A GIANT PASSES

A professor friend sent along this clipping from the New York Times on the death of Walter Walsh, one of the great gunfighters of the 20th Century. It’s a very well done obit; my only quibble would be that in most accounts I’ve read, the Japanese sniper he killed with his .45 pistol was 90 yards away, not 80.

I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Walsh back in the 1990s, when we were both nominees for the Outstanding American Handgunner of the Year.  He won that award well before I did, and he certainly deserved to.  He wasn’t a big man, but courage and fighting skill aren’t necessarily measured by physical size.  Walter Walsh was very hard of hearing, the occupational hazard of serious shooters of his time; effective muff-type hearing protection wasn’t really available until Gil Hebard popularized it in mid-20th century.

Said to have killed eleven gunmen as an FBI agent, and many of the enemy in the Pacific Theater during WWII, Walter Walsh was indomitable. In his most famous gunfight, with the notorious Brady Gang in Maine, he was shot three times including a .45 slug through his chest.  With one of the first Smith & Wesson .357 Magnums in his dominant left hand and a Colt .45 automatic in his right, Walsh returned fire and killed the gangster who shot him…and then proceeded to apply his .357 to the gang leader, with equally fatal results.

Above all, he was a gentleman…kind, and soft-spoken.  Most of the real gunfighters I’ve met over the decades share those traits.

Walter Walsh made it to 106.  It was an honor to have known him.  May this Guardian rest in peace.

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