Скачать или смотреть The Dark Story of Britain’s Submachine Gun Empire: The Lines Bros Factory

On twenty-seven acres in suburban London, the Lines Brothers built the largest toy factory in the world. Tri-ang was a name that meant Christmas morning — pressed-steel lorries, rocking horses, pedal cars, all rolling off the line in bright primary colours. Then the war came. After Dunkirk left Britain nearly defenseless, that same factory was turned to a different purpose: producing the Sten gun, the cheapest, crudest, most dangerously unreliable submachine gun of World War II. Workers who'd been painting toy cars were now welding firearms on a 24-hour production line. In eighteen months, they built nearly 900,000 — outproducing America's entire effort on a comparable weapon. Guns dropped by parachute to resistance fighters across occupied Europe. Guns feared by the soldiers who carried them. Then the war ended, and the factory quietly went back to making toys. No ceremony. No recognition. This is that story.