Tag Archives: M1897

Government Issue, 100 Years Ago Today

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“Regulation Army .45 Colt and its effect on bulletproof glass used in the new armored postal trucks which it is proposed to put into use as a further protection of valuable mails,” December 1, 1921.

Via The Library of Congress, National Photo Company Collection. LC-F8-16987

The destructive tester seems to be a Marine, which tracks because the same year this image was taken, President Warren G. Harding sent 2,200 Marines to guard mail delivery across the nation in the wake of a spate of high-profile robberies.

Note the trench guns and M1911s

How about that early M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle? Also, it must have been odd to be on armed details with neckties and campaign hats.

The Devils were tasked with riding shotgun over high priority certified mail, which included cash and negotiable bonds. Reportedly, in the five years that the Marines were on guard, not one robbery on an escorted shipment was attempted.

Meet Bridget, she like long walks, and taking shots at the Kaiser’s men across No Man’s Land

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The gun that fired the first American shot at Sommerville, near Nancy Oct 23 1917

The 75mm artillery piece that cranked out the first U.S. shot on the Western Front in World War I a century ago last week is still in the Army’s custody.

The M1897 gun, a French-made field gun named “Bridget” is on display today in the Large Weapons Gallery at the U.S. Army Military Academy Museum at West Point but on Oct. 23, 1917, it fired the first shot across “No Man’s Land” by American forces in France.

This map purports to illustrate America’s first artillery salvo of the war, fired on October 23, 1917, by guns in the American 1st Division. Sergeant Alexander Arch barked the order “fire” to the crew manning the 75mm field gun. U.S. Army. First Sector Occupied by Americans 1917, inscribed: “First shot in the war Oct. 23, 1917 6:30 am. . . .” U.S. Army base map, 1918. Printed map annotated in color. Hines Collection, Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress (195.00.00)

The gun was sent back to the states in 1918 and is at West Point today, still with the names of the “First Shot” crew who fired it 100 years ago last week.

More in my column at Guns.com