Despite the availability of the Sten, Thompsons continued to be issued to Home Guard units. For some of these scratch-formed defence groups, the old jokes about taping a butcher’s knife to a broom handle were not so far from the truth, but in reality many units were issued new Thompsons, albeit initially with no ammunition. Peter Evans, ex-East Yorkshire Home Guard, said: “We had two Thompson guns and several dozen Enfield Pattern 1917 rifles, which were chambered for the [American] .30-calibre ammunition, but we were issued with .303 cartridges which were no use. We had no ammunition at all for the Thompsons though, and were told that in the event of invasion we were to apply to the nearest regular army headquarters for a supply of cartridges. This was daft, because they were 20 miles away, which meant we’d have to fight our way to get there with useless guns in order to get our ammunition! Things got much better later on, though, and we eventually became very well armed indeed; we had something like 20 Thompsons, as well as Browning machine guns, mortars and Enfield rifles. When we were photographed we looked like a regular army unit.”

The supply of Model 1928s was nowhere near enough, of course, and for propaganda reasons guns were often taken from one unit and passed to another so that suitably aggressive pictures could be taken. Indeed, many home service units were supplied with wooden “props’’ for propaganda purposes, as the Ministry of Defence knew that all pictures released to the public would be carefully examined by German intelligence staff. Even today, occasionally some wooden Thompsons appear in sale rooms and are typically described as “film prop guns,” but their history is often far more interesting.

As supplies of the Model 1928 began to dry up, they were replaced with the more basic M1/M1A1s, and these too were issued to line regiments. As a result, troops carried a great mix of different models, with old Model 1928s being used alongside the later M1 guns. In regions where supply was problematic, such as Burma and Madagascar, the early guns often saw service with Commonwealth soldiers right to the end of the war. Such was the esteem in which the Thompson was held that the Commando badge, worn on the upper shoulder, featured a Model 1928. Military production of the Thompson finally ceased in 1944, after 1,387,134 Thompson guns had been manufactured.