 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
||||
|
||||
| and Coale matches, and finished second in the grand aggregate for the championship of Maryland. The race for the Hook trophy was a neck and neck affair between the Second and Third battalions, the latter finally winning out by four points out-of a possible 630. Another inspiring contest was for the Old Guard trophy, a magnificent bronze presented to the Fourth by the Old Guard of New York, in appreciation of its entertainment in Baltimore during the Star-Spangled Centennial in 1914. The conditions specified a team of four marksmen or sharpshooters from each company. The compact team of Company "G," Captain Thornton Rogers, won the match by a score of 423 in which Corporal McCulloh's 126 was a fine piece of workmanship beating out Captain Brooks' team, from Company "B," by 17 points. The 1915 regimental figure of merit trophy was again won by Company "G" with 37 qualified men out of 50 firing. Captain Rogers' organization also won the Old Guard match, while the Colonel Jacob W. Hook trophy went to Major Burnett's battalion—Companies "I," "K," "L" and "M." The competitions for places on the State team for the National Matches at Jacksonville, Florida, were the keenest ever held. Three sets of elimination matches were held, the final order including Captains Rogers and Duce and Sergeants Gemmill and Schuppner of the Fourth. This quartet won five medals and seven money prizes in the national matches. Sergeant Gemmill led the entire nation through three-fourths of the President's match, while Captain Duce with a score of 311 out of 325 won one of five gold medals captured by National Guardsmen in the National Individual match, finishing four points below the winning score of 315, among 756 competitors. Of three perfect scores of 75 made at 600 yards during this meet, Sergeant Gemmill recorded one in the President's match. In the ten years of Saunders Range the "Fighting Fourth" has certainly contributed its mite to the national defense by qualifying upwards of 3000 men, and is still energetically at the work, willing to promote rifle practice in every possible way, as was evidenced when Colonel Jones made a generous contribution to the fund of $6500 required to send the All American team to the Pan-American matches at Buenos Ayres, Argentine, in 1912, when the United States Government failed to make an appropriation. Individual glory has never been the aim of the regiments' riflemen in the study of small arms work, but rather to apply the lessons learned in practice and competition so as to best serve the State and Government in the hour of need. Page- Forty-one |