1950s US Army Davy Crockett Nuclear Recoilless Rifle Glass Slide Soldiers Weapon

This glass-mounted slide was part of a group of 132 glass-mounted slides used by Col. Richard Ware Mabee when he taught military science classes at the University of California in the 1950s. The set was purchased from his estate.

The entire slide set covers multiple topics of thermonuclear warfare, and this slide comes from the section entitled “Weapons”, which covered various weapons capable of delivering a thermonuclear warhead. This original glass-mounted slide (photo transparency pressed between two pieces of glass) is encased in a metal Esco mount. It appears that this image is not widely published.

Col. Richard Ware Mabee won an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1936. After graduation in 1940, he fought in World War II in the Aleutian Islands. He then became battalion commander in the 11th Airborne Division in the Philippines. With Japan’s surrender, he took on occupation duties in Japan. Col. Mabee returned home to be an associate professor and professor of military science at the University of California, and earn his graduate degree in East Europe Studies from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. He was then selected for military attaché duties in Finland. He retired from active duty in 1961.

– Original glass-mounted projection slide
– Late-1950s Cold War nuclear weapons subject
– Davy Crockett recoilless rifle system
– From Col. Richard Ware Mabee estate slide group
– Part of a military science teaching set
– Esco metal mount
– Numbered 12 on mount
– Color transparency image
– Soldiers with tripod-mounted launcher