Interesting photo of Navy Victorys

[Absalom]

Legal notice:
Photo and text are copied and pasted here from the S&W website under the “criticism, comment, scholarship” exclusion of US copyright law (17 US Code 107).

I haven’t seen the attached photo of a group of fetching ladies ... umm ... I meant a batch of Navy-issued pre-Victorys or Victorys, dated 1942, discussed here.

It can be found on the history page of the Smith & Wesson company website.

The text with it is as follows. I don’t think I have to point out that in connection with the photo the text is somewhat misleading or at least incomplete.

“1942
Victory Model M&P® Revolver
During World War II, the British Commonwealth approached Smith & Wesson for revolvers. The guns, which were basically an updated version of the .38 Military & Police revolver, were eventually given a V prefix on their serial number and called Victory Models. By the war’s end, Smith & Wesson had made over 800,000 revolvers for Allied troops”

[murphydog]

Cool photo. I believe but am not sure that the fourth lady on the right is Ensign Rosalie Thorne, who was the first woman Naval officer to shoot Expert on her qualification (211 out of 240 possible). She later was an art historian.

[DWalt]

I think that same picture has been posted here before, sometime in the dim past. At least I remember seeing it.

[Texas Star]

Originally Posted by DWalt

I think that same picture has been posted here before, sometime in the dim past. At least I remember seeing it.

I guess I missed it. Glad to see it now.

Absalom's posts are invariably excellent, and this one continues in that vein.

[two-bit cowboy]

Terrific. Thanks!

Bob

[oldbrownhat]

Originally Posted by murphydog

Cool photo. I believe but am not sure that the fourth lady on the right is Ensign Rosalie Thorne, who was the first woman Naval officer to shoot Expert on her qualification (211 out of 240 possible). She later was an art historian.

Interesting! Here's her obit from the NY Times in 2003
(No mention of her pistol expertise, though.)

Rollie McKenna, a photographer best known for her portraits of Dylan Thomas and other lions of English literature, died on June 14 in Northampton, Mass. She was 84 and had formerly lived in Stonington, Conn.

Rollie McKenna -- her full name was Rosalie Thorne McKenna -- found her calling at 30 when she bought her first camera on a visit to Paris. She was working as a researcher for Time and Life magazines, haunting the literary and artistic circles of the United States and Europe.

From the 1950's into the 80's, she specialized in literary stars, notably Thomas, the Welsh poet, to whom she was introduced in the early 1950's. She became his friend and principal portraitist and in 1955 made a film, ''The Days of Dylan Thomas,'' which won international prizes. She also published ''Portrait of Dylan: A Photographer's Memoir'' (1982).

Her first literary portrait was of Truman Capote, in Florence in 1950. Among her later subjects were W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, Edith Sitwell, Seamus Heaney, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, John Minton, Ezra Pound, Robert Frost, Eleanor Roosevelt, Leonard Bernstein, the actor James Earl Jones and the United States poet laureate Richard Wilbur.

Mr. Wilbur wrote the foreword for her autobiography, ''A Life in Photography'' (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991). He described the realm of her portraits as ''warm and sociable'' despite the diversity and difficulty of her subjects.

Her ''refusal to coerce or to use the intimidations of the studio,'' Mr. Wilbur wrote, ''are part of the genius of Rollie McKenna's portrait work.''

She approached portraiture as a modernist, using natural light for midrange shots in which the subject appears to have collaborated in choosing a setting and pose. The portraits are serious, for the most part, with exceptions like a laughing Mrs. Roosevelt taken for America Illustrated magazine in 1961.

Ms. McKenna's work was exhibited widely, most recently two years ago in a retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery in London. It was published in national magazines and books like ''Modern Poets: An American-British Anthology'' (1963) and her collection ''Writers and Artists.''

Rosalie Thorne was born in Houston and raised in Mississippi. She worked in a medical laboratory, did science research for Time magazine, served with the Naval Reserve in Washington in World War II and studied art history at Vassar College. She learned photography on her own to illustrate Italian Renaissance architecture.

She also took pictures of scenes in the American South and West and set up shop in New York as a commercial photographer. She wrote that trips to Europe meant a break from a souring marriage, and a visit to a friend in Kuwait in 1950 produced a harvest of pictures of local life, like Bedouin falconers.

That year, the writer John Malcolm Brinnin, her artistic mentor and lifelong friend, introduced her to Capote, and her future in portraiture.

Her marriage to Henry Dickson McKenna ended in divorce; there were no children.

[Sistema1927]

Somebody should tell the ladies that the targets are behind them.

[bigmtnman]

Originally Posted by Sistema1927

Somebody should tell the ladies that the targets are behind them.

....STILL laughing !!

[Dosgatos]

Originally Posted by murphydog

Cool photo. I believe but am not sure that the fourth lady on the right is Ensign Rosalie Thorne, who was the first woman Naval officer to shoot Expert on her qualification (211 out of 240 possible). She later was an art historian.

This picture appears on page 88 of "Images of America, Smith & Wesson" by Jinks and Krein. Not sure what you mean by "...on the right", but the fourth lady from the left is identified as Louise Shiriver, and the fourth lady from the right is Pamela Birmingham.

[murphydog]

There is a close-up photo of ENS Thorne (that of course I now cannot find) with her trusty Victory Model, who looks like the fourth officer from the left.

[Hondo44]

Thx Absalom!

Women in the Navy reserves were known as "Waves" - Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service; a division of the U.S. Navy created during World War II to free up male personnel for sea duty.

[Breakaway500]

Looks like one gal is left eye dominant. Great photo..

[murphydog]

Another member found the photo, thanks for the link:

U.S. Naval History on Twitter: "#OTD in 1943, Ensign Rosalie Thorne, USNR, became the first woman to be awarded the Navy Expert Pistol Shot Medal by scoring a 211 out of 240.… https://t.co/6quXczgUTu"

[Absalom]

Originally Posted by murphydog

Another member found the photo,....

Ah, THAT lady! I’m still desperately searching the gazillion book boxes my friends helped me pack for my move some months ago for my copy of Charles Pate’s book, but I’m pretty sure that’s where I’ve seen this.