The Movies
There are two notable movies that tell the story of Bonnie & Clyde and the ambush that killed them (there are others, but these seem to be the best). The first is the 1967 classic, Bonnie and Clyde, with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in the title roles. The second is a well-regarded 2019 Netflix piece called The Highwaymen, starring Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson. I have seen the first, but only clips of the second. Because I love 1970’s classics, and I don’t do Netflix.
The Beatty and Dunaway movie focuses on Bonnie & Clyde. The Highwaymen focuses more on the 6-man posse that killed them. The most well known lawman was Frank Hamer, a former Texas Ranger. Maney Gault was Hamer’s partner, another former Texas Ranger. The other Texas officers were Ted Hinton and Robert Alcorn. There were two Louisiana lawmen – Bienville Parish Sheriff Henderson Jordan and Deputy Prentiss Oakley.
As sheriff, Jordan was nominally in command, but Frank Hamer was the most experienced gunfighter. In his career, he engaged in 74 gunfights, and was involved in the deaths of 55 badmen and one woman.
Both movies are well done, but neither is a documentary. Translation: enjoy them, but expect inaccuracies. In this article, we’ll look at the guns used by the posse to kill Bonnie & Clyde. The outlaws had an arsenal of their own on their persons and in their car. We’ll leave those for another discussion.
M1921 Thompson Submachine Gun in .45 ACP with drum magazine
The Thompson submachine gun with a drum magazine has become the iconic “Chicago Typewriter” favored by prohibition-era gangsters (See Figure 2). Hollywood knows this, so you can’t make a Hollywood gangster movie about the 1930’s and not feature at least one Thompson.
In the Beatty and Dunaway movie, the couple is lit up by a posse armed with Thompsons. In fact, Thompsons were not present at the ambush. Lawmen had come to avoid using Thompsons because the submachine guns used .45 ACP pistol cartridges. Such rounds could not be counted on to penetrate the sheet metal sides of the period’s cars. This led to the FBI and police preference for Browning Automatic Rifles (BARs) that fired .30-06 ammunition that would blow through one side and out the other.
I must say that the Thompson with a 20-round box magazine is heavy. Not something you want to carry all day, along with spare ammo. I can only imagine what the Thompson weighs with a 50-round C drum or 100-round L drum. The gangsters were probably grateful to have cars to drive around in.
So there were no Thompsons among the ambush posse. Clyde had also given up the Thompson and was a BAR fan. There were no Thompsons found in Clyde Barrow’s car. Thompsons weren’t anywhere near the ambush that day. We’ve discussed the weapon here only to motivate the discussion of the BAR, which was actually used. And because they’re cool.
Thompsons of the period cost about $200, which is $3,300 today. Before lend-lease in World War II, the British paid for them with gold. That alone was an incentive for the British to manufacture the Sten.
Highwaymen is a more realistic depiction of the event. The film-makers made an effort to get the guns right. Maybe not perfectly, but closer than the Beatty and Dunaway film.
Fully Automatic Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR)
As previously mentioned, the posse armed itself with a BAR that Ted Hinton borrowed from the Texas National Guard. The BAR’s .30-06 ammunition could reliably penetrate the heavy metal side panels of the car. The best way to stop a vehicle is to kill the driver. In the event, that’s exactly what the posse did.
The BAR is a heavy beast, weighing over 20 pounds. Carrying this weapon is a pain; field-stripping it is even worse. There’s a photo of Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Cooper is carrying a BAR in one hand, and it looks like a toy. That’s when you realize what a big guy he was.
In 1931, Colt introduced the R80 Monitor. The Monitor, shown in Figure 1 above, was a modified BAR for FBI and police use. It had a thinner, chopped-down barrel, pistol grip, Cutts compensator, and no bipod. Although it was in service at the time of the ambush, there is no evidence it was carried by anyone in the posse. Showing Costner with the rifle had to be a play on its “cool factor,” which is considerable.
In practice, the Monitor was too expensive. Only 125 were built, and 90 were purchased by the FBI. The weapon cost $300 in 1931, which would be $5,000 today. For that reason alone, it was unlikely the posse carried one. It was the Great Depression, and police forces couldn’t afford them. The concussion from the compensator was bad. Not as bad as a Carl Gustav, but probably enough to cause TBI.
Semi-Automatic Remington Model 8 in .35 Remington
The Remington Model 8 (see figure 4) is a semi-automatic rifle designed by John Moses Browning and initially manufactured by FN in Belgium as the Browning 1900 (see figure 5). It was manufactured and sold as the Remington Autoloading Rifle of 1905. In 1911, its designation was later changed to the Remington Model 8. It was chambered in .35 caliber (and others) and loaded by 5-round stripper clip into a non-detachable box magazine. This was the version that the members of the posse carried, along with the BAR.
A later version of the Model 8 was called the Model 81 (shown in Figure 6). This model was equipped with 5 and 15-round box magazines. This was introduced in 1936, partly as a result of the Bonnie & Clyde ambush. In the ambush, the posse claimed to have emptied the BAR, emptied the Model 8s, dropped them, emptied their autoloading shotguns, then advanced on the car with pistols. By then the car and its occupants were Swiss cheese, but the call was still for higher capacity magazines.
Bonnie & Clyde were armed and dangerous, and the posse took no chances. The official coroner’s finding stated that Bonnie Parker was shot 26 times and Clyde Barrow 17 times. Some have claimed they were shot more than fifty times each, but this is probably apocryphal.
The lawmen stated that they each had a semi-automatic Remington Model 8 (except for the BAR, which was fully automatic), a shotgun (Remington Model 11 discussed below), and handguns. They emptied the automatic rifles, then switched to shotguns when the car pulled even with them. Emptied those, then fired their handguns until the car ran into a ditch.
The posse’s accounts of how they fired and did not reload their weapons make it unbelievable that the outlaws were hit fifty times each. Not unless buckshot penetrated the vehicle in volume. Each pellet would have been equivalent to a .32. However, examination of the death car in Figure 7 makes this hard to imagine. There are 167 holes in that car (see Figure 7). Looking at that picture, I find it hard to believe they emptied the shotguns. That’s 30 shells. I don’t think there are enough holes in the car, let alone the bodies. Even if you account for the blown-out windows.
Frank Hamer is said to have killed Bonnie with his first shots (with a Remington Model 8). He was known to be a deliberate shooter, not a spray and pray type. He later told his wife that he went home with rounds in his magazine.
Remington Model 11 Semi-Automatic Shotgun
The Remington Model 11 semi-automatic shotgun is a variant of the Browning Auto-5 manufactured by FN in Belgium. It has a magazine capacity of 5 rounds – four in the magazine and one in the chamber. It’s been in production from 1902 to 1998, a testimony to its reliability and effectiveness. Along with the Model 8 autoloader, this shotgun formed the backbone of the ambush posse’s loadout.
Handguns
It seems all the lawmen carried two handguns. Ted Hinton carried two 1911s in addition to the BAR. The handguns played a relatively minor role in the ambush. By the time the posse had emptied their rifles and shotguns, Bonnie and Clyde were already dead. I will mention only two other handguns present that day.
One was Clyde Barrow’s Fitz Special, a modified 1924 Colt Army. It’s a truly beautiful piece, covered in the SOFREP article How to Make a Fitz Special Carry Pistol. The weapon sold for a small fortune at auction. It was found in his pocket after he was killed.
The other pistol was Frank Hamer’s personal carry gun, Old Lucky. This was a .45 Colt, Single Action Colt Army, factory engraved (see Figure 9).
Conclusion
It is said that Prentiss Oakley killed Clyde Barrow with the first shots of his Model 8. Frank Hamer used his Model 8 to kill Bonnie Parker. The couple were killed by headshots in the first moments of the ambush. After that, the rest was overkill, justified by the outlaws’ dangerous reputation.
Hollywood’s done bloody justice, depicting the ambush. I resisted the temptation to post clips from the movies in this article. Too graphic, and yet probably not nearly as bloody as the reality. If the reader hasn’t seen them and wants to watch, both are available on YouTube. Better still, watch the movies. I thoroughly enjoyed the Beatty and Dunaway flick.
This period in American history really foreshadows the gunfighting we know today. They fought with fully automatic rifles, semi-automatic rifles, submachine guns, semi-automatic pistols, and revolvers. The weapons and their mechanisms have not materially changed over the years. Frank Hamer would feel perfectly at home with the weapons available in the 21st century. He’d be at least as effective as most gunfighters today.
About the Author
You may reach Cameron at: [email protected]
Cameron Curtis has spent thirty years in the financial markets as a trader and risk manager. He was on the trade floor when Saddam’s tanks rolled into Kuwait, when the air wars opened over Baghdad and Belgrade, and when the financial crisis swallowed the world. He’s studied military affairs and warfare all his adult life. His popular Breed series of military adventure thrillers are admired for combining deep expertise with propulsive action. The premises are realistic, the stories adrenaline-fueled and emotionally engaging.
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