Brens for Britain

An Anglo-Canadian rearmament program was inaugurated last week as the John Inglis Co., Ltd. in Toronto set to work on an $8,000,000 order for 12,000 machine guns. Seven thousand of the guns, light-weight Brens adapted from Czechoslovakia models, will be distributed to the Canadian militia, 5,000 will be shipped to Britain to aid the mother country in her frantic scramble to rearm.

The Bren was adopted for Britain's infantry battalions some two years ago. to replace the U. S.-invented Lewis machine gun. The name is a British War Office simplification of Brno, site of the Czechoslovakian Arms Manufacturing Co. plant where the gun was perfected. * A trim, compact gun, it can be operated by one man and fired from the shoulder, on a bipod or tripod. It is ten pounds lighter and five inches shorter than the old army pattern Lewis gun, is gas-operated and air-cooled. There are two interchangeable barrels, so that if one overheats after a period of rapid firing, the other can be slipped in place in 20 seconds. With two men behind it, one feeding, the Bren can fire about 600 rounds a minute.

* And also site of Mies van der Robe's famed hillside house, the Chartres of modern architecture.

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