pogue

There is some mention of 3.7 inch *howitzers* used in Crete in The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939–1945, 2nd New Zealand Divisional Artillery, Chapter: An Odd Assortment of Guns (pp 110-112). Here: http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz//tm/scholarly/tei-WH2Arti-c4-2.html. Weren't they WW1 era?

You are right, of course, the Vickers K, stupid me.... I will go back to my sources because ISTR the same thing - I think they pintle mounted the Lewis on the rear.

They originally scrounged air cooled Lewis K's from downed Allied aircraft. It turned out to be a winner when mounted on jeeps and in this role was used right up until the end of the war in Europe. The Lewis started off in WW1 as an LMG that required a team of 4-5 personnel - a gunner, loader and ammo bearers. It was not designed to be fired from the hip and forget about from the shoulder. It was essentially a weapon that needed to be mounted or fired prone and required a larger crew (than the Bren) to operate it - for what benefit? More weight and 17 more rounds of ammo than a Bren? The ammo pan was a b1tch to carry compared to Bren magazines too. My guess is that it simply was superceded by the Bren gun which was lighter, more accurate, more mobile, could be fired from the hip or shoulder, easier to train on, and only required a two-person crew. Variants of the Bren were being used actively right up until the 1990s and it can still be found in some armouries around the world.