John Cantius Garand:
A Brief History of the Man and His Rifle
by Hap Rocketto
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| John Cantius Garand - 1943 |
One day in the late 1950s, World War II veteran Arthur St. John, then Commander of American Legion Post 15 in Jewett City, Connecticut, recalled that "There wasn't anyone in the infantry that didn't have an M-1." He also remembered that the rifle’s inventor John Cantius Garand spent a number of years in Jewett City as a lad and thought that there should be some commemoration of the fact.
St. John mobilized what political clout the small rural community could muster and shortly thereafter, on October 19, 1958, Connecticut Governor Abraham Ribicoff was inking his signature to official documents naming a bridge on The Connecticut Turnpike/Interstate 395 over the Quinnebaug River between Griswold and Lisbon near Jewett City in honor of Garand. St. John chaired the committee organizing the dedication ceremonies which drew and estimated 15,000 spectators to the bucolic northeastern Connecticut location. What the famed inventor thought of the honor is not recorded, but he could not have been other than pleased at such an honor.
A native French Canadian, Garand, one of the best known of all United States firearm designers, was born on New Year’s Day of 1888 in St. Rémi, Quebec, Canada. His family relocated south to Jewett City, Connecticut where John received a rudimentary education before leaving school to work in one of the many textile mills that thrived in the region. Starting out as a sweeper, the mechanically inclined young boy eventually found work as machinist. He learned his craft well and eventually left rural Connecticut for a position with Browne and Sharpe, at that time one of the premier companies involved with the development of machine tools and machining technology, in Providence, Rhode Island. He moved on from there to be a machine designer with Federal Screw Corporation
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| Main Street, Jewett City, Connecticut, 1907 |
The preliminary work on his namesake rifle began in 1924 although it would not be until 1934 that the design was patented and another two years before it began to see the start of mass production. By coincidence, perhaps as a belated birthday present, the “United States Rifle, Cal. .30, M1” was adopted as the standard issue rifle on January 9, 1936, just eight days after Garand’s 48th birthday.
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| Obverse and Reverse - Medal for Merit |
However, the Garand was not present when the United States took its first offensive action of World War II. Just six months after Pearl Harbor, on August 7, 1942, when United States Marines stormed ashore on Guadalcanal, Tulagi, Florida, and nearby islands, they were armed with the bolt-action Springfield 1903. The M1 had been adopted by the Marines as its standard rifle on November 5, 1941, but supply and training had not caught up with the First Marine Division. The Garand would first see combat when the 164th Infantry Regiment of the North Dakota National Guard, as part of the Army’s Americal Division, landed and began reliving the Marines on Guadalcanal on October 13, 1942. By the end of 1943 all United States Army and Marine combat troops were equipped with the M1.
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| John C. Garand Receiving M1 Rifle Serial Number 1,000,000 |
Upon his retirement, in 1953, he was presented with a “US Rifle Cal. .30 M1” Serial number was 1,000,000 as a token of the great regard and respect in which he was held. The M1 rifle would continue in production for another four years and when the lines were finally silent, almost five and half million M1 rifles had been produced by Springfield and civilian arms plants.
The rifle saw active duty through the Vietnam War with US active, reserve, and National Guard units. The rifle was used for drill training at Aviation Officer Candidates School through the 1970s as well as at the Naval and Coast Guard Academies. They are still in use with the U.S. Marine Corps Silent Drill Team, the Norwegian Royal Guards Drill Team and the Greek Army Presidential Guard - the Evzones.
The Civilian Marksmanship Program has financed a bulk of its marksmanship program by the sale of the venerable rifle to self-proclaimed “Garandaholics” and “Cosmoline Creeps.” It has been kept it alive as a competitive firearm through the CMP’s John Garand Match program
Garand, a Rotarian, was also an avid chess player in his younger days, eventually moving to checkers in his later years. He enjoyed ice skating so much that he reinforced his living room, shut it off from the rest of the house, installed a green window shades to cover the windows, allowing cold air in and keeping the sun’s rays out, waterproofed the floor, and filled it with a 100 gallons of water so he might skate in his home.
Garand signed over all patents of his invention to the U.S. government and never received any royalties for his invention. He never earned more than $12,000 a year in his 34 years of service at Springfield. Perhaps not bad dollars in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but not anywhere near what he might have commanded in the private sector.
A New York Times editorial in November 1939 noted of the M1:
“No other nation can ever use the rifle. Its self-effacing French-Canadian inventor, still an employee at the Springfield arsenal on a modest salary, has refused substantial offers both from foreign Governments and arms companies here. All his rights are vested exclusively in the country of his adoption.” The fact that he handed over the patent to the government earned him a great deal of credibility. Though he earned no royalties, he maintained that the invention gave him “a lot of pleasure.” When the rifle became famous during the war, he shrugged off suggestions that he should be considered a hero. When asked about the M1, his typical response was: “She is a pretty good gun, I think.” (Thomas A. Bruscino Jr, “M1 Garand Rifle” in A History of Innovation U.S. Army Adaptation in War and Peace, Center Of Military History, United States Army, Washington, D.C., 2009)
On June 27, 1980, in the presence of Mr. Garand's wife and two children, the Honorable Clifford L. Alexander, Jr., Secretary of the Army, officially dedicated Room 2E680 of the Pentagon Building as the Garand Memorial Conference Room (Salazar, German, Rifleman’s Journal, January 2010, http://riflemansjournal.blogspot.com/2010/01/history-john-c-garand.html ).
John Garand passed away on February 16, 1974 at the age of 86. He will be long remembered by countless US war veterans and rifle competitors for his peerless combat and match rifle, by firearms enthusiast as one of the great US designers ranked with Browning, Colt, Ruger, Gatling, Williams, Maxim, Thompson, Sharps, and Henry, and by the residents of quiet Jewett City by the bridge named in his honor.
