Explosives technician Bob Canning leads a survey crew equipped with metal detectors through the former Blair Rifle Range lands in Seymour. The Department of National Defence is looking to make sure there aren’t any grenades or mortar shells left behind when the range was in use by the military. photo Mike Wakefield, North Shore News
Dear Editor:
Re: Blair Rifle Range Lands Get an Explosives Sweep, Feb. 21 news story.
The piece about the former Blair Rifle Range being swept for old ordnance, and specifically DND and Donna Saceta not being aware of anything other than rifles and handguns being fired off there – in 1948 and 1949, when I was in the 6th Field Company, RCE, I can say that we (including myself) fired both Bren and Sten guns on the Blair range. The Bren was a light machine gun firing .303 rifle and tracer ammunition; the Sten was a Second World War sub-machine gun firing the same or equivalent nine mm ammunition intended for German Luger pistols. Both Brens and Stens were standard British and Commonwealth army weapons at that time. If you find nine mm bullets, it is probable these relatively unusual slugs came from a Sten. Unfortunately, since the Bren used standard army rifle ammunition, the existence of .303 slugs won’t tell you anything.
Robert Norminton
Niagara Falls, Ontario
