THE OWEN GUN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 7, 23 January 1942, Page 5

THE OWEN GUN

THE INVENTOR'S STORY

TURNED DOWN BY ARMY

"Now that Australia has officially adopted the Owen submachine-gun and is actually manufacturing it by the thousand for use by tlie Commonwealth armed forces, the strange stoi'3' of the youthful Australian inventor of the gun which Army authorities, after having turned it down once, now declare is the best in the world, can lac told.

The gun, -which can be produced in any well-equippeil motor service station for from £.'5 to £10, contains many features sought for years by leading military inventors in Britain, the United Slates and Ger-

many, and factories are now engaged in quantity production.

The story of the Owen gun is that of many another invention, and its maker's persistence in the face of difficulty and discouragement is that of manv another inventor.

As a small boy, Owen, now 27, made pistols in the tiny workshop of his father, a solicitor at Wollongong, New South Wales. At 13 he had the bright idea of making a bomb from a sparklet bulb filled with a cordite. "I put what I thought was a long enough fuse on the bomb, but apparently I stood too close when I fired it, the Hying fragments entering my body and injuring the stomach."

At 14. he attempted to make a pistol using a .22 rifle barrel and a bolt of his: own invention. "I had it loaded and in a'vice, but the wrong end was facing me. As I leaned over to make some adjustment the gun went off and a bullet went right through the side of my stomach."' Before the war, he made tests with ordinary ammunition to adapt it to an automatic rifle he had devised. In 1939 he started experimenting with the submachine-gun, and before Avar broke out he had made one of .22 calibre, but the Army authorities turned him down flat, saying: "Submachine-guns won't be of much use." "I could get no further with the Idea, and subsequently with my brothers Peter (22) and Julian (27), I enlisted in the A.1.F.," said Mr Owen, after a successful demonstration. "We were on final leave when Lysaghts Ltd., a New-castle firm, heard about the gun, and brought it under official notice again. 'My two brothers went overseas to Tobruk, but I was transferred to the Inventions Board, Melbourne, where the secretary, Captain Dyer, saw the gun's possibilities. Subsequently, it was brought under the notice of the Minister for the Army, Mr Spender, who took it up enthusiastically.

"Various tests -were made,' culminating in demonstrations which proved the gun to she superior to anything the Army could produce against it. Its adoption followed and manufacture is now under Avay in bulk. "Always my wish," said Owen, "was to put my invention into the hands of my brothers facing the Germans at Tobruk. They kept writing to me, demanding 'When are you going to give us that gun? It's badly needed over here.' However, it wasn't to be—at least, not in Tobruk. For the 'Aussies' were shifted out of the town before Auchinleck's armies relieved the citadel."