Bechowiec (aka Bechowiec-1) was a Polish

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

submachine gun A submachine gun (SMG) is a magazine-fed, automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, to describe its design concept as an autom ...

developed and produced by the underground

Bataliony Chłopskie Bataliony Chłopskie (BCh, Polish ''Peasants' Battalions'') was a Polish World War II resistance movement, guerrilla and partisan organisation. The organisation was created in mid-1940 by the agrarian political party People's Party and by 19 ...

(BCh, ''Peasants' Battalions'') resistance organisation. It was designed in 1943 by Henryk Strąpoć and was produced in underground facilities in the area of

Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski (), often referred to as Ostrowiec, is a city in southeastern Poland, in the historical region of Lesser Poland, with 66,258 residents (as of 2021). The town is one of historic centers of Polish industry and metallurgy, a ...

. Its name was coined after the Bataliony Chłopskie organization members who were informally called ''bechowiec'' (plural: ''bechowcy'').

History

The gun's designer was Henryk Strąpoć (born 1922), a

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

and self-taught amateur

gunsmith A gunsmith is a person who repairs, modifies, designs, or builds guns. The occupation differs from an armorer, who usually replaces only worn parts in standard firearms. Gunsmiths do modifications and changes to a firearm that may require a very h ...

in the village of Czerwona Góra, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. Between 1936 and 1939 years he illegally built four semi-automatic pistols of his own design.Erenfeicht, Krajewski, pp.24-33. During the German occupation of Poland he became a gunsmith for the local Bataliony Chłopskie underground organization. In spring of 1943 he completed a working prototype of his own submachine gun, later named Bechowiec. He later improved the design with a help of Jan Swat, who formerly worked as a mechanic in the metalworks in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. The headquarters of Opatów BCh district, lacking machine guns, decided to organize a serial production of the Bechowiec. This was possible thanks to the clandestine production of parts for the guns in a metalworks in

, without the knowledge of the German administration. These parts were produced there and, from October 1943, smuggled out by workers. Final construction of the guns was done in Strąpoć's village blacksmith shop, with primitive muscle-powered tooling. Barrels were made from scrapped World War I-vintage rifles, but they had to be hand-cut and rebored to 9 mm caliber. The first two new Bechowiec submachine guns were completed in January 1944. By July 1944, 11 were completed in Czerwona Góra, and at least two more in Jan Swat's workshop in Broniszowice. Some 20 were in production, but as the tide of the war turned, the front lines approached the village. The German presence intensified and forced a halt to the secret firearm production. The unfinished weapons and parts were hidden. The weapons were distributed among Bataliony Chłopskie and affiliated Ludowa Straż Bezpieczeństwa (''People's Security Guard'') partisan units, mostly in the area around Opatów. Only one Bechowiec-1 is still in existence; it is currently exhibited in the Polish Army Museum in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

. The next weapon with this name was the Bechowiec-2, designed and produced from April 1944 by Jan Swat in Broniszowice, and patterned after the

Sten gun The STEN (or Sten gun) is a family of British submachine guns chambered in 9×19mm which were used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces throughout World War II and the Korean War. They had a simple design and very low production cost ...

Design

A lack of experience of Strąpoć in machine guns' designing and lack of direct patterns resulted in several original construction features, similar to

semi-automatic pistol A semi-automatic pistol is a type of repeating single-chamber handgun ( pistol) that automatically cycles its action to insert the subsequent cartridge into the chamber (self-loading), but requires manual actuation of the trigger to actuall ...

s, and hence the weapon is sometimes referred to as a machine pistol, in spite of a size and general layout closer to a

. The weapon had no stock and had quite compact dimensions. It used standard German 9mm Parabellum ammunition which could be easily obtained either by purchase from the German soldiers or through armed actions. Three or four last weapons used 7.62×25mm Soviet ammunition, of growing popularity among partisans. The weapon used a slide, much like an automatic pistol and fired from a closed breech, which added to its accuracy in single-shot mode. It also had an internal hammer and an internal safety device that prevented shooting with a partially opened breech. A breech could be brought back by pulling a transport belt, fixed to a slide under the barrel. The gun had a three-position external safety and firing mode selector. The weapons had a signature "S.H. w.44" on a left side (Strąpoć Henryk, pattern 1944) and "B.H" on a right side. Production guns were painted black, the surviving exhibit weapon was later polished.

References

* Erenfeicht, Leszek; Krajewski, Piotr G. ''Bechowiec: zapomniany polski peem'' (Bechowiec: forgotten Polish SMG) in: Strzał Nr. 9(65)/2008 {{in lang, pl

External links

Bechowiec: Polish Teenager Makes a Resistance SMG
Submachine guns of Poland Insurgency weapons World War II submachine guns 9mm Parabellum submachine guns

History

Design

See also

References

External links