For the Marines, the 1911 never goes out of style
One of the longest standing military traditions is the sight of a US Marine with a 1911-style .45ACP Government Issue semi-automatic. From Mexico to France and Okinawa to Afghanistan, for the past 103 years the Marines have put their faith in John Browning’s single-action longslide. Now, with a few sweet 21st century tweaks, the Colt 1911 is still the choice of Devil Dogs deployed in the world’s hotspots.
Don’t tell anyone in the Marines, but it was the US Army who adopted, after an epic and legendary series of tests, the Colt prototype semi-automatic .45ACP pistol on n March 29, 1911 and dubbed it the M1911, a designation that it retains to this day. Well, by 1913, the Navy Department likewise adopted the Army’s pistol to replace underpowered 38S&W caliber revolvers that no one, especially the marines, liked. This began a nearly 100-year love affair with the distinctive .45 longslide.
Through two world wars, the Korean conflict, Vietnam, and dozens of forgotten Banana Wars, the Marines carried the M1911 in combat and in peacetime service. Some of the Corps most famous, including Smedley Butler and Chesty Puller performed some of their greatest deeds with a 1911 at hand.
Future General Smedley Darlington Butler in 1915 earned his *second* Medal of Honor with only two Marines beside him, against a force of insurgents in Haiti. That’s Butler, as a 34-year old Major– he’s the one with the 1911.
Read the rest in my column at University of Guns
