SWEETWATER COUNTY — The Sweetwater County Historical Museum recently had the opportunity to research a little-known handgun from the time of the Second World War and Korean conflict.
In the 1930s, Connecticut firearms manufacturer High Standard began producing .22 rimfire semiautomatic pistols. In 1940 the company introduced the HD Model.
The overall feel and operation of the HD was very similar to that of the (then) standard-issue Colt M1911A1 pistol in .45 ACP. The military began buying the High Standards in 1942 for pistol training, as they were easier to handle for inexperienced shooters and ammunition was far cheaper. A grand total of a little over 200,000 were manufactured from 1940 to 1955.
The pistol examined by museum staff is marked “High Standard HD Military,” which means it was one of the 150,000 made between 1946 and 1955.
In 1943 and 1944 the Office of Strategic Services, (the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency) special-ordered just over 2,500 of the HDs fitted with suppressors, then called silencers. When CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union in his U-2 spy plane in 1960, he had one with him. It’s currently on display at a museum in Yekaterinburg, Russia, along with wreckage from Powers’s U-2.
The museum’s Vintage Firearms Program is available to the public at no charge. If you have a firearm (or firearms) you would like to learn more about, contact them at (307) 872-6435 or via email at [email protected].
