During World War II, M1 Garands were shipped to all our major allies -- Great Britain, Nationalist China and all Latin American allied belligerents. After their liberation, we reequipped the entire Free French Army, then did the same for Belgian, Philippine and some Italian forces. Allied fighting forces from occupied countries included those from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Greece. In the immediate aftermath of the war. M1 Garands were furnished to Norway, Denmark, Italy, the Japanese Defense Forces, South Korea and the new States of Israel. Some of these rifles were returned in later years and more were shipped during the Cold War as military aid. How many hundreds of thousands of the 6 million M1 Garands were sent overseas as military aid will probably never be known. Meanwhile, those M1 Garands that served with U.S. forces saw service from the Korean peninsula to the Dominican Republic before being retired. A very few were supplied to civilian match shooters through the Director of Civilian Marksmanship program and many hundreds of thousand more were destroyed, cut up with torches or band saw, or crushed and sold for scrap metal. So, as a rule of thumb, any M1 Garand marked with an importer's stamp has probably had the vast majority of its parts replaced.
Well the M-1 seems to be a really good weapon and according to what I've read, this gun has proven it's designer noteworthy and the gun an amazing piece of technology. Being the first semi-automatic designated service rifle, this is a sweet gun; also serving in all theaters in World War II as well as Korea and the beginning of Vietnam being replaced by the short lived M-14 and then later the M-16.
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[ 11. October 2003, 07:23 AM: Message edited by: Onthefield ]