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Published August 24, 2006
Polk County officers saved the MG08/15 before it was destroyed after being used as evidence Like kids on Christmas morning, officials with the Iowa Gold Star Military Museum were wide-eyed as Polk County sheriff's officials presented them a new link to battlefield history - a World War I machine gun that was seized in a drug raid. "This is so fine," whistled museum director Russ Bierl as he hoisted the German World War I-era water-cooled machine gun. "During the battle of the Somme, 60,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded in one day. Can you imagine? This was the principal weapon."
The principal weapon - an MG08/15 water-cooled machine gun built in 1918 - has two interesting histories: its legacy in the hands of innovative, hard-fighting German soldiers in WWI, and its discovery in the basement of a Polk County drug dealer. Chief Deputy Bill Vaughn said a March 2004 drug raid by Polk County and drug task force officials uncovered the gun in the Polk City basement of Douglas Beckett, who was charged with possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute, along with firearms violations. The gun was among 52 weapons in his basement. Beckett headed to prison for 18 months, and the gun went to an evidence locker. After two years, the weapons faced impending destruction. After being used as evidence, confiscated weapons typically are sent to the state of Iowa, where they are cut up or melted down. Lt. James Jorgenson of the Polk County sheriff's office, an Army veteran and gun buff, set forth a plan to save it. "The property clerk mentioned what a historical piece it was," Jorgenson said. "I thought, 'Let's call the (National) Guard because it would be a shame to destroy such a historic weapon.' " The Iowa Gold Star Museum, located at 7105 N.W. 70th Ave. in Johnston on the grounds of Camp Dodge, houses military memorabilia, the majority honoring men and women who have served the state and nation. It is a Registered U.S. Army military museum and features artifacts from as far back as the Civil War. Water-cooled machine guns predated the air-cooled guns, and the MG08/15 was the lighter version of the MG08, a machine gun that was meant to stay stationary. The MG08/15, named as such because it was first manufactured by the Germans in 1915, was lighter and more portable. Its lighter weight made for more rapid relocation in the trenches, rather than the cumbersome older model, which required a stand. It's difficult to track the exact origin of the weapon, said museum curator Michael Vogt, other than to determine by its date of manufacture that it was made during the end of WWI. Jorgenson went to Vaughn, also an Army veteran, with the plan, and Vaughn filed the paperwork to get clearance to donate the gun to the museum at Camp Dodge. The sheriff's office donated another antique at the same time, an M2 Carbine fully automatic rifle used during World War II and the Korean War. The gun was an heirloom handed to a family by their father. When he died, they had it appraised by a gun dealer, who deemed it illegal and called the sheriff's office. While the weapon had to be confiscated, Jorgenson offered to donate it to the museum through the sheriff's office. The family obliged. Volunteers from a local gun club will completely disassemble the weapons so that they may wash and dry them before coating them with a protective microcrystal and finally wax them. After that, they may only be handled with gloves. The machine gun will end up in a World War II display set to be unveiled in 2008. Both guns are valued at several thousand dollars, Vogt said, but as teaching tools, they're worth much more. It was a fortunate fate for such a historic weapon. "They either end up in museums, collections or administrative hurdles," Vogt said. "In 1918-19 when the war ended, so many of these were brought back. Restrictions on what individual soldiers could bring home were nonexistent." | |
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Abby Simons/The Register