page_title: John T. Thompson
section_title: World War I
hierarchical_section_title: John T. Thompson / World War I
caption_attribution_description: English: General John Taliaferro Thompson holding the Thompson Sub Machine Gun M1921.
context_page_description: John Taliaferro Thompson was a United States Army officer best remembered as the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun.
context_section_description: World War I began in Europe in 1914, and Thompson was sympathetic to the Allied cause.  Since the U.S. did not immediately enter the war, and because he recognized a significant need for small arms in Europe (as well as an opportunity to make a substantial profit), Thompson retired from the Army in November of that year and took a job as Chief Engineer of the Remington Arms Company. While with the company he supervised the construction of the Eddystone Arsenal in Chester, Pennsylvania, at that time the largest small arms plant in the world. It manufactured Pattern 1914 Enfield rifles for British forces, and Mosin–Nagant rifles for Russia.
  The introduction of trench warfare in the First World War changed tactics substantially, and by 1916 Thompson was experimenting again with automatic small arms, this time attempting to design a weapon that troops could use to clear an enemy trench—what he called a "trench broom." Thompson studied several designs and was impressed with a delayed-blowback breech system designed by John Blish, a commander in the United States Navy.  With Blish as a partner, Thompson obtained the necessary venture capital to form the Auto-Ordnance Company, and began working on the design of what eventually became the Thompson submachine gun.
  When the United States finally entered the war in 1917, Thompson returned to the Army and was promoted to the rank of brigadier general.  He served as Director of Arsenals throughout the remainder of the war, in which capacity he supervised all small-arms production for the Army.  For this service he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.  He retired again after the war, in December 1918, and resumed work perfecting the "Tommy Gun."
  Thompson originally pursued the Autorifle concept: a rifle utilizing the Blish principle delayed-blowback action to avoid the complexity of recoil-operated and gas-operated actions. Testing found that the military issue  .30-06 cartridge was too powerful to work satisfactorily using the Blish system.
  Thompson eventually decided to use the same .45 caliber ammunition in the Thompson submachine gun that he had vetted for use in the M1911 while in the Army.  The weapon was patented in 1920, but the major source for contracts had ended with the armistice.  Thompson, therefore, marketed the weapon to civilian law enforcement agencies, who bought it in respectable quantities.  However, by 1928 low sales had led the company to the financial crisis, and Thompson was replaced as head of the Auto-Ordnance Company.
caption: General John T. Thompson holding an M1921
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