Was this a thing?

If these were made from discarded / damaged canopies, I assume they were cut in a machine / repair shop on some sort of bandsaw?

No way by hand, could they?

And I actually assume there would be a great chance of water damage?

My father has in his possession my Grandfather's personal S&W M17 that he carried in WWII as a tanker and member of the unit which inspired the movie "Fury".

I was told that he carved the grips from the windscreen of a downed German plane. One side features the American flag and gold inlay and the other a picture of his dog and his favorite hunting spot near Boise, Idaho...







My grandfather preferred the 1911 for carry during the war and saw some hellish things. He took hundreds of photos, including ones of downed German planes...

It was a thing, and they weren't always sweethearts. I had an uncle who was an infantry officer in WWII and he had a 1911 with plexi grips and pinup girls underneath. I recall seeing the pistol as an adolescent and being quite intrigued. Not sure whether the pics were period or nostalgia though. It was mid 1970s when I saw the pistol and I don't recall the pics looking 30 years old.

I don't think they were all handmade. I would imagine that there was a bit of an industry among AAC ground crew who had access to plexiglass and tools.

One of these 1911 that looked amazingly like the one the OP featured was on display at Pickett Weaponry for many years in Frank and Adriane Pickett's personal "not for sale" collection displayed in the rear of the store in Newberry, Florida.

My Grandfather was sent to Nashville during the war to learn how to fit and repair plexiglass. He was a civilian aircraft skin maintenance person in Tallahassee Florida most of the war. Most damage to plexiglass was there from duck strikes which also caused rather serious damage to wings it seems. He worked on P-37, -38, -39, -40, -47 and -51 that were at Tallahassee at least temporarily and did gunnery out over the Gulf of Mexico or along the beach between Mexico Beach and Panama City. There were Stearman over at Lake Jackson where some non American pilots trained that occassionaly needed work and the occasional Texan. He quit over a Flying boat as a pilot of a multi seat aircraft could demand the person responsible for repairs on the aircraft accompany him on a test flight. Papa did not want to fly, just work on airplanes. We had a citation for him and a buddy taking a P-40 that had done a wheels up landing in the turf that had been written off as scrap and returning it to service by working on it in their own free time. Anyhow , yes you CAN work and polish WWII era plexiglass by hand.

His next littlest brother was in the AAF and assigned to a P-51 outfit initially in England.

-kBob

ummm...the grips Col Harrumph shows from another site above are the same ones reported as stolen in October of 2007 in the link Gunny posted. Should someone be looking into that?

-kBob

Yep, a friend has his 8th AAF Grandfather's 1911 with a photo of my friend's mother (as a 5 year-old) under the clear left side grip.

Oh, that one with the photo of a dog is just incredible. We were so incredibly fortunate to have such men back then. Like the guy in Full Metal Jacket said "We're jolly green giants walking the Earth - with guns....."

Trey Veston said:

My father has in his possession my Grandfather's personal S&W M17 that he carried in WWII as a tanker and member of the unit which inspired the movie "Fury".

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A sweetheart grip pistol is actually shown in "Fury". At least once, near the end, in the tank.

Just saw it today and thought about this thread!

WestKentucky said:

I fully understand why many vets don’t talk about their service.

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My late father-in-law was just the opposite. We couldn't get him to stop talking about his experiences in the war. Sometimes I would think his stories were embellished, but then he did have a Silver Star to show for his service. (No question that he won it fair and square.)

My wife's uncle served as a navy corpsman, and went into Okinawa in one of the follow-up waves. I knew him for many years before I finally asked him if he wanted to talk about it, and he did, just a couple of years before he died. Reading about history from a book is one thing, but hearing the first hand experiences from someone that was there gives it a human side that you can't get from a book or movie.

Fortunately, a few of those great men did talk. I knew this one personally and he would cry nearly every time I visited him in the veterans home. He did an immense amount of good in his life and was loved by everyone who knew him.
http://www.connectionmagazine.org/archives_old/archives/2001/jan2001/deathmarch.htm
All my dad would ever say was that the Germans didn't mistreat him since they knew the war was over when he was captured at the battle of the bulge. Oh, and that he lost a duffle bag of Lugers and P-38s when he was captured.

I used to work at an regional airport where every year the Collings Foundation would bring in a B 17 and a B 24 for a week and sell rides. And if we were really lucky we would get some WW II veterans who had flown in them. We would walk them out on the ramp to the aircraft and numerous times I would see tears in their eyes when they got close enough to smell and touch the bomber. They would say"I never thought I would see this again". Some of the stories they would tell were just incredible. The most commpon story was always about how could it was at 25,000 ft. If you removed a glove to clear a machine gun or tune a radio your fingers would freeze to the metal. They said they had at least as many casualities from frostbite as enemy gunfire. I have flown in an unpressurized B 17 in warm summer weather at only 10,000 ft. I can't even imagine what it must have been like at 40 below for hours and hours for an 19 year old kid from Kansas.

Cemetery21

All my dad would ever say was that the Germans didn't mistreat him since they knew the war was over when he was captured at the battle of the bulge. Oh, and that he lost a duffle bag of Lugers and P-38s when he was captured.

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My Dad was an Armored Infantryman and was wounded and taken prisoner sometime in early January 1945. While he was lying there in the snow (his lower leg had been hit by artillery fire), he immediately divested himself of the German pistols he had picked up earlier by throwing them as far away as he could! They were fighting an SS Panzer Division and he figured they wouldn't take too kindly to finding those guns on him!

Actually the Germans took very good care of him, taking him to one of their army hospitals and treating him like he was one of their own wounded soldiers. They even made a placard for above his bed that had his name, what he did (Armored Infantryman=Panzer Grenadier), and his rank (Private First Class=Unterfeldwebel).

I should add that my Dad was very active not only with the American Legion, DAV, and the VFW but also regularly attended the annual reunions put on by his Armored Division's Association. I think it really helped him a lot getting together with his wartime buddies and talking about and recalling the life altering events they experienced during the war. And even many years later, my Dad went to local VA sponsored meetings with other Vets to talk about how serving in the Armed Forces affected their lives and how PTSD is something that you have to deal with for the rest of your life.

Oddly enough the one thing my Dad was no longer interested in after the war were guns; even though before the war he was looking at .22 target rifles from Remington and Winchester (at the time coming off the Depression they really couldn't afford anything like that). He also shot Expert in basic training. I guess going through what he did during the war guns just didn't hold any fascination to him anymore and perhaps he simply wanted to forget about that aspect of it.

Some of the pamphlets my Dad had saved from before the war:

My father was also armored infantry, 3rd Armored Div. He was in the Battle of the Bulge, Battle of Hurtgen Forest, Aachen, etc. I could not get very much out of him, he also had no interest in guns.

Having been treated for trench foot several times, he did say a dry pair of socks was one of the most important things to have.

DPris said:

Unfortunately I never took the time to talk to him about his wartime experiences, something I very much regret now.
Denis

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Sadly, tempus fugit. A good reminder, Denis, to sit down and have a talk with our elders about things before they are no longer around.

It is.

So many gone & so many regrets.

Now- somebody talk to me quick before I'M no longer around.
Denis

The thread got off track, but I don't see anybody complaining.
Good reads guys.
I have dad's DD214. Combat engineer, five major battles and a silver star.
He never had a centerfire anything. He sometimes had a .22 or a 410 but never hunted much. We fished a lot but I only remember a couple of rabbit/squirrel hunts and I'm not sure he shot anything then.
Edit: I guess the 410 was a centerfire, but he never had interest in a centerfire rifle or pistol.

My grandpa on my dad's side flew for the AAF in the CBI theater. He didn't go into much detail about his service until about a year before his death. We went page by page through his flight log the last time I saw him. That was in 2008.

I never thought to ask him about his service handgun, I don't even know what type it was or if he got to keep it.

Thanks for this great thread. tom.

A friend of mine makes grips for autos and revolvers. He just completed a clear set for a customer like the O.P.'s picture. There's a movie called Fury that was produced last year featuring Brad Pitt as a Sherman tank Commander. He carry's a 1917 Colt or Smith .45 revolver with clear grips featuring a girly picture. American ingenuity amazes me.

Here is the FURY revolver. Google “sweetheart grips” and click “images” and there will be lots to see.

I've seen transparent grips with no picture.
Did Grandma object to an old flame or a Hollywood star?

460Shooter said:

I tried to get my grandfather to talk for years about his service in WWII. He had a metal from the invasion of Africa. He never wanted to talk about it.

The one time he said "God, I remember trying to shoot down German plains with a 90mm cannon................" Then he just stared off into space for a moment with this vacant look on his face, grimaced, shook his head as if to shake the image from his mind, and then changed the subject. I never tried to get him to talk about it again. I could see the things he had to do haunted him still.

It's a real shame though, because every time we lose a vet we lose a bit of real history. No idea if it was a 90mm or a 30mm or whatever kind of cannon, as I'm not that familiar with WWII artillery, but I don't think I'll ever forget the look on his face.

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The 90mm was a common US heavy anti-aircraft gun in the European theater- which was eventually adapted into a tank gun as well. Good chance that was in fact what he was talking about-