M1911 Pistol - March, 1941 Donation to "Aid to the Defense of British Homes"

[Alan Smith]

My father was recently going thru the newspaper archives in my hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, when he spotted the attached March, 1941 article. It caught his attention as he is interested in vintage military items, plus he recognized the name of the WWI veteran (Mack Reed) who had donated his "bring back" service pistol to the "Aid to the Defense of British Homes". My father indicated that he never before realized that Mr. Reed was a WWI veteran, but that Mr. Reed was a friend of his dad's (i.e. my grandfather) and he remembers Mr. Reed stopping by their family home to visit on many occasions.

Anyway, the article gives all the details re: the M1911 pistol in question. I spent a lot of time as a young man tracking down war relics in my hometown, so it has crossed my mind plenty of times as to what a great "find" this pistol would have been for me to stumble across. The pistol, presumably, made its way to England c. 1941, so it was long gone before I was pulling stuff "out of the woodwork" there in the 1980's - 1990's.

Just thought some of you might enjoy the article and a little background information.

[Alan Smith]

The WWI veteran, Mack Reed, was a Pharmacist who owned and operated the "Gathright-Reed" drugstore, located on the town square in Oxford, MS. Here is a recent photo of the former Gathright-Reed store premises. The drug store closed 25+ years ago, at which time the building was taken over by a well-known independent bookstore "Square Books".

Based on the article, it appears that the 1911 pistol and other donations were accumulated on-premises at the building seen in the modern photo, prior to being shipped off to England.

[Alan Smith]

Here is a photo of one of the business signs used at the Gathright-Reed drugstore.

It would be very interesting to know what other items Mr. Reed collected for donation to England . . . perhaps more 1911's or other U.S. military issue items? Maybe some souvenir P.08's, LP08's, Gew 98's, etc? that other local vets had brought back from WWI?

I've read that very few (if any) of the U.S. civilian weapons donations to England were ever utilized by the British military or paramilitary forces, principally due to most of the donations being in calibers that were not standard British military issue. I wonder if Mr. Reed's M1911 .45 would had had much chance of being utilized by the British, or if it just got dumped in a warehouse with the other piles of U.S. civilian weapons donations?

[james m]

The sad thing about this to me is not only weren't these donated weapons utilized they were just destroyed as outdated "scrap" sometime after the war was over.
Jim