Half a tale poorly told.
https://www.mwatkin.com/us-aid-to-britain
“The Return
A post-war myth is that, after the war, most of the donated guns were either scrapped or dumped in the North Sea by the British government. In fact, the British government steadfastly refused to accept any responsibility for the scheme which it neither sought nor encouraged, both during and after the war. Some of the weapons were lost due to enemy action. In all, U-boats sunk 4 out of 64 of the shipments of US donations. Some weapons were found to be unserviceable on arrival and others were useless due to their unusual calibre. Many of these were indeed scrapped rather than spend scarce resources on their repair or conversion. On 28 June 1941, there arrived 500 defective pistols (around nine per cent of the donated total) and 50 defective shotguns.
Despite all the problems, after the war 146 crates of arms were handed back into the care of the ACDBH. The continuing concern to maintain it as a private venture meant that responsibility for organizing the return was to be entirely at the expense of the ACDBH. It proved to be a fraught process: upon arrival in the USA, damaged guns and those without any accompanying identification of donors were sold off, amounting to 36 cases of rifles and shotguns and a large number of revolvers. Another complication was found to be in shipping handguns across the USA, due to differing State regulations. After the first returns, given that few original donors had seriously expected to see their guns again, the remaining weapons in Britain were instructed to be sold and the proceeds donated to service charities. Some of the proceeds went to the Royal Cadet Corps and the School for Orphans of the Merchant Navy.”
