shanneba
Professional
Isn’t much. Not a thing, really.
Just a boulder stuck horizontally in a patch of grass that extends, like a peninsula, into a parking lot fronting a bland municipal building. If you look carefully, you’ll notice a brass plaque on the boulder, with brass names and then brass words in the stentorian “official” prose of commemoration that seems hollow so many decades after.
This unprepossessing arrangement, under a vault of trees in a far suburb of Chicago called Barrington, offers little to please the eye or appease the heart. Few journey to see it. I am one who did.
Because the boulder in the parking lot marks hallowed ground.
At this spot, on Nov. 27, 1934, two federal agents and two professional criminals fought what may have been the most savage gunfight in American history, short of military combat.
Of the four, three had automatic weapons, the fourth a short-barreled, semi-automatic 12-ga. riot gun, plus assorted handguns of the .38 Super and .45 ACP variety. All that firepower means that it was certainly more intense than the fabled “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral,” fought with single-action revolvers and one double-barreled shotgun; it was probably more intense (though it’s a tough call) than the FBI Dade County shootout of 1987 where no automatic weapons were involved, only one semi-automatic rifle (a Mini-14), one short-barreled pump shotgun and the rest duty handguns.
www.americanrifleman.org
Inspector Cowley had a Thompson with a 50-round drum in the gunfight, which he emptied. It was Cowley who mortally wounded Lester Gillis.
The author concluded Gillis used a Colt Monitor to charge the two federal agents. Fitted with a Cutts Compensator and a pistol grip, the Monitor was based on the BAR.
The FBI’s records are full of fascinating facts about the event. For one thing: these guys weren’t just loaded for bear, they were loaded for bears, a lot of them. Found in the abandoned Model A: three bulletproof vests, five empty magazines for .38 Super automatics; two filled machine gun magazines (presumably Thompson 20 rounders); 200 rounds of loose .45 ammunition, three empty .351 magazines, three boxes of .30-’06 Sprg. soft-nose ammunition; one box of Springfield boattailed ammunition, five boxes, .45 Colt automatic ammunition, two boxes of Springfield bronze-pointed ammunition. One tan briefcase containing one loaded 100-round drum for the Thompson submachine gun; 10 boxes .22 Long Rifle; one Colt Ace .22 Long Rifle pistol and magazine. The last is a revelation: Chase had bought the M1911 variant with a lightweight .22 slide and barrel. Perhaps he and Les used it for low-cost practice on their various travels.
Two other facts are even more interesting and may illuminate long-lost realities of mob culture. Both the Thompson and the .351 WSL Model 1907 had been used before—but not by Les. Division forensic case comparisons revealed that the Thompson had been present at the South Bend job on June 30, but it wasn’t the gun with which Les had sprayed downtown. Rather, it was the gun Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd used in the bank to fire a burst into the ceiling to make the point that a robbery was now in progress, and a few minutes later, to suppress police fire on the getaway car as the boys climbed in for the escape. Had he and Les “traded” guns like teenaged girls swapping clothes? Hard to believe, as they detested each other.
Just a boulder stuck horizontally in a patch of grass that extends, like a peninsula, into a parking lot fronting a bland municipal building. If you look carefully, you’ll notice a brass plaque on the boulder, with brass names and then brass words in the stentorian “official” prose of commemoration that seems hollow so many decades after.
This unprepossessing arrangement, under a vault of trees in a far suburb of Chicago called Barrington, offers little to please the eye or appease the heart. Few journey to see it. I am one who did.
Because the boulder in the parking lot marks hallowed ground.
At this spot, on Nov. 27, 1934, two federal agents and two professional criminals fought what may have been the most savage gunfight in American history, short of military combat.
Of the four, three had automatic weapons, the fourth a short-barreled, semi-automatic 12-ga. riot gun, plus assorted handguns of the .38 Super and .45 ACP variety. All that firepower means that it was certainly more intense than the fabled “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral,” fought with single-action revolvers and one double-barreled shotgun; it was probably more intense (though it’s a tough call) than the FBI Dade County shootout of 1987 where no automatic weapons were involved, only one semi-automatic rifle (a Mini-14), one short-barreled pump shotgun and the rest duty handguns.
An Official Journal Of The NRA | A Battle At Barrington: The Men & The Guns
On Nov. 27, 1934, two federal agents faced two heavily armed bandits in what is possibly the most savage gunfight on American soil. In the end, it cost the lives of two G-Men and Baby Face Nelson. Here, a Pulitzer Prize winner tells the tale.
Inspector Cowley had a Thompson with a 50-round drum in the gunfight, which he emptied. It was Cowley who mortally wounded Lester Gillis.
The author concluded Gillis used a Colt Monitor to charge the two federal agents. Fitted with a Cutts Compensator and a pistol grip, the Monitor was based on the BAR.
The FBI’s records are full of fascinating facts about the event. For one thing: these guys weren’t just loaded for bear, they were loaded for bears, a lot of them. Found in the abandoned Model A: three bulletproof vests, five empty magazines for .38 Super automatics; two filled machine gun magazines (presumably Thompson 20 rounders); 200 rounds of loose .45 ammunition, three empty .351 magazines, three boxes of .30-’06 Sprg. soft-nose ammunition; one box of Springfield boattailed ammunition, five boxes, .45 Colt automatic ammunition, two boxes of Springfield bronze-pointed ammunition. One tan briefcase containing one loaded 100-round drum for the Thompson submachine gun; 10 boxes .22 Long Rifle; one Colt Ace .22 Long Rifle pistol and magazine. The last is a revelation: Chase had bought the M1911 variant with a lightweight .22 slide and barrel. Perhaps he and Les used it for low-cost practice on their various travels.
Two other facts are even more interesting and may illuminate long-lost realities of mob culture. Both the Thompson and the .351 WSL Model 1907 had been used before—but not by Les. Division forensic case comparisons revealed that the Thompson had been present at the South Bend job on June 30, but it wasn’t the gun with which Les had sprayed downtown. Rather, it was the gun Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd used in the bank to fire a burst into the ceiling to make the point that a robbery was now in progress, and a few minutes later, to suppress police fire on the getaway car as the boys climbed in for the escape. Had he and Les “traded” guns like teenaged girls swapping clothes? Hard to believe, as they detested each other.
