Weapons inventor honoured

Ruapehu Bulletin, 13 April 1993, Page 3

Weapons inventor honoured

When New Zealand inventor Allan Mitchell arrived at Parliament House in 1943 with a satchel containing a prototype machine gun and a bullet "for every member of Parliament" he caused quite a stir. The brilliant wartime inventor had been summoned to Wellington to demonstrate his latest weapon - the Mitchell sub-machine gun - in front of the War Cabinet which included the Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, and Walter Nash. Unchallenged by Parliment security he made his way to the meeting and produced the gun, much to the alarm of members. Security was immediately tightened. This was just one fond memory of the Wanganui man who at 73 years of age, fired what was possibly the final rounds from his prototype weapons on the firing range at Waiouru last week. The test firing was a first in 14 years, with the last time being at a fundraising demonstration at Trentham Camp in 1979. The three prototypes will become part of a permanent display at the Waiouru Army Museum. The occasion was attended by members of Mr Mitchell 's family and Army Training Group personnel and also marked the launching of a book cataloging the of-

ficial history of the Mitchell machine guns. Born in Wanganui in 1920 and from a farming background, Allan Mitchell attended Wanganui Collegiate before working on his father's Fordell farm. He received his call-up at the age of 19 and due to his engineering and armoury skills, became a sergeant and instructor at Trentham Camp. During this time he was set the

task of writing a manual for the first Bren gun imported into New Zealand. His first prototype • .32 calibre sub-machine gun was made in his grandfather's workshop while utilising the facilities of engineering company Eaton and Marshall. Allan Mitchell' s exceptional talent was noted by a colleague who requested him to take the weapon to Trentham to

demonstrate it. This led to a further audience with the chief of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research where he took up the position of Head of their experimental arms division. In 1942 he was sent to the Technical Developments Department in Auckland, based in a workshop in the School of Engineering at Auckland University which

was discovered to be unsuitably equipped for developmental work. The Seddon Memorial Technical College was deemed more suitable and was where Allan Mitchell developed prototypes of three more weapons. The guns developed however, were never commercially produced, due to production time logistics and an increasing flow of cheap arms into New Zealand at the

end of the war. Army staff who test-fired these prototypes all agreed however, that the Mitchell sub-machine

gun was years ahead of its time, firing 1,000 plus rounds per minute and still surpassing all modern equivalents.