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Texas Ranger Frank Hamer:
TrinityScrimshaw
Member Posts: 9,350 ✭✭✭
On this day in 1934 Ranger Frank Hamer's posse put a stop to the gutless crime spree of the man killers Bonnie Parker & Clyde Barrow.
May he rest in peace, and may they burn in hell!...[}:)]
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May he rest in peace, and may they burn in hell!...[}:)]
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Comments
When the smoke cleared I think Bonnie & Clyde also had a BAR in their cars trunk.
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Sorry, not my kind of hero.
Ford 23,
When the smoke cleared I think Bonnie & Clyde also had a BAR in their cars trunk.
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The came through Beaumont and robbed the National Guard armory of BARs, Thompsons, and other weapons. Their car was inside of the back of a van when they rolled through.
Sorry, not my kind of hero."
Sorry truthful, but that's not a very truthful account.
At 9:15 a.m. on May 23, 1934, after 102 days of shadowing, hunter and hunted finally met on a desolate rural road near Gibsland, Louisiana. Barrow stopped his car at the ambush spot and the posse's 150-round fusillade was so thunderous that people for miles around thought a logging crew had used dynamite to fell a particularly huge tree. Accounts of the last instants before the gunfire vary widely: Sheriff Jordan said he was calling out to Barrow to halt as the shooting started; Deputy Alcorn said that Captain Hamer was calling out; Deputy Hinton wrote that Alcorn called out. The only agreement between all six was that Deputy Oakley, perhaps nervously jumping the gun, stood and fired the opening burst from his Remington Model 8, and that his bullet into Barrow's left temple killed the outlaw instantly. The posse then fired off another hundred-plus rounds, any number of which would have been fatal to Parker and also to Barrow.
Hamer used a customized .35 Remington Model 8 semi automatic rifle with a special-order 15-round magazine that Hamer had ordered from Petmeckey's Sporting Goods store in Austin, Texas. He was shipped serial number 10045, and this was just one of at least two Model 8's used in the ambush. The rifle was modified to accept a "police only" 20-round magazine obtained through the Peace Officers Equipment Company in St. Joseph, Missouri.
While the rifle smoke still hung in the air, the gun Frank Hamer held in his hand as he approached the bullet riddled 1934 Ford V8 was a Colt semi-auto pistol chambered in .38 Super. Should either of the murderous pair still have breath in their bodies and strive to fire one more defiant round, the legendary lawman was packing iron that would go right through the car body.
Although state, local and other sources had pledged monies to the Barrow reward fund that brought the pre-ambush total to some $26,000, most reneged on their pledges and when checks were finally cut for the posse members, a six-way split was all of $200.23.
This is why Hamer was allowed to keep several of the firearms, to help with compensation for his personnel expenses spent during the hunt for the two killers. Other members of the posse also kept some of the firearms found in the car. After the ambush, Hamer and his posse were told they could keep whatever they found in the so-called death car. What they found was an arsenal: shotguns, automatic rifles, ammunition and pistols.
Frank Hamer himself didn't sell the firearms. In the 1970s (Long after his death), the Hamer family sold off many of the items to various collectors.
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The original owners of the car lived in the Shorey (SE) section of Topeka; I once knew their name but tempis fugit. The owner's wife first noticed an older car (I think it was a Model A) driving up and down the street, a man driving, a woman standing on the passenger side running board, peering into the curb parked cars on the block, apparently looking for one with keys in it. They stopped and drove off the new Ford.
The Topeka Daily Capitol ran a long article about this after the car was returned to the legal owners, with a photo of the happy owners standing by the bullet riddled automobile in front of their house. I have a copy of that photo
Sometimes when I lived in Topeka and was driving thru Shorey, I thought about Bonnie and Clyde.
Not sure who took possession of the Ford after the dust settled, but the original owners of the new Ford had to take it to court to get it back. Everyone realized how the value of that Ford had escalated in price, and whoever laid claim to it gave the rightful owners of the car a very difficult time getting it back.
The original owners of the car lived in the Shorey (SE) section of Topeka; I once knew their name but tempis fugit. The owner's wife first noticed an older car (I think it was a Model A) driving up and down the street, a man driving, a woman standing on the passenger side running board, peering into the curb parked cars on the block, apparently looking for one with keys in it. They stopped and drove off the new Ford.
The Topeka Daily Capitol ran a long article about this after the car was returned to the legal owners, with a photo of the happy owners standing by the bullet riddled automobile in front of their house. I have a copy of that photo
Sometimes when I lived in Topeka and was driving thru Shorey, I thought about Bonnie and Clyde.
Cool story!