Hi I'm new here. And this is my first post.
I recently aquired several handguns from my father-in-law, Col. Richard Boland US Army (ret).
Here are pictures of three of them.
The Ithaca has me a little stumped. The s/n is for a Remington Rand. But it also has the G.H.D. stamp, which I thought only Colt's had. It's a pity it was plated too, as I understand that the parkerized versions are more desireable. But it has a match barrel and an interesting history.
The gun was given to my father-in-law by another officer, during the Vietnam War. At the time, Col. Boland was a war plans officer and worked for General Westmoreland. "A backup man", he called himself. He's a rather confrontive sort, and can be very violent if pushed to far. And at one point the one doing the pusing was none other than (then) Col. Nguyen Cao Ky.
Col. Boland setup a gauntlet (the same kind used today at military installations, and promoted heavily by recently deceased Gen. Wayne Downing, who served under and received his first real combat training as a leiutenant, under my father-in-law) at MACV headquarters in Saigon. Col. Ky apparently took objection to the maneuver and as punishment ordered my father-in-law to use a rear gate that was inconvenient, out of the way, and unnecessary.
When my father-in-law refused, he was met at gun-point by the Viet sentry's and attending colonel at the front gate. He returned with mounted machine gun on his jeep and several Nung bodyguards. He threatened to cut the guardshack and anyone inside in half, if they didn't let him though.
Col. Ky was outraged and challenged Colonel Boland to a duel. Colonel Boland accepted. The US Army did not. They instead organized a target match betweent the two, and ordered Col. Boland to lose.
Colonel Boland brought the match Ithaca pictured below
just to be sure he wouldn't.
