Why Thompson Scared the Sh*t Out of German Soldiers

This Thompson submachine gun military history documentary covers the full story of the Tommy gun and how it only exists because of a series of accidents. The gun wasn't supposed to be a submachine gun at all. The term submachine gun didn't even exist until the Thompson created it. John Thompson was working on a full-power automatic rifle in .30-06. The mechanism he used turned out to be based on a principle that was completely false. Modern testing proved the Blish lock did nothing. But it couldn't handle .30-06 anyway, so they switched to .45 ACP. The prototype called Annihilator 1 was finished and sitting in crates in New York Harbor when WWI ended. No war, no customer. The video covers how the IRA saved the Thompson from commercial failure by ordering 650 through back channels. It covers the Marines guarding mail trucks with Thompsons and then taking them to Nicaragua and China. It covers the gangster era and the St. Valentine's Day Incident that led to machine gun restrictions still in place today. When Dunkirk left the British unarmed, Churchill personally pushed Thompson orders and the Commonwealth bought over half a million. The Thompson was beautiful but expensive. Milled steel, walnut furniture, $200 when you could buy a car for that. They simplified it for WWII but it still cost too much. The Blish lock they finally removed had done nothing for 23 years. The M3 Grease Gun replaced it at $20 a copy. By the end of the war, 1.5 million Thompsons had been built. They still show up on battlefields today. Script written by:    / andreja-rakocevic   Contact: [email protected] Unbelievable True Stories covers the forgotten and surprising corners of history. Facebook: facebook.com/profile.php?id=61587274704384 X: x.com/UTStoriesYT Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/utsproducti... Unbelievable True Stories covers the forgotten and surprising corners of history. © Unbelievable True Stories 2025 Chapters: 0:00 One Accident After Another 1:38 A Theory That Was Entirely False 3:42 The War Ended Just in Time 5:13 The IRA Saved It 6:07 Marines Guarding Mail 6:51 Then the Gangsters Showed Up 8:20 Dunkirk Changed Everything 12:43 The Grease Gun