seeking info on inscribed M&P revolver used at 1919 Inter-Allied Games in Paris

[ddeanjohnson]

I thank all of you for your comments above, which have helped fill several gaps in my understanding, and have suggested several additional lines of investigation that I am pursuing.

Here is a scanned photo, credited to the National Archives, of the U.S. pistol team at the July 6, 1919 award ceremony for the Inter-Allied Games, with their trophy. I believe that Lt. Orton B. Stauffer is the third man from the left.

 

[DWalt]

Great historical research, and I can't add a thing. Yes, the YMCA did formerly support shooting, and I lived in several Ohio towns back in the 1960s which had very good YMCA indoor small arms ranges. By the way, the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association (NMLRA) was started at the railroad YMCA outdoor range in Portsmouth, Ohio back in the 1930s. I imagine the YMCA (or whatever it is called now) bans guns from their premises.

 

[ddeanjohnson]

Gravestone of Col. Orton B. Stauffer

In Arlington National Cemetery:



I understand that the inscription "ARCOM" refers to receipt of the Army Commendation Medal.

 

[Club Gun Fan]

Doug
These are the two flyers I told you about.
They were with the D-1 catalog.

 

[ddeanjohnson]

Clarification on location

Don, thank you very much for posting those pages. I was originally puzzled by the reference to the pistol competition occurring in LeMans, since the Inter-Allied Games were held in Pershing Stadium in Paris. The two cities are about 130 miles apart. The predecessor event, the A.E.F. matches, were held at a newly constructed range at D'Avours, near LeMans, so I initially thought that the D-1 catalog writers must have confused the two events. But I rechecked one of my other sources, a book titled The History of Marine Corps Competitive Marksmanship, and learned that the shooting events for the Inter-Allied Games were indeed held at D'Avours/LeMans. I suppose it made more sense than building another new range. The book goes on to say, "The 12 man rifle team match and the 10 man pistol match were both won by the United States. . . . On 6 July, before some 30,000 spectators [in Paris], General Pershing presented the medals to the successful participants of not only the rifle and pistol matches, but of the track and field events that all formed the Inter-Allied Games." (See photo above.)