Walter R. Walsh Dies at 106; Terrorized Gangsters and Targets by Robert D. McFadden, New York Times
Walter R. Walsh, a world-class marksman who shot clothespins off laundry lines as a boy and went on to become an FBI legend in shootouts with gangsters in the 1930s, an Olympic competitor and a trainer of generations of Marine Corps sharpshooters, died on Tuesday at his home in Arlington, Va. He was 106…
Mr. Walsh was still winning handgun awards and coaching Olympic marksmen at 90, and aside from some hearing and memory loss, he was fit and continued to live alone at home. At the centennial of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2008, he was recognized not only as the oldest living former agent, but also as older than the organization itself by more than a year…
In 1942, after America’s entry into World War II, Mr. Walsh joined the Marines. For two years he trained snipers in New River, N.C. He requested combat duty in 1944, was sent to the Pacific and joined the invasion of Okinawa in 1945. At one point, with his unit pinned down, he killed an enemy sniper at 80 yards with one pistol shot.
After the war, he briefly returned to the F.B.I. but concluded that his days as an agent were over and turned increasingly to competitive shooting. On the United States Olympic shooting team at the 1948 Summer Games in London, he placed 12th in the world in the men’s 50-meter free pistol competition…