Category: War
I was recently presented this idea for a series of posts to this blog, this being the first. The idea is to spend a few paragraphs on my favorite handgun and do it a decade at a time. Since handguns have always been my focus as a writer, we feel that readers of this blog might be interested in what guns stand out in my recollections of past year.
It’s now 2019 and I have been working exclusively as a writer for gun magazines for 34 consecutive years. Before that, I carried and used a handgun as a deputy sheriff in Orange County, Calif., and as an infantryman in the Marine Corps.
This provides a pretty wide set of experiences, but I am not trying to imply that I have seen everything. I believe I can confidently state that I have evaluated all of the major makes and almost all models thereof. The nature of any gun review story—for Gun World, Guns & Ammo, Petersen’s Handguns, HandGunning, Shooting Times, Shooting Illustrated or Amertican Rifleman—is remarkably like every other one.
In considering where to begin, I thought about going back to the very first handgun I ever fired. But that event was so far back in my lifetime that I had no comparative experience and opinion to share. I finally decided to begin in the 1960s, when I was just started carrying a pistol by mandate of the U.S. Marine Corps.
The idea behind this series—which begins below—is to identify a gun for each decade (maybe a runner up), describe where it fits in the scheme of things and what sort of impact it had on me. A few of these choices may be easy, but most are really hard to do. I am one of the luckiest guys alive in that I have had an unending stream of shiny new handguns to shoot. 
The M1911
Although I grew up enthralled with the idea of owning and using every possible kind of gun, my exposure to any great variety was limited. I fired my first shots with a .22 at the age of six and even became an NRA member before I was a teen.
In those years, there were no true gun magazines except American Rifleman, and that classic was always light on handgun reading. Gradually, my interests in firearms began to focus on the ones that could be fired with one hand.
In that fascinating era of surplus autos from World War II Europe, I began to be aware that there were a lot of handguns I didn’t know anything about. I discovered that great annual The Gun Digest and a few scattered gun books in the Pomona Public Library. Without realizing it, I became a collector of gun books
In the late 1950s, I finished my formal schooling and entered the military service with the Marine Corps. Basic School for lieutenants in the summer of 1957 started with a very thorough block of instruction on weapons.
The basic weapon of that era was the M1 rifle, with the BAR as the squad automatic. We fired just about everything the Marine Corps used, including a qualification course with the water-cooled Browning machine gun and the most terrifying weapon I have ever fired—the flame thrower.
But the Corps had recently rid itself of the controversial M1 carbine as a personal weapon for officers. Thus began my long-standing love affair with the 1911A1 pistol. It was an easy choice for favorite handgun of the 1960s decade.
After Basic School, I went to duty with a rifle company in the 3rd Marines on Okinawa. My issued firearm was the 1911A1 .45. I fired mine whenever I could and was lucky to be where open country was available for informal practice. I also had a company commander who was one of the Marine Corps’ leading competitive shooters. He was full of encouragement and practical information. It was Capt. Martin who first told me about custom .45s or match-conditioned guns. In later duty assignments, I was able to compete in the annual competition-in-arms program. I even developed my own method of teaching pistol marksmanship and qualified an unheard-of 43 percent of my outfit as Experts.
On July 1, 1965, I landed—by helicopter—in Vietnam. I stayed there until just before Christmas of 1966. Every waking minute of every day of that time, I had the same 1911 .45 pistol on my hip. At night, it was within arm’s reach or tied to my wrist. Straight out of the arsenal refinish program and looking pretty snazzy when I got it, the .45 gradually lost all finish. Parkerizing is the casualty when you have to use aggressive cleaning to get the night rust off.
From my point of view, the decade of the 1960s was strongly associated with carrying and firing the 1911A1 service .45, I fired dozens of 2700 aggregate bullseye matches and equal numbers of very similar service rules contests. This was the period when Jeff Cooper was doing all that Big Bear .45 Leatherslap stuff. I was busy with duties and never got around to joining the SWPL, but I was mighty interested. I had a great deal of reason to like the old gun and events of more recent times did nothing to diminish that.
It is an American classic firearm, a gun that shoots a serious cartridge for serious times. Made by Colt or other Yankee makers of note, the 1911 has a history that is incomparable. It can be abbreviated a bit, down to hideout size and it can be very accurate. It’s an easy choice for Handgun of the Decade, 1960s.
Peter Ortiz was a proper war hero long before he went to work in Hollywood. Public domain.
Robert Downey, Jr. is one of the most esteemed actors of his generation. His depiction of Tony Stark as Iron Man across 10 big-budget superhero movies became iconic. I once read a commentary by a British film critic who said that Downey’s English accent in the Sherlock Holmes films was the only example of an American playing a Brit that he felt was in any way believable. What makes that so remarkable is that Downey never took acting lessons. He just got in front of the camera and did his thing. He’s a natural.
There was a time when this was the rule rather than the exception. John Wayne’s natural swagger certainly could not be learned. Back in the Golden Age of Hollywood, actors were not necessarily mushy, fragile prima donnas. They often were drawn from the ranks of truly manly men out in the real world. Principle among them was one Peter Ortiz.
Filmography of a Hero
Peter Ortiz starred in 27 films and two television series. His filmography includes such classics as She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Retreat, Hell!, The Outcast, Twelve O’Clock High, Wings of Eagles, and Rio Grande. Ortiz brought a gritty realism to the sundry roles he played on screens both large and small. That’s because he was arguably the baddest man ever to grace the silver screen.
Pierre Julien Ortiz was born in New York in 1913. His mother was of Swiss stock, while his dad was a Spaniard born in France. He was educated at the French University of Grenoble. Ortiz spoke 10 languages. In 193,2 at age 18, he joined the French Foreign Legion.
The Foreign Legion is comprised of some legendarily rough hombres. Peter Ortiz thrived in this space. He earned the Croix de Guerre twice while fighting the Riffian people in Morocco. In 1935, Ortiz turned down a commission as an officer in the Legion to travel to Hollywood and serve as a technical advisor for war films.
Peter Ortiz is shown here second from the left with his team of OSS operators in occupied France during World War 2. Marine Corps photo.
Proper War
We modern Americans often overlook this fact, but World War II burned on for a couple of years before we got involved. As soon as the shooting started, Ortiz left Hollywood and returned to the Legion as a sergeant. He soon earned a battlefield commission and was wounded while destroying a German fuel dump. He was captured soon thereafter but escaped through Portugal, eventually making it back to the United States.
War was a growth industry in the early 1940s, and American citizens with combat experience were invaluable assets. Ortiz enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in June of 1942 and earned a commission as a Second Lieutenant 40 days later. He made captain by year’s end and was deployed to Tangier, Morocco, assigned to the Office of Strategic Services. The OSS was the predecessor to the CIA. Captain Peter Ortiz was now officially a spy.
Undercover Ops
Ortiz was wounded badly, recovered, and then parachuted into occupied Europe several times. He repatriated downed Allied flyers and helped organize French Underground units. In August 1944, he was captured by the Germans. He survived torture by the Gestapo and somehow avoided execution. In April 1945, Ortiz’s POW camp was liberated. Now a Lieutenant Colonel, he made his way back to Hollywood to pick up where he left off.
In 1954, Southeast Asia was heating up, so Lt. Ortiz volunteered to return to active duty. However, by then, he was more than 40 years old and sort of famous. The Marines turned him down but promoted him to full Colonel in retirement.
Decorations
We’ve glossed over this guy’s amazing career. He was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) by the government of England. He earned both the Navy Cross and the Purple Heart, each twice. The Navy Cross is our second-highest award for valor, right after the Medal of Honor. Here’s an excerpt from his first Navy Cross citation:
“Operating in civilian clothes and aware that he would be subject to execution in the event of his capture, Major Ortiz parachuted from an airplane with two other officers of an Inter-Allied mission to reorganize existing Maquis groups in the region of Rhone.
By his tact, resourcefulness and leadership, he was largely instrumental in affecting the acceptance of the mission by local resistance leaders, and also in organizing parachute operations for the delivery of arms, ammunition and equipment for use by the Maquis in his region.
Although his identity had become known to the Gestapo with the resultant increase in personal hazard, he voluntarily conducted to the Spanish border four Royal Air Force officers who had been shot down in his region, and later returned to resume his duties. Repeatedly leading successful raids during the period of this assignment, Major Ortiz inflicted heavy casualties on enemy forces greatly superior in number, with small losses to his own forces.”
Ruminations
There were two Hollywood films that were based upon his personal adventures. 13 Rue Madeleine came out in 1947. Operation Secret hit theaters in 1952. Ortiz had one son, Pete Junior, who served as a Marine officer himself, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel.
Of his dad, the younger Marine said, “My father was an awful actor, but he had great fun appearing in movies.” Colonel Peter Ortiz might not have been the greatest actor of all time, but he was an amazing warrior.
United States
Navy Cross with gold star 
Legion of Merit
Purple Heart with gold star 
American Campaign Medal
European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal
World War II Victory Medal
Marine Corps Reserve Ribbon
Parachutist Badge
United Kingdom
Officer of the Order of the British Empire
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France
Chevalier of the Legion of Honor
Médaille militaire
Croix de guerre des théâtres d’opérations extérieures with bronze and silver stars
Croix de Guerre 1939-1945 with two bronze palms and silver star
Croix du combattant
Médaille des Évadés
Médaille Coloniale with the campaign clasp: “MAROC”
Médaille des Blesses
1939–1945 Commemorative war medal (France)
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Morocco
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The End Of The Greatest Generation
The suffering and deprivation those awesome old guys endured so we could live as free men and women simply defies reason. Photo: U.S. Navy
Most of them are all gone now. Our world used to be dirty with WWII veterans. In my own little Southern town, the local car salesman served on PT boats in the South Pacific, the banker flew B-24 Liberators, my geometry teacher humped a Browning Automatic Rifle all the way across Europe and the owner of the local shoe store jumped into Normandy with the 82nd.
They all dressed like the Blues Brothers and gathered out in front of the church at the last amen to smoke cigarettes. They all smoked. Did you ever wonder why that was?
In war, young people see and experience things no one ever should.
These are Japanese dead on Guadalcanal. Photo: U.S. Marine Corps
A Day In The Life
A reader recently sent me a copy of an article taken from The Harlan Daily Enterprise dated 1 November 1944. It concerned his dad, PFC Robert Winebarger. Here is the prose:
“SOMEWHERE IN THE PACIFIC — Using a Tommy gun, a right to the jaw, a Jap sword and plenty of nerve, PFC Robert L. Winebarger of Harlan, Ky., killed five Jap soldiers in about as many seconds and softened up a sixth for a buddy to polish off during the battle for Guam. Winebarger was leading a patrol in the hills of Barrigada when he came across the six Jap stragglers bivouacked in a clearing. He immediately moved in, opened up with his Tommy gun and killed three of them. As the third one went down, his gun spat out its last shell — the other three Japs were just five yards away. One of them, an officer, ran for his Samurai sword, which was hanging on a nearby banana tree. A race for the sword. It was a tie.
But Winebarger smashed his enemy in the face with his elbow, knocked him down and wrested the sword from his hands. “I ripped the scabbard off and was going to cleave him when one of the other Japs came out of his daze and went for a grenade,” Winebarger said. “I dug the sword in his back, and the end of the blade broke off. The third Jap was crawling toward a whole bag of grenades when I swiped him a pretty one, smack on top of the head. He let out a squawk, so I chopped him again to make sure he was done for.”
Winebarger then turned to finish off the Jap officer he had stunned with the scabbard, but another member of the Marine patrol had got there first.
The 21-year-old Marine has been overseas 18 months and is a veteran of the Guam and Bougainville campaigns.
This fighting Marine is the son of W.S. Winebarger and a brother of Raymond Winebarger, manager of Lloyd’s Café, where Robert formerly was employed.”
Let’s ponder the particulars of this exchange for a moment. This 21-year-old kid killed five enemy soldiers at bad-breath range and brained a third. He blew three of them away with a Thompson submachine gun and took the next two at contact range with a sword. The sordid details were splashed all over his local newspaper. What must the experience do to a person?
My buddy tells me his dad seldom spoke of the war after he came home. Most of them didn’t. Soak in the details of the above narrative and then juxtapose that against a normal life with a job, a mortgage and a family. It’s like oil and water. Those two worlds just don’t mix.
Here’s a quote from my friend regarding what it was like growing up with a man like that, “I still remember as a youngster being awakened by his screaming from nightmares in the middle of the night and our Mother coming in our room telling us, ‘Daddy is just having a bad dream.’ He had a lot of bad dreams!” Is it any wonder?
Nothing about freedom is free: Graves on Guadalcanal. Photo: U.S. Army
Broken People
Of course they all smoked. Nicotine is a superb anxiety drug and their world was unimaginably anxiety-provoking. Uncle Sam put cigarettes in their K-rations. I hate cigarettes more than Nancy Pelosi hates guys like me, and I would have very likely picked up the habit myself had I been there.
Some might take umbrage with the wanton use of a certain antiquated racial epithet in the previous narrative. You’ll just have to get over that. Be offended by the fact a 21-year-old kid had to chop a man’s head in half in order to live to see another dawn, not that he used some particularly harsh language.
We so seldom see what the world was really like. It was horrible, unimaginably thus, but this is what it took to buy us our liberty. Those incredible kids willingly gave up their innocence and their lives so we could be free. We owe it to them as modern-day Americans to live like we know it.
Lord Nelson just before he got fatally shot at his decisive victory of Trafalgar. This victory by the way made England the ruler of the seas for almost a hundred years. Grumpy