Originally Posted by
Johnny P
At the time the Model 1911 was adopted, the horse soldiers still had quite a bit of input into the design, but as mentioned previously there was no lanyard that would fit the Model 1911, and it wasn't until 1917 after the horse cavalry was nothing more than an outdated hold over that a lanyard was adopted. The lanyard loop was retained on the Model 1911A1, but again a new lanyard was not produced until 1943.
Since the Model 1917 Revolvers were a little more tedious to load than the Model 1911, maybe the lanyards brought out in 1917 were for the revolvers, as a lanyard had been previously issued with DA revolvers.
When it was decided that the Model 1911 would be issued with three magazines, it would have taken four lanyards to keep up with the pistol and magazines, and that didn't happen. Tales have been told of lanyards with double hooks, but to date I have not seen one nor seen one in any book.