The M1911A1 was widely respected
for its reliability and lethality. However, its
single action/cocked and locked design required
the user to be very familiar and well-trained to
allow carrying the pistol in the
"ready-to-fire" mode. Consequently,
M1911A1s were often prescribed to be carried
without a round in the chamber. Even with this
restriction on the user, numerous unintentional
discharges were documented yearly.
The M1911A1 had been the standard
handgun issued to Marines for many decades.
Selected weapons were modified in the 1980s to
meet the requirements of the MEU(SOC) in lieu of
arming them with the M9 9mm pistol.
M1911A1 .45 Caliber Pistol
Widely used in World War I, World
War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, as
of 1940 the original Model of 1911 was designated
"Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45,
M1911",, and "Automatic Pistol, Caliber
.45, M1911A1" for the M1911A1 adopted in
1924. The classic M1911 pistol has now
served the U.S. military for 88 years, but first
came into its own during the Great War.
M1911A1 .45 Caliber Pistol
Norm White
Curatorial Assistant, National Firearms
Museum
The Model 1911 and its progeny
are perhaps the most successfully designed
semi-automatic pistols in history. The brainchild
of noted designer John Moses Browning, this
legendary pistol has been widely copied both in
the United States and abroad. A favorite of
competitors and recreational shooters, the M1911
first established its reputation as a military
arm, serving as the U.S. Army's standard
sidearm for nearly 75 years and seeing action in
every American conflict from the Mexican Punitive
Expedition of 1916 through Operation Desert
Storm. It has also served various law enforcement
agencies and continues in that role today, having
recently been selected for use by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation's elite Hostage
Rescue Team.
Despite how famous the M1911 has
become, its service life began modestly. On April
24, 1911, the Army placed an initial order with
Colt for 31,344 pistols. By early 1917, more than
100,000 had been manufactured both by Colt and by
Springfield Armory under a licensing agreement.
Most of these were issued to commissioned and
noncommissioned officers, cavalrymen, and members
of machine gun, artillery, and other crew-served
weapons units. In addtion, about 18,000 were
procured by the Navy and Marine Corps. Thousands
more were purchased by various foreign
governments, while others were sold to U.S.
military officers and government officials, or on
commercial markets. Among the M1911s sold during
the prewar years were a group of approximately
100 pistols purchased through Springfield Armory
by National Rifle Association (NRA) Life Members
and members of NRA-affiliated clubs. Both Colt-
and Springfield Armory-produced examples were
included in this program. These pistols carried a
purchase price of $16 each and were stamped with
the letters "NRA" on the right side of
the frame below the serial number.
Earlier government purchases had
been sufficient for a peacetime army, but were
woefully inadequate for a world at war. As the
possibility loomed of American involvement in the
European conflict, the War Department increased
its orders for all types of military arms and
supplies. Officials reported that approximately
70,000 M1911s were avilable for issue to U.S.
troops when Congress declared war against the
Central Powers on April 6, 1917, and the
Army's Ordnance Department soon ordered an
additional 500,000 pistols from Colt at a price
of $14.50 each. To supplement this purchase, the
Army also placed orders with both Colt and Smith
& Wesson for 100,000 Model 1917 .45 caliber
double-action revolvers. By the end of the war,
more than 250,000 revolvers had been acquired by
the government, and most were issued to officers
and troops in rear areas.
Pistols became a much
sought-after commodity among American soldiers as
they took their places with the Allied forces in
France. Patrols and trench raids frequently
resulted in close-in or even hand-to-hand
fighting between opposing troops. Excelling in
both offensive and defensive roles, the rugged,
hard-hitting Browning-Colt .45s quickly proved
their worth. In one of the most famous incidents
of the war, Sergeant Alvin C. York successfully
engaged and silenced multiple German machine gun
crews while armed only with a rifle and an M1911.
Less than a week later, First Lieutenant Samuel
Woodfill performed a similar feat. Both were
awarded the Medal of Honor for their gallantry in
action.
As the war progressed, Army
estimates for the number of pistols it required
were continually revised to meet increasing
demands. After the gun's success in the
trenches of France, the Army decided to supply
the M1911 in greater numbers to infantry troops.
During October 1917, government orders for the
.45 autoloaders reached 765,000, an increase of
nearly 60 percent. A critical situation arose as
demands exceeded both available supplies and
production efforts. For several reasons, Colt was
only able to fill about 25 percent of its monthly
quota for the M1911, and its backlog continued to
grow. In addition to contracts for these pistols
and for M1917 revolvers, the Hartford arms maker
was producing both Vickers and Browning machine
guns, as well as Browning Automatic Rifles, and
the company had also agreed to rebuild or
refurbish thousands of unserviceable .45 pistols
and revolvers in military inventories. Production
problems were further complicated by shortages of
both skilled workers and raw materials.
Hoping to find an expedient but
temporary solution to this problem, the
government appealed to the public to turn in
their commercially purchased Colt Government
Model .45 autos for military use. Very few
citizens responded to this call. Faced with a
growing shortage and no immediate solutions, the
Army began to investigate the possibility of
expanding M1911 production by issuing additional
contracts to other manufacturers.
In late 1917 and early 1918, the
government approached both Remington-U.M.C. and
Winchester Repeating Arms Co. about manufacturing
the M1911. Remington-U.M.C.'s Bridgeport,
Connecticut plant was the largest in the United
States at that time, and production lines at the
1.6 million square-foot complex were turning out
a variety of arms, including the M1917
bolt-action rifles and Browning .50 caliber
machine guns, as well as the M1891 Mosin-Nagant
rifles for the Russian government. In nearby New
Haven, Winchester also produced M1917 rifles, in
addition to Browning Automatic Rifles and M1897
trench shotguns. Both companies received
contracts for 500,000 M1911s. Under terms of
their agreements, pistols manufactured by these
two firms were to be completely interchangeable
with those produced by Colt and Springfield
Armory.
However, while Colt provided
technical assistance in the form of sample
pistols and production drawings, problems quickly
arose. In addition to numerous discrepancies,
these drawings contained only nominal dimensions
and no tolerances.
In order to enable Winchester to
channel its efforts toward production of other
urgently needed arms, the Chief of Ordnance
recommended that Winchester's contract for
the M1911 be transferred elsewhere. Though the
company's quota was cut from 500,000 to
100,000, the agreement remained in effect until
December 4, 1918. No completed pistols were
produced, and Winchester later transferred all
parts and assemblies then on hand to Springfield
Armory.
Finding it easier to make their
own blueprints based on measurements obtained
from the Colt-produced sample pistols rather than
reconcile more than 400 known discrepancies,
Remington-U.M.C. created a set of "salvage
drawings" that were later used by other
contractors as well. The Army suspended its
contract with Remington-U.M.C. on December 12,
1918, but allowed the company to manufacture
additional examples to reduce its inventories of
various parts on hand. All told, nearly 22,000
M1911s were delivered to the government before
Remington-U.M.C. shut down its production line.
In the summer of 1919, the company turned over
its pistol manufacturing equiement to Springfield
ARmory, where it was placed in storage until the
Second World War.
In addition to Colt,
Remington-U.M.C., and winchester, the Army also
issued contracts to several other companies,
including North American Arms Co. (Quebec,
Canada), A.J. Savage Munitions Co. (San Diego),
National Cash Register Co. (Dayton, Ohio),
Lanston Monotype Co. (Philadelphia), Caron
Brothers Manufacturing Co. (Montreal, Canada),
Savage Arms Co. (Utica, NY), and Burroughs Adding
Machine Co. (Detroit, Mich). Most of these
contracts were issued during the final three
months of the war, and all outstanding pistol
orders were canceled by early 1919. While some
were able to produce parts and assemblies, only
Colt, Remington-U.M.C., and North American Arms
succeeded in manufacturing completed pistols.
The North American Arms Co.,
which was organized and incorporated on June 28,
1918, secured a contract from the U.S. Army to
manufacture the M1911 in place of the defunct
Ross Rifle Co. of Quebec. At the outbreak of war
in 1914, Ross was producing the Canadian
Army's standard straight-pull rifle, but
combat use proved these arms to be
unsatisfactory. Canadian troops switched to
British made Enfields, and the Ross Rifle Co.
eventually went out of business. North
American's contract of July 1, 1918, called
for the productin of 500,000 pistols at a price
of $15 (U.S.) each, and the U.S. government
agreed to furnish raw materials in return for
reimbursement through deductions on invoices for
finished pistols. Lacking its own production
facilities, North American leased the former Ross
Rifle plant for this purpose. The Army canceled
its contract with North American Arms on December
4, 1918, just as the first prototypes were being
assembled. No pistols were delivered to U.S.
authorities, but approximately 100 toolroom
samples were produced. These are among the rarest
of all M1911 pistols in existence.
There is much conflicting
information regarding the wartime manufacture of
.45 auto pistols at Springfield Armory, with some
sources indicating that as many as 45,000 were
produced there in 1918. Prior to U.S. entry into
the war, Springfield Armory had produced the
M1911 under license from Colt, but the M1903
rifle had become Springfield's chief product
by 1917. The armory had no separate facilities
for the manufacture of rifles and pistols, and as
the demand for rifles rose in the spring of 1918,
the Ordnance Department approved a request by
Springfield Armory's commanding officer to
convert the plant for rifle production. In
addition, annual reports from Springfield
indicate that fewer than 2,5000 M1911s were
produced in 1917, but make no mention of the
production of completed pistols during the
following year.
Between May 1917 and October
1918, the government contracted for the
production of more than 2.7 million M1911
pistols. By the war's end, more than 500,000
had been delivered at an average cost of $15
each. Though the final tally fell far short of
the millions of pistols ordered by the Army,
those that were produced provided American
soldiers with an effective close range personal
defense arm. Many of these pistols were
"casualties of war," with some being
destroyed, lost, or captured, while thousands
more were "appropriated" by the
soldiers who used them and the brought them home
as souvenirs of their service abroad
The Armistice did not bring an
end to fighting for all U.S. troops. After Russia
signed a separate peace with the Kaiser in early
1918, the Allies organized expeditionary forces
made up of 100,000 troops from 14 countries,
including 10,000 Americans, and dispatched them
to northern Russia and Siberia, ostensibly to
secure railheads and safeguard stockpiled war
materiel against seizure by German troops.
Fighting both hostile Red Army units and
temperatures as low as -60 degrees, more than 700
U.S. troops were killed or wounded before they
were withdrawn in January 1920.
During the final year of what
came to be known as the Great War, the Model 1911
saw widespread use in the hands of American
servicemen, during which time these arms first
carved a place in the annals of U.S. military
history. Among the Model 1911 pistols on display
at the National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Va,
are two Colt-produced examples, one of which
bears U.S. Navy markings and the other, featuring
ornately-carved wooden grips, was carried by a
U.S. officer in the Siberian Expedition. Other
M1911s in the museum colleciton include a
REmington-U.M.C. model, a rare
Springfield-produced, NRA-marked example, and an
equally rare North American Arms toolroom
prototype bearing the date of December 7, 1918 on
the right side of the slide.
Exactly 23 years later, Japanese
pilots attacked the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl
Harbor. The events of that "Day of
Infamy" brought the United States into the
Second World War, a conflict in which the legend
of the Colt .45 auto would continue to grow.
