laststandonzombieisland

New Hampshire-based Sig Sauer, which these days is far more an American company than a Swiss-German venture, produced three custom 1911s to mark the passage this week of the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Now calm down, the guns aren’t for sale, and won’t be, at least by Sig, who made no money on them.

They were crafted with the purpose of donating them to the Best Defense Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on helping military veterans and their families. BDF and Sig recently partnered to take 65 World War II Veterans to Hawaii for a week of events surrounding the 80th Anniversary of the Japanese attack that occurred on Dec. 7, 1941.

The three commemorative 1911s include a Pearl Harbor model and one each for the lost battleships Arizona and Oklahoma, the only ones (notwithstanding the old battleship Utah) to never sail again and provided 1,177 and 429 names, respectively, to the butcher’s bill for that day.

The guns all feature grip panels crafted from wood salvaged from the decks of the battlewagon USS North Carolina and carry a special “Battleship Gray” cerakote finish. They also have some pretty decent engravings that really do the ships they salute justice.

The only gripe I have is that, while Sig chose a line drawing of Oklahoma with her post-1930s tripod masts, which she had at Pearl Harbor, they used an old Great War period drawing of Arizona with early lattice masts, a profile the ship had long ago morphed from by the time the Japanese cleared Diamondhead.

Still, overall, Bravo Zulu, Sig.