine Gun developed by Carl Swebilius, a longtime Swedish-American Marlin gunsmith and engineer which was sold originally to the Army as a machine gun for tanks. This improved version was designed for use in Army Air Corps airplanes, with many aluminum parts to conserve weight using Constantinesco-Colley synchronizing gear firing through the plane’s spinning propellers, and were well received as they did not have the problems of freezing experienced by the Lewis machine guns. Twenty-two squadrons of the US Army Air Corps in France weresupplied with Marlin Machine guns, and more than 15,00 were sent to the AEF who held them in front line service until 1925. Worldcat locates 4 copies (Yale, Hagley, Cleveland, US Army War College).