Did Australia Destroy Firearms Used in The Pacific?

(UPDATED: Weapons Confiscated were from the film The Great Raid)

As news continues to (barely) flow about the reported ban on the importation of vintage M1 rifles from South Korea news has surfaced that many other vintage World War II era equipment was recently destroyed in Australia.

At the Historicon Convention, historian consultant Dale Dye reportedly related his troubles with the Australian government. Apparently Dye had imported scads of World War II era rifles, Thompson submachine guns and other firearms from Korea to use in filming The Pacific, which aired earlier this year on HBO. When the time came to leave Australia the government confiscated all of them, and had the firearms cut up into scrap metal!

And we thought the American gun buybacks were bad news for collectors!

Updated: We spoke with Dale Dye, who clarified:

“It wasn’t The Pacific but it was the film The Great Raid, which was also filmed in Australia. I was told that after production wrapped the Australian government confiscated the firearms and these were ‘dealt with.’ I told that to mean destroyed. That’s what I was told, but I can’t confirm for a fact that the guns were in fact destroyed. As for the weapons used in The Pacific, those did in fact come home with us.”