When They Put a Drum Magazine on a Thompson — Germans Called it The Nightmare Gun 

When They Put a Drum Magazine on a Thompson — Germans Called it The Nightmare Gun 

June 6th, 1944. 6:30 hours, Omaha Beach, Normandy. Staff Sergeant Michael Mickey Donovan, 29 years old, presses his face into the wet sand behind a Czech hedgehog as German MG42 fire rips the air 18 in above his head. He can hear the whining 200 rounds per minute scream of Hitler’s buzzsaw tearing through the men of Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment.

 His ears ring, his mouth tastes like copper and seawater. 50 yards ahead, German positions in the bluffs spit fire. Behind him, the English Channel runs red. Donovan clutches a weapon most Americans have never seen in combat. a Thompson submachine gun fitted with a massive 50 round drum magazine that makes the already heavy weapon feel like carrying a typewriter.

 His squad leader told him the drum was unreliable, too heavy, jammed constantly. But Donovan specifically requested it anyway. In 30 seconds, he’s going to find out if that decision saves his life or ends it. because the pill box ahead just killed his lieutenant and someone has to move forward. To understand why Donovan carried that specific weapon configuration, you have to go back to 1940 and understand the Thompson submachine gun’s complicated relationship with military procurement.

The Thompson M1928A1 entered limited US military service in 1938, but the army didn’t trust it. Generals called it a gangster gun, and they weren’t wrong. John T. Thompson had designed it in 1918 for trench warfare, but it arrived too late for World War I. By the 1920s, the only people buying Thompsons were police departments and organized crime.

 Al Capone’s men used them in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929. Bank robbers like John Dillinger made them infamous across America. When war broke out in Europe in 1939, the British desperately needed automatic weapons. They ordered 108,000 Thompsons between 1940 and 1941. American military planners watched British commandos and paratroopers use them effectively, particularly during raids on occupied France and Norway.

 But the US Army Ordinance Department had concerns. The M1928A1 cost $200 per unit to manufacture, roughly $4,400 in today’s dollars. It weighed 10.8 lb empty. It required extensive machining with tolerances so tight that production was slow. Most critically, it came with two magazine options. A 20 round or 30 round stick magazine or a 50 round or 100 round drum magazine.

 The drum magazine was the problem. The type XX 50 round drum weighed 2.9 lb when loaded with 45 ACP ammunition. The type C 100 round drum weighed 5.6 6 lb loaded. Both used a complex spring and winding mechanism that required the operator to use a special key to wind the internal spring before loading. In dusty or muddy conditions, the drums jammed constantly.

They rattled when partially empty, announcing the operator’s position. They were expensive, $21 per 50 round drum in 1942, nearly $400 today. By early 1942, the Army Ordinance Department had seen enough problems. They simplified the Thompson into the M1 variant, which eliminated the drum magazine capability entirely.

The M1 Thompson couldn’t accept drums. The magazine well was redesigned to accept only stick magazines. They removed the cuts compensator, simplified the bolt, eliminated the costly machining. The M1 cost $70 to produce. It weighed less. It was more reliable. The Army manufactured 285480 M1 Thompsons in 1942 alone.

 By 1943, they introduced the even simpler M1 A1 variant. Procurement officers declared the drum magazine dead, obsolete, a relic of the gangster era. But they made a critical mistake. They asked infantry men what they thought. If you want to see what happened when American soldiers got their hands on those obsolete drum magazines in actual combat, hit that subscribe button and ring the notification bell because what comes next changed how the Army thought about firepower forever.

Back to Sergeant Donovan. The Thompson M1928A1 with its drum magazine represented something the simplified M1 could never deliver. Sustained firepower without reloading. Here’s what made it different. The standard 30 round stick magazine gave a Thompson operator approximately 3.75 seconds of continuous fire at the weapon’s cyclic rate of 600 to 720 rounds per minute.

 That’s one trigger pull, one sustained burst, then a reload. In a firefight, reloading takes 3 to 5 seconds if you’re fast and not being shot at. The 50 round drum gave 5 seconds of sustained fire. More importantly, it gave flexibility, short bursts, controlled fire, the ability to suppress an enemy position while your squad maneuvered.

 You could fire five round bursts and have 10 separate engagements before reloading. The psychological impact was enormous. The type XX 50 round drum measured 7.6 in in diameter and 2.4 in thick. It attached to the bottom of the receiver with a spring-loaded catch. Inside, a sophisticated mechanism used dual magazine spring towers that fed cartridges through a spiral track into the feed lips.

 The operator wound the internal spring using a square key, typically 911 full rotations for a 50 round drum. 20 22 rotations for a 100 round drum. The mechanism was complex, deliberately so. Thompson’s engineers designed it to maintain consistent spring tension regardless of how many rounds remained. Simpler drum designs like the Lewis Guns pan magazine suffered from weak feeding as the spring unwound.

 The Thompson’s design theoretically maintained feeding reliability from first round to last. Theoretically, in practice, the drums had significant problems. Sand or dirt in the winding mechanism caused immediate jams. The spiral feed track could bend if the drum was dropped. Over winding the spring could cause it to bind. Underwinding meant the last 10 15 rounds wouldn’t feed.

 The dual springs could lose tension with repeated use. Soldiers called the 100 round drum the dishpan and abandoned it almost immediately as too unreliable and too heavy. But the 50 round drum, some soldiers swore by it. First Lieutenant Samuel L. Marshall, who interviewed thousands of combat infantrymen for his post-war analysis, recorded that certain weapon operators specifically requested M1928A1 variants with drum capability.

 They weren’t many, maybe one man per company, but they existed and they had specific tactical reasons. Paratroopers loved them. During the Sicily invasion in July 1943, the 82nd Airborne’s Fedth Parachute Infantry Regiment had men jumping with M1928A1s and 50 round drums. When you’re scattered across enemy territory at night with no idea where your squad is, 5 seconds of continuous fire provides a psychological advantage nothing else can match.

Marine raiders requested them during Guadal Canal operations in 1942 to 1943. Raider battalion specifically asked for M1928A1s with drums for point men and scouts. Carlson’s raiders used them during the Machin Island raid in August 1942. And certain Army Rangers preparing for D-Day in 1944 quietly acquired them through supply channels that officially didn’t exist anymore.

Donovan knows three things with absolute certainty as he lies on Omaha Beach at 6:31 hours. First, the pillbox ahead has a clear field of fire across 75 yd of beach. It killed Lieutenant Harrison 6 seconds ago. Second, his drum magazine holds 48 rounds. He counted them when he loaded it on the transport ship.

 two rounds short of capacity because the spring binds on a full 50. Third, in approximately 20 seconds, the German machine gunner will traverse right and cut his squad to pieces. He signals to Corporal James Henderson 10 yard to his left. Henderson has a standard M1 Thompson with a 30 round stick. Good weapon, but 30 rounds won’t do what needs doing.

 Donovan takes three deep breaths, rolls left, comes up running. The German MG42 gunner sees movement, starts to traverse. That’s the moment Donovan needs. He covers 15 yd before the first rounds crack past his head, hits the sand behind a destroyed Sherman tank at the water line, exactly where he planned. The tank’s burning.

 He can feel the heat, but it blocks the pillbox’s line of fire for exactly this position. Henderson moves while the Germans focus on Donovan, makes it 20 yards closer. Donovan counts 5 seconds, rolls right from behind the Sherman. The MG42 gunner anticipates left, wastes half a second correcting. Donovan covers 12 more yards to a shell crater.

 Incoming rounds kick up sand two feet behind him. He’s now 40 yards from the pillbox. Close enough. He signals Henderson. They both move simultaneously, splitting the German gunner’s attention. Donovan doesn’t run at the pillbox. He runs at the concrete bunker’s blind spot. A 10- ft section to the left where the MG42’s traverse hits structural limitation.

 He knows this because he studied sand table models for 6 weeks. Every pill box has blind spots. He makes it to the concrete wall at 6:33 hours. 3 minutes since hitting the beach. He’s breathing so hard he thinks his lungs might burst. The pillbox firing port is 8 ft above him and 12 ft to his right. He can hear German voices inside.

 At least three men, maybe four. They’re shooting at Henderson’s position. Haven’t realized Donovan’s directly below them. This is the moment the drum magazine matters. With a 30 round stick, Donovan’s tactical options are limited. He can throw a grenade, but the pillbox has a reinforced roof and chicane entrance.

He can suppress the firing port briefly, but not long enough for his squad to cross the beach. He can call for Bangalore torpedoes, but the nearest engineers are pinned down 200 yd east. With 48 rounds in his drum, he can execute a tactic the army doesn’t teach because it requires ammunition expenditure they consider wasteful.

 He moves to the pillbox entrance. Standard German design, concrete chicane, two 90deree turns before reaching the main chamber. Designed to stop grenades and direct fire. Donovan learned in UR training that 45 ACP rounds ricochet violently off concrete at angles greater than 20°. The army considers this a bug.

 He’s about to make it a feature. He angles the Thompson’s barrel into the chicane entrance at approximately 35° to the left wall, pulls the trigger, holds it down. The drum magazine feeds 48 rounds in 4.8 seconds. Inside the pillbox, Corporal Heinrich Müller of the 352nd Infantry Division experiences something he’ll describe to American interrogators as Diehola, the hell.

48 45 caliber rounds enter the chicane and fragment into hundreds of pieces as they ricochet off concrete walls at angles that physics dictates. The rounds don’t travel in straight lines. They bounce, fragment, tumble. The confined space becomes a blender of copper jacketed lead moving at 920 ft per second.

 Three German soldiers die within 2 seconds. A fourth is wounded so severely he’ll die during evacuation. The MG42 goes silent at 634 hours. Donovan doesn’t know this yet. He drops the empty drum. No time for reloads and pulls his M11 pistol. Moves into the chicane, ready for close combat. He finds four bodies and one MG42 with its barrel still warm.

 Henderson reaches the pill box at 6:35 hours, stares at Donovan, stares at the carnage inside. What the hell happened? Donovan picks up his Thompson, reattaches a 30 round stick magazine from his belt. Physics. The gap in German fire allows Company A to advance 150 yards in the next 4 minutes. 12 men make it off the beach who otherwise wouldn’t have.

The company’s afteraction report filed 3 days later notes effective use of automatic weapons against fortified position but doesn’t specify details. Donovan doesn’t tell anyone about his technique for two reasons. First, he’s not sure it’ll work twice. The ricochet pattern was chaotic, unpredictable. He got lucky.

Second, by 11 o’ hours on June 6th, he’s used his last drum magazine. Supply sergeants don’t carry them anymore. The rest of the Normandy campaign, he carries standard stick magazines like everyone else. But word spreads. By June 10th, three other soldiers in the 116th Infantry have requested M1928 A1s with drum capability.

 By June 15th, a corporal in the 29th Infantry Division has executed a similar tactic against a different pillbox. By July, Rangers specifically request drums for urban combat in Saint Low. The Army’s official position remains unchanged. Drums are obsolete. The soldiers using them to devastating effect say nothing publicly.

They just keep finding ways to acquire them. The problem was supply. By mid1 1944, the army had largely transitioned to M1 and M1A1 Thompsons. Official procurement of drum magazines had ceased in late 1942. The approximately 562,000 died and M928A1 Thompsons manufactured before the changeover were either in service or in depot storage.

 But new drum production had stopped. Existing drums were scattered across supply depots from Virginia to Australia. No official distribution system existed because officially nobody wanted them. Unofficially, soldiers who understood their tactical value began what supply sergeants called creative acquisition. Staff Sergeant Thomas McKenzie, second Ranger battalion, wrote in his diary on July 8th, 1944.

traded a German Luger and two bottles of Calvados for 650 round drums. Supply sergeant in the 29th swore they were lost in inventory. Everyone’s happy. This wasn’t theft. Technically, drums remained US property stored in various depots. Soldiers were simply relocating them through informal channels.

 By August 1944, an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 drums had been redistributed to units fighting in France, mostly to specialized infantry, rangers, and paratroopers. The tactical applications expanded beyond Donovan’s ricocheting technique. In the hedge row fighting of July 1944, soldiers discovered drums provided critical firepower for breaking through German defensive positions.

 The hedge of Normandy, ancient earthn walls topped with dense vegetation, created natural fortifications every 2003 yd. Standard tactics required infantry to expose themselves while crossing open fields. German defenders with MG42s could pin down entire platoon. Private first class Robert Chen, fourth infantry division, found a solution.

On July 18th near Saint Low, Chen used a 50 round drum to suppress a German machine gun position while his squad flanked through an adjacent hedger. He fired controlled three round bursts every 4 seconds for nearly a minute. 17 separate bursts. The psychological effect on the German gunner was significant. Rather than face sustained fire with no clear pattern, the German position withdrew.

Chen’s techniques spread rapidly through the division. By late July, the fourth infantry had established unofficial suppression specialists, one man per platoon with a drumfed Thompson, whose job was sustained suppression during assaults. Afteraction reports from July 2031 show a 23% increase in successful hedge assaults compared to June 2030.

 partly attributable to these tactics. The Germans noticed prisoner interrogation reports from August 1944, declassified in 1973, show German soldiers specifically commenting on American trauml drum guns. One Vermach corporal captured near Mortaine on August 8th told interrogators, “The Americans have a terror weapon, a machine pistol that fires forever.

 When you hear it, you know they’re coming and there’s nothing you can do. The psychological designation Albraum Pistol, nightmare pistol, appears in at least three separate German unit reports from August September 1944. German tactical doctrine began warning soldiers that Americans using Thompson drums were likely specialists leading assault elements.

 This created an unexpected problem. Drum equipped soldiers became priority targets. Several rangers reported that German snipers specifically targeted men carrying the distinctive drum silhouette. By September, some operators began carrying drums in packs and only attaching them immediately before assaults. Production numbers tell the story of official military ambivalence.

Between June and December 1944, the Army manufactured zero new drum magazines, but they also didn’t dispose of existing stock. Depot inventories show approximately 89,000 dialed 50 round drums remaining in various storage facilities as of December 1944. A mysterious inventory adjustment in October 1944 reduced that number to 71,000 with no explanation of where 18,000 drums went.

 They went to Europe, to the Philippines, to anywhere soldiers requested them. And supply sergeants looked the other way. Marine Corps operations in the Pacific followed a different pattern. The core officially maintained M1928A1 variants longer than the Army, primarily because existing contracts were fulfilled before transitioning to the M1.

Marine raiders and paratroopers used drums operationally from Guadal Canal in 1942 through Okinawa in 1945. Corporal Edward Eddie Reeves, First Marine Raider Battalion, used a 50 round drum during operations on Bugenville in November 1943. His afteraction statement describes a night infiltration where his squad encountered a Japanese bunker at 15 yards.

Reeves fired 37 rounds in controlled bursts while his squad maneuvered. The sustained fire, unusual for American automatic weapons at night, caused Japanese defenders to assume they faced a much larger force. The tactical math favored drums in specific situations. Urban combat, bunker assaults, night operations, and anywhere sustained fire provided disproportionate psychological impact.

Understanding why the drum worked, when it worked, requires understanding the Thompson’s operating system and the 45 ACP cartridges ballistics. The Thompson uses a delayed blowback mechanism with a bliss lock. When fired, the bolt remains locked to the receiver for approximately 0.002 02 seconds while chamber pressure peaks at 21,000 psi.

The bush lock then releases allowing the bolt to travel rearward extracting and ejecting the spent case. A return spring drives the bolt forward stripping a new round from the magazine and chambering it. The cycle repeats at approximately 600 to 720 rounds per minute depending on ammunition and weapon condition.

The drum magazine feeds cartridges through a spiral track into the feed lips through spring pressure. The critical engineering challenge was maintaining consistent spring tension. Thompson’s engineers used a dual spring system with a reduction gear mechanism. As the operator wound the key, both springs compressed equally.

 As rounds fed, the springs unwound in synchronized fashion. When properly maintained and loaded, feed reliability was approximately 94%. When improperly maintained, it dropped to 67%. The proper maintenance procedure outlined in technical manual 9 talu 1215 from 1942 required complete disassembly every 200 rounds fired.

 Cleaning of spiral feed track with rifle bore cleaner light application of lubricating oil preservative LP to spring mechanism. Inspection of feed lips for deformation. winding spring exactly nine rotations for 50 round capacity. Most soldiers followed steps one and two. Maybe the 45 ACP cartridge added complications. The round generates significant recoil, approximately 6.

2 ft-lb of energy with standard 230 grain full metal jacket ammunition in a 10.8lb Thompson. This creates noticeable muzzle climb during sustained fire. The cuts compensator on the M1928A1 partially mitigated this, but operators still needed significant upper body strength to control the weapon during drumfed automatic fire.

 Effective range was 150 yd maximum, 50 yards optimal. Beyond 150 yd, the 45 ACP’s rainbow trajectory made accurate fire nearly impossible. But at close range, 0 to 50 yards, the combination of heavy bullet weight and moderate velocity, created devastating wound ballistics. The ricocheting effect that Donovan discovered wasn’t predictable, but it wasn’t random either.

 Copper jacketed lead bullets striking concrete at angles between 20 45° fragment into three year 7 major pieces, plus numerous fragments. Each piece retains 15 40% of the original kinetic energy in confined spaces. This creates a shotgun effect with unpredictable wound channels. The Army Ballistic Research Laboratory tested this phenomenon in 1945 using M1928A1 Thompsons firing into concrete walled enclosures.

 Results showed that 50 rounds fired at 30° angles, which created an average of 217 fragment impacts within a 10 danker’s 10- ft chamber. Casualty probability within the chamber exceeded 90% for exposed personnel. The tests were classified until 1968. The practical limitations soldiers discovered in combat included weight and fatigue.

 A fully loaded 50 round drum added 2.9 lb to an already heavy weapon. Carrying four drums, 200 rounds meant 11.6 additional pound. During the Herkin Forest fighting in nine lined hot November 1944, soldiers reported significant fatigue from carrying drum equipped Thompsons during multi-day operations. Noise discipline. Partially empty drums rattled distinctly.

German soldiers learned to listen for the characteristic metallic sound. American operators compensated by either running drums completely empty or stuffing cloth around remaining rounds to dampen noise. Reloading speed. Changing a 30 round stick magazine took 305 seconds. Changing a 50 round drum took 81 12 seconds due to the drums size and weight.

 Under fire, soldiers often fumbled the catch mechanism. Many operators ran drums completely dry, then switched to stick magazines rather than changing drums. Maintenance in field conditions, mud, sand, and freezing temperatures caused immediate failures. Soldiers learned to keep drums in waterproof bags until needed. During the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, drums froze solid.

 Operators had to warm them near fires before the spring mechanism would function. The enemy developed counters. German tactical documents from September 1944 instructed soldiers to aim for the drum if they spotted one. Hitting the drum could cause catastrophic ammunition detonation. In practice, this rarely worked because 45 ACP primers require significant impact force to detonate.

 But it shows German respect for the weapons capabilities. Japanese forces in the Pacific noted the drum equipped Thompsons, but focused tactical response on their broader fear of American automatic weapons generally. captured Japanese documents from Ewo Jima mentioned automatic pistols with large magazines but didn’t develop specific counters.

 The army officially discontinued all Thompson production on February 28th, 1945. Total wartime production approximately 138734 units across all variants. Of these, roughly 5 to 62,000 were M1928A1s capable of accepting drum magazines. On March 15th, 1945, the War Department issued technical bulletin TB23451, declaring all drum magazines obsolete and not to be issued.

Existing stocks were ordered transferred to depot storage. The bulletin cited reliability concerns, production costs, and the imminent introduction of the M3 grease gun as reasons. Soldiers ignored the bulletin whenever possible. During the final push into Germany in March May 1945, drums continued appearing in combat units.

 Supply sergeants continued losing them from depot inventories. The 82nd Airborne crossed the Rine in March in 1945 with an estimated 200 plus drum equipped Thompsons despite official prohibition. After VE Day on May 8th, 1945, the systematic collection began. The Army gathered approximately 71,000 drums from European depots and combat units between May and August 1945.

Another 18,000 came from Pacific units after VJ day on August 15th. The drums were stored at Aberdine Proving Ground in Maryland, Letter Kenny Army Depot in Pennsylvania, and several smaller facilities. Classification: Obsolete. Retained for historical purposes. Approximately 35,000 drums were destroyed in 1946 1948 during postwar demilitarization.

The remaining 54,000 sat in storage. Then Korea happened. In November 1950, during the Chosan Reservoir fighting, Marines requested automatic weapons for close combat in frozen conditions. The M3 grease gun, the Thompson’s official replacement, proved unreliable in temperatures reaching 35° offs. Someone remembered the stored Thompsons.

 Between December 1950 and March 1951, the Army shipped approximately 12,000 Dam 1928A1 Thompsons to Korea along with 8,000 drum magazines. Marines and Army units used them during Chinese human wave attacks where sustained firepower prevented being overrun. First Lieutenant John Yansy, 7th Marines, led a defense at TTong Pass in November 1950 using a drum equipped Thompson during a Chinese assault.

His Medal of Honor citation mentions devastating use of automatic weapons fire during hand-to-hand combat. Post battle assessment showed he fired approximately 180 rounds in 3 minutes. impossible with stick magazines alone. The drums went back to storage after Korea. By 1958, official records showed 31,000 remaining in inventory.

 Between 1959 and 1965, approximately 8,000 were transferred to Allied nations, including South Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines under military aid programs. The remaining drums were gradually destroyed or declared surplus. By 1975, official military stocks contained fewer than 2,000 drums. Most were in museums or used for training demonstrations.

The classification confidential was removed from Army Ballistic Research Laboratory testing documents in 1968. Technical manuals became unclassified in 1972. Afteraction reports mentioning drum magazine tactics were declassified progressively through the 1970s and 1980s. Modern soldiers don’t use drums. High-capacity magazines for current infantry weapons.

 30 round stanag magazines for the M4. 100 round beta C drums use different feeding mechanisms. But this EU tactical principle remains. Sustained firepower creates disproportionate psychological impact beyond the actual rounds fired. The Thompson M1928A1 with drum magazine influenced modern doctrine on suppressive fire, asymmetric firepower advantages, and the value of specialized weapons within standard infantry units.

 The idea that one soldier with sustained fire capability could enable an entire squad’s maneuver became fundamental to small unit tactics. Staff Sergeant Michael Donovan survived D-Day and the Normandy campaign. He fought through France, crossed into Germany, and was with the 116th Infantry when they reached the Elbay River in April 1945.

He never used another drum magazine after June 1944. Supply dried up and he learned to fight effectively with standard stick magazines, but he kept one drum, the one from Omaha Beach, in his pack until the war ended. He brought it home to Boston in December 1945. When interviewed by the US Army Historical Division in 1947 for their combat effectiveness study, Donovan described the drum magazine as simultaneously the best and worst piece of equipment I carried.

 Best because it saved his life and 12 others on June 6th. Worst because he could never count on it. Absolutely. He died in 1998 at age 83. The drum magazine from Omaha Beach was donated to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. It’s on display in the D-Day exhibit with a small placard. 50 round drum magazine carried by Sajet Michael Donovan, 116th Infantry Regiment, Omaha Beach.

The placard doesn’t mention what he did with it. That story remained classified until 2003 when the last of the Normandy afteraction reports were fully declassified. Corporal Heinrich Müller, the German soldier who died in the pillbox at Omaha Beach, was 22 years old. He’s buried in the German military cemetery at Lcom in Normandy.

 His family didn’t learn the circumstances of his death until 1989 when German historians cross-referenced American afteraction reports with casualty records. First Lieutenant Samuel Chen who perfected the suppression technique in the hedge survived the war and became a mechanical engineer. He died in 2012. His son donated his Thompson, an M1928A1 with drum capability to the Smithsonian.

It’s in storage, not on display, but researchers can request to examine it. The veterans who used drum equipped Thompsons rarely talked about them publicly. The weapons had been officially obsolete, their use technically against policy. Most veterans mentioned them only when specifically asked by historians, if at all.

 But in veteran reunions from the 1970s through 1990s, certain stories circulated about the gun that fired forever. About the nightmare pistol, about the weapon that shouldn’t have worked but did when everything else failed. The Thompson submachine gun with its 50 round drum magazine wasn’t the best weapon of World War II. It wasn’t the most reliable or the most accurate or the most produced.

But for certain soldiers, in certain moments, it was the one that mattered. These soldiers took obsolete equipment that the army had written off and turned it into a tactical advantage through innovation, determination, and courage. They didn’t have the newest weapons or the most support, but they had each other and the willingness to adapt.

 If this story moved you, hit that like button and subscribe to see more forgotten weapons and tactics that changed history. Ring the notification bell so you never miss a story about the soldiers who fought, not just with what they were given, but with what they could make work. Leave a comment telling me where you’re watching from or if you had family who served in World War II.

These stories matter because these people mattered and they deserve to be remembered. To Staff Sergeant Donovan, to Corporal Chen, to the thousands of soldiers who carried drum equipped Thompsons into combat despite official policy. Thank you. Your innovation saved lives. Your courage won battles. Your memory endures.

This was the story of when they put a drum magazine on a Thompson and Germans called it the nightmare