The most urgent need, however, was rifles. Churchill approached Roosevelt, who in turn approached General Marshall. What from the Army's own current stores could be spared? That was the question Marshall posed to his chief of ordnance. By June 3 he had his answer. There were some 500,000 old Enfield rifles, all made during the last war and packed away in grease. Since the Army was planning to deploy a new infantry firearm, the M-1 semiautomatic, Ordnance Chief Charles M. Wesson figured he could spare these plus 80,000 World War I-era machine guns, nine hundred 75mm guns, and 130 million rounds of ammunition without setting back the Army's own rearmament plans.
- From Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II by Arthur Herman
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