Posted on 09/10/2002 2:30:21 PM PDT by Slings and Arrows
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/10/obituaries/10GAL.html
Uzi Gal, the Israeli armaments expert who invented the widely used 9-millimeter submachine gun called the Uzi, died on Saturday at his home in Philadelphia. He was 79.
He had cancer, Agence France-Presse reported.
In 1976, Mr. Gal retired from Israel's government-owned weapons-manufacturing company, Israeli Military Industries, which had employed him, and moved to Philadelphia to pursue medical treatment for his daughter, who later died.
He invented the Uzi in the 1950's. An easily loaded compact gun weighing only nine pounds, it proved accurate, reliable and efficient, and is now in the arsenals of armies, secret-service organizations, bodyguards and the like in a number of countries. More than 1.5 million Uzis have been produced.
"It's a cheap weapon, easy to handle, with great fire power, extremely reliable and with a range of about 150 to 200 meters," said Raphael Eitan, a former chief of staff of the Israeli Army.
Mr. Gal studied mechanical engineering while he was imprisoned by the British administrators of his part of Palestine in the mid-1940's after they found that he had a firearm.
He saw combat in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, to which he brought a homemade submachine gun. Afterward he went to officers training school. He went on to design the Uzi, which impressed army leaders. By 1956 it was being manufactured by Israeli Military Industries, whose management named it for him, against his own wishes.
In 1958, the Netherlands decided to acquire Uzis for its army. Other Euiropean countries soon did likewise.
Selling Uzis in other countries was highly lucrative for Israel, but not for him. As a state employee, he did not become rich.
In 1974, the army began substituting another weapon, the Galil assault rifle, for the Uzi. Mr. Gal's retirement came two years later.
He was born Uziel Gal in Germany, immigrated with his family to the British-administered part of Palestine in 1936 and grew up on a collective farm near Haifa.
Mr. Gal, a widower, is survived by a son, Iddo, and a brother.
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http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-mideast-uzi.html
Inventor of Uzi Submachine Gun Dies of Cancer
By REUTERS
Filed at 11:58 a.m. ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Uziel Gal, the inventor of the Uzi submachinegun used in countless wars, commando missions and action films, has died of cancer at the age of 78.
Gal's family said the Israeli gunsmith died Saturday in the United States, where he had lived in relative obscurity for a quarter of a century after inventing the Uzi to help defend the fledgling Jewish state against its Arab neighbors.
``Obviously, he was proud to be identified with the product of his craftsmanship,'' Gal's son, Iddo, said in a telephone interview from the family home in Pennsylvania. ``But he was also a modest man who made efforts to move on to other things.''
He said Gal's remains would be brought to Israel for burial in his former home of Kibbutz Yagur Thursday.
``Uzi'' is an abbreviation of the Hebrew phrase ``God is my might.''
When Gal emigrated in 1936 from Germany to what was then British-mandate Palestine, Jewish forces in the region were using a variety of weapons, some homemade. He began work on the Uzi after the 1948 war in which Israel was born, and the weapon became standard issue for the Israeli army by the mid-1950s.
Soon after, the Uzi was a major export item. A spokeswoman for Israel Military Industries, the national defense manufacturer, said the company had sold the gun and two smaller versions in some 26 countries for more than $2 billion. The gun features a simple loading mechanism that minimizes jams, and a compact design, ideal for combat in rugged terrain. It fires nine millimeter ammunition from 25-, 32- or 40-shot magazines, at a full-automatic rate of 10 rounds a second.
That means it has hefty firepower without being too heavy.
``An outstanding weapon which could be fired one-handed and almost never jammed,'' recalled Pinhas Herzog, an Israeli who fought as a paratrooper in two Middle East wars.
With its distinctive snub barrel and folding shoulder stock, the Uzi made memorable media appearances -- including in the hands of a secret serviceman rushing away Ronald Reagan after an attempt on the then-president's life.
Hollywood cast the gun in dozens of action films. ``Uzi does it'' is still a popular T-shirt slogan.
In Israel, the Uzi has fallen into near-obsolescence, with combat soldiers being issued American-made M-16s or Israeli Galil assault rifles instead.
In 1976, Gal moved to Philadelphia so that his daughter, Tamar, could receive treatment for a rare brain disorder. She died in 1984 and Gal's wife also died there in 1998.
Iddo Gal said his father continued working in the arms trade, but had long considered applying his talents elsewhere.
``He had thought of working in orthopedic medicine, given his skill with steel,'' he said. ``But then again, he figured that if you are good in something, and you are protecting your country, you might as well stick with it.''
Alevah Shalom.
FReegards,
Slings and Arrows
I found that to be of ironic.
I found that to be [kind] of ironic.
When life gives you lemons, make a lemon cannon.
I don't think I'd say that. It still has it's uses. For non front line troops and for police for example. You don't bring submachine gun to a rifle fight, if you know there is going to be a rifle fight, or at least have a reasonable expectation that their might be one. However if you need something that doesn't get in the way the 99.9% of the time when you are doing your real job, a subgun may be just the ticket. I'd of course prefer something in a real caliber, like. 45 ACP, although when you can get lots of hits quickly, then even a 9mm firing FMJ can be a manstopper, if you can use soft or hollow points, as police and the Secrect Service can, then so much the better.
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