I’m a huge admirer of John Moses Browning (1855-1926). Gun guys will immediately know why—he invented a huge number and variety of firearms from single-shots to machine guns, and most of the automatic weapons used by the U.S. armed forces in World War II were of JBM origin. They included the Browning Automatic Rifle, the fabled BAR, our standard squad automatic weapon. The belt-fed weapons included the M1919 lightweight infantry weapon adapted as a secondary aircraft weapon, and the classic M1917 water-cooled. And of course the fabled M2 .50 caliber, still being used as the iconic “Ma Deuce.” In an NRA article a few years ago I called it “The Gun That Won the War.” I stand by that assessment.
However, Browning’s most enduring conception remains the M1911 .45 caliber pistol. Aside from its century-and-counting service life, it’s my sentimental and operational favorite. A Colt Government Model was the first firearm I purchased—my “Bicentennial Gun” in 1976. I still have it, and it still shoots just fine.
But 75 years ago this month both the M1911 pistol and M1917 watercooled MG featured in three Medal of Honor actions on a Pacific island. From before World War I to the present, about sixty Medals have been earned by 1911 shooters.
The Marianas campaign of mid-1944 was strategically important because with those islands in U.S. hands, Tokyo and most of the Japanese homeland fell within range of Boeing B-29 Superfortresses. But first the main Marianas had to be occupied by U.S. Army and Marine Corps troops, beginning with Saipan. (Object of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in “The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot” of June 19-20.)
In the 27th Infantry Division was 29-year-old Captain Benjamin L. Solomon, medical officer of the 2nd Battalion, 105th Infantry Regiment. He was a rare talent: a USC dental school graduate who began his practice before being drafted in 1940. A standout “rookie” soldier, he was described by other soldiers as “the best infantryman I ever saw.” Others described him as “A nice Jewish dentist.” Eventually he wore sergeant’s stripes leading a section of Browning heavy machine guns—knowledge that would serve him extremely well.
Apparently Salomon would have been happy to remain a plain GI, but his dental diploma commended him to the army medical hierarchy. He was commissioned an officer and went ashore with the 105th Infantry on Saipan in early July.
On the morning of July 7 at least 3,000 Japanese swarmed though a 300-yard gap in the regiment’s perimeter. Salomon had established an aid station only 50 yards behind the firing line, which quickly accumulated casualties. Squatting over one patient, Salomon saw a Japanese emerge from the brush to begin bayoneting injured GIs. Seizing a rifle, the medico shot the killer. When six more enemy broke into the tent, Salomon shot one, bayonetted another, knifed one and grappled with the others until his friends slew them.
Recognizing the huge disparity of numbers, Salomon advised the wounded to withdraw to the regimental aid station father back. Then he grabbed another rifle and exited the tent where he found a familiar weapon: an M1917 Browning with a dead crew. The bespectacled doctor sat behind the gun, shouting for his friends to evacuate wounded while he covered their withdrawal. He continued firing until he was killed.
A day or so later, members of the 105th cleared the battlefield. Another medic noted dried blood trails and concluded that Salomon had moved the 100-pound Browning, tripod and ammunition three times despite fatal wounds. Part of the reason: there were 98 Japanese corpses in the area, and apparently Salomon had killed most of them. He moved each time to regain a field of fire around the heaped bodies.
Salomon was recommended for the Medal of Honor but the 27th Division commander, while sympathetic, was limited by regulations prohibiting medical personnel from bearing arms.
Nonetheless, Ben Salomon’s fellow soldiers and admirers persisted for more than half a century. They were denied by reviews in 1958 and 1972 until finally justice was done. In 2002 President George W. Bush presented Salomon’s medal to the doctor’s alma mater: the University of California in Southern California School of Dentistry.
On the same day as Salomon’s action, July 7, another soldier in the 105th Infantry also faced vastly greater numbers with a Browning design. Private Thomas A. Baker, a 28-year-old New Yorker, already had distinguished himself on Saipan using a bazooka and small arms.
On the 7th Baker was critically wounded in a close-range firefight but refused evacuation. He continued firing at the swarming Japanese until he ran out of ammunition, then was carried by a friend about 50 yards toward the rear until the good Samaritan was shot. Recognizing the reality, Baker asked for a pistol to help cover his friends’ retreat. He hefted a fully loaded M1911, resolving to make optimum use of the eight rounds.
As other soldiers withdrew, their last view of Baker was resting against a phone pole, facing the direction of the inevitable assault. When the ground was reclaimed, his body was found with the pistol’s slide locked back—surrounded by eight enemy corpses. Tom Baker had shot “a possible.”
The third Medal of Honor to a 105th man involved two iconic Browning designs, also on July 7. Another New Yorker, 44-year-old Lieutenant Colonel William J. O’Brien, led the First Battalion in resisting probably the largest Banzai attack of the Pacific War. He organized his companies in a hard-pressed defense of their line but enemy numbers were too great. With fighting down to arm-wrestling distance, O’Brien seized two M1911s and stalked up and down the line, shooting one with each hand. He ignored repeated wounds and, with his pistols empty, he climbed into a jeep with an M2 .50 caliber machine gun. As GIs withdrew, their last view of the colonel was standing behind the gun, shooting down Japanese pouring around him.
Three men from the same unit using the same classic weapons against fearsomely lethal odds. All honor to them, their fellow soldiers—and to John M. Browning.
