Interview Harold J. Turpin june 1943

[peter lejeuneParticipant @peterlejeune62195]

Interesting post I lived in enfield and every sunday we would travel to ridgeway park in chingford to run his hybrid loco he was a very good engineer having designed the sten gun He also helped me with my Juliet Peter lejeune

[Askild AntonsenParticipant @askildantonsen75502]

First of all thanks for such nice words Rod. I have looked into all the references I could find and also communicated with people at the apprentice organisation i Enfield. Even in Enfield they agree. Enfield is for England!

No reference older than 1949 describes that EN is for Enfield. It's the older references that states EN for England. Even the inventer him self, who was also an exelent model engineer and member of this verry fraternity his entire life who says En is for England.

I myself has also looked to the internett for answers. A lot of sites states EN for Enfield, but they don't have any references to where they have this from. They are all repeating this missinterpretation.

I have written an article on the subject (in Norwegian) wich are to be published in late march. I am about to translate this to english and I promise I wil post i here too.

Lastly I find it most interesting that in this forum of all there are stil people not suoopring one of your own inventor and his wn description that EN is for Enland. It realy is

(The argument on this forum is, by the ay, exactly the same as we had in a norwegian forum. People stating this and that from the internet without any check og the sources to verify, or falsify, the information the nett sugests is the truth. I guess this is a possibility to learn for us all. The internett doesn't have all the answers and isn't always right.)

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Hi Askilkd,

Congratulations on your tenacity.

I suspect Mr Turpin wanted to emphasise that he came up with the design before returning to Enfield.

It also shows how books can repeat something and just because it appears logical, it gets repeated, just as much as on the net.

I was tempted to mention the 'EN'; in EN1a, which stands for neither England nor Enfield.

Neil

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 03/03/2015 18:01:56:

It also shows how books can repeat something and just because it appears logical, it gets repeated, just as much as on the net.

.

Neil,

For info.

The word 'Factoid' was coined by Norman Mailer in his 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe.
"facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper"

Mailer created the word by combining the word fact and the ending -oid to mean "similar but not the same".

The word is defined by the Compact Oxford English Dictionary as "an item of unreliable information that is repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact".

MichaelG.

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Michael,

I didn't know that, I thought a factoid was just a little fact! You are an unrelenting source of invaluable information.

Thanks,

Rod

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

You're welcome, Rod

The book is excellent, by the way.

MichaelG.

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

At the time(1943) Britain was at war, saying the EN was "for" England was typical propaganda/jingoism of the time.

Both the Oxford Concise, and Collins Dictionary of the English Language support the use of EN = Enfield.

Ian S C

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Ian,

I admire your tenacity!

Such is the power of the factoid (my new favourite word)

Cheers,

Rod

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Well Wikipedia can choose whichever answer it wants, and cite this thread as a source

Some people don't have the guts tio tackle the issue

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/565239/Sten-gun

Neil

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

I imagine that the originators wanted to differentiate their home grown STEN design from the BREN, a copy of a Czech gun. I don't suppose the authorities cared one jot what the derivation was, it fitted within their naming convention – BREN, STEN, ADEN. But that's all surmise (it might even become a factoid). Askild's research has given us the best documented derivation (sources and footnotes etc.). I don't suppose it really matters what the derivation of the name was except to a few of we nerds!

Rod

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Perhaps we will never know because the origin of the acronym seems to have been thoroughly muddled by the mists of time.

**LINK** quotes evidence given to the Board of the Royal Commission Awards to Inventors. Lord Cohen: "Why was it called the Sten?" Colonel Shepard: "It was called the Sten by the then Director General of Artillery. The S was from my name, the T from Mr. Turpin who was my draughtsman and who did a very large amount of the design and the EN was for England. That is the origin of the name, for which I accept no responsibility."

But In the official history of the Royal Ordnance Factories, ST is for Shepard and Turpin and EN is for Enfield.

Note that the acronym was coined by the Director General of Artillery, not by Shepard or Turpin. The DG might well have said "England" by mistake. It won't have been the last time a senior bod was later corrected by his officials! My money is on EN=Enfield because this is consistent with British naming policy at the time. May I have a Nerd badge please?

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 03/03/2015 18:01:56:

I was tempted to mention the 'EN'; in EN1a, which stands for neither England nor Enfield.

Neil

In this case it stands for Emergency Number.

At the start of WWII there were many steel makers and each had their own specifications and it was soon realise there were going to be problems.

So the Ministry of Supply got a delegation of all the large manufactures together, supposedly at a hotel In Scarborough ? and locked them in a room and told them they could only come out when they all agreed to a system.

From this the EN numbers were born.

They were supposed to last for the war but they were so successful they carried on right up unit we got these new fangled number no one knows.

If you ring my steel company up and ask for 99M99 or whatever they go

"Oh you mean EN plonk

[ronan walshParticipant @ronanwalsh98054]

I have a huge interest in the sten gun, as it was great example of design engineering in difficult times. No or little skilled labour available, specialist machine tools scarce, materials in very short supply and needed elsewhere for more pressing items, during the wartime panic after dunkirk.

The sten was a design masterpiece imho. It ticked all the boxes, simple to manufacture with unskilled labour, mainly housewives drafted in, in any videos or photos i have seen of production. It didn't need any fancy machine tools to make, a lathe, horizontal mill and some gas welding equipment seems to be about it. The materials needed were nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing difficult to make, plain old mild steel mainly.

It was churned out in the millions by a company any of us of a certain age will remember and be familiar with, namely Triang toys made by lines brothers in merton, london. This was the largest toy factory in europe at one time i believe.

Have you seen the video below ? Peter Laider is an expert in most british military firearms , and i think can be contacted on some of the military firearm forums.

P.s, isn't discussion of naughty things like firearms banned on here like it is everywhere else by the politically correct nazi's ? 

 

Edited By ronan walsh on 05/03/2015 00:26:04

[ronan walshParticipant @ronanwalsh98054]

Posted by John Stevenson on 04/03/2015 21:04:02:

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 03/03/2015 18:01:56:

I was tempted to mention the 'EN'; in EN1a, which stands for neither England nor Enfield.

Neil

In this case it stands for Emergency Number.

At the start of WWII there were many steel makers and each had their own specifications and it was soon realise there were going to be problems.

So the Ministry of Supply got a delegation of all the large manufactures together, supposedly at a hotel In Scarborough ? and locked them in a room and told them they could only come out when they all agreed to a system.

From this the EN numbers were born.

They were supposed to last for the war but they were so successful they carried on right up unit we got these new fangled number no one knows.

If you ring my steel company up and ask for 99M99 or whatever they go

"Oh you mean EN plonk

Nowt wrong with EN numbers. I used to get chewed off in a college degree course for using them though. The metallurgist lecturer told me to use the new system of a string of numbers that no bugger can remember, and that no one uses the old en system anymore. I had a catalogue from one of the specialist engineering steel suppliers that i showed her and everything in it was in the en system. she was not happy.

[Danny M2ZParticipant @dannym2z]

Posted by Roderick Jenkins on 04/03/2015 12:47:08:

I imagine that the originators wanted to differentiate their home grown STEN design from the BREN, a copy of a Czech gun.

In a certain Australian military establishment in which I onced worked there resides an original 1935 model Czech vz. 27 from Brno, (designed by Vaclav Holek and ancestor of the .303 and 7.62mm BREN, ), an original English 9mm STEN and the Aussie equivalent, designed when the requirement was urgent and imports were difficult to ship.

The OWEN Gun.

Invented along the same lines – cheap, reliable and simple to produce from pressings. The prototype was was left in a bag at a pub in Kembla Grange, the inventor was an engineer with a lathe and mill at home and the one person who could do anything about it got his hands on it from the landlord. So it went into production at Lysaght. Used with great effectiveness in the jungles of Papau-NewGuinea.

The name came from the inventor, Mr. Owen.

* Danny M *

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

.

I have a good friend who is a military historian / journalist and the editor of a magazine in the weapons and defense industry.

I had a conversation with him yesterday about a different matter but happened to mention this thread. – I then sent him the link.

This was his reply to me :-

.

Nick, look at the 'evidence' and analyse it rather than just accepting it at face value as most keyboard warriors seem to have done in the 21st Century.

Turpin was the design draughtsman and as such would have had no say in the name, nor would its designer Major Shepherd – indeed Shepherd (who headed the design team and whose idea Turpin brought to design fruition) is quoted as saying he is not responsible for the name.

The weapon would have been assigned a project number, not a name, throughout its design and prototype stages. On acceptance for production officals from the Ministry of Suppy and the War Office would have named it, not the design team.

As the official history of the Royal Ordnance Factories during WWII, published by HMSO in 1949, says Enfield and not England, I'd go with that rather than an explanation given by a model magazine editor – for it was Percy Marshall and not either Shephherd or Turpin who first said EN stood for England.

Think about it. Would it make more sense to confirm in a hobby magazine at the height of wartime that the Britain's firearms design team had been drawn together in ENfield or to pass off the last two letters as simply being taken from ENgland?

Remember also that the British Forces' rifle of the day was the Lee-Enfield, not the Lee-England.

However as the argument is taking place on t'internet one cannot expect common sense to triumph.

As far as I'm concerned, it's the Shepherd Turpin ENfield … but I wouldn't waste time arguing about it on t'internet as life's too short.

Nick

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

I tend to agree Nick, and so does the Imperial War Museum(Sten Gun, bottom of page 2). also Galt Museum/design Department Royal Small Arms Factory Enfield.

A couple of local arms collectors almost had fits when England was suggested instead of Enfield. I think the question has been answered. I suppose you can lable it what ever you please, or it can be accurate, more than what the Sten was

Ian S C

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

or it can be accurate, more than what the Sten was

My dad used them on national service and said they were useless for anything more than a single shot from the hip at close range (very close range)

on auto it pulled you 90degrees to the right and you shot at all your mates, you simply couldn't stop it

at the same time that finger & face bashing cocking handle would be flying back and forwards so you couldn't even aim it properly

The sten was like the petrol engine in the sherman tank (The tommy cooker) and the liberator replacing the B17 in the European bombing campaign

Built to as low a price as possible in WW2 to do a basic job… and if a few of our people got zapped because they were using inferior gear well that was tough. Long live capitalism! Forwards to victory!

National service guys tended to get the crappy war surplus stuff, he did his time in the 1950s and all their tinned rations were from the 40-45 war

The tinned irish stew was to be avoided at all costs, totally inedible, while the tinned salmon was still delicious and could be traded for extra smokes

 

Edited By Ady1 on 05/03/2015 15:24:07

[ronan walshParticipant @ronanwalsh98054]

No way ady, the sten would move you that much , it was only a 9mm after all. I always found the 9mm snappy , but its not something thats going to hurt you. Inaccurate, certainly , but probably sub-minute of german. if i was being attacked by a swarm of the enemy, i'd rather a sten to a bolt-action rifle.

[Askild AntonsenParticipant @askildantonsen75502]

I have written an article on the STEN acronym, but it's in pdf format. I cant find a way to upload this to this forum. Can anyone help me out here?

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

Askild,

I can't help you with the PDF, I think you may need to contact one of the moderators who would be able publish the PDF on this site.

Are you there Neil?

Rod

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I am indeed.

Askid, could you send me an email at neil.wyatt@mytimemedia.com please?

Thanks

Neil

[Peter TuckerParticipant @petertucker86088]

Hi Askild,
I have no idea how it to upload a PDF file onto this forum, however, if you just want to include what you have written in a post this is what I would try. Open your PDF document, highlight all and copy to clip board; open a forum post where you wish your document to appear and copy the clipboard there.
Hope this helps.
Peter.

[Chris TriceParticipant @christrice43267]

From Merriam Webster:

R. V. Shepherd, 20th century English army officer + H. J. Turpin, 20th century English civil servant + Enfield, English

First Known Use: 1942

[Author]

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