The title says it all. A friend and I were talking today and he asked what S&W made for the war effort. I don't have a clue???

John

Victory...........................

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More precisely they continued to produce the K-frame in .38 Special for the Americans and in .38 S&W for the British Commonwealth countries. Begining in April 1942 the one millionth 1905 Hand Ejector Change 4 was serial numbered V 1, hence the Victory Model name.

Slight correction. The one millionth 1905 Hand Ejector was serial number 1,000,000 and the first Victory Model was serial number V1. They were both hand made in the Service Dep't, as special orders, with high polish blue finish, fancy grain walnut stocks, 4 in. barrels in .38 Spl. caliber. for VIP presentation guns, per orders of Carl Hellstrom. V1 was shipped to Lt. Gen. William Knudsen, US Army, appointed head of all wartime production by Pres. Roosevelt. V1 was returned to S&W after WW2 and rebuilt for presentation to Pres. Truman, and is in the Truman library in Independence , MO. According to the V1 presentation letter from Carl Hellstrom to Pres. Truman, " ...two million S&W revolvers were produced for the war effort in WW2..." M&P # 1,000,000 remained in the factory collection and is with the guns donated to the CVHM S&W collection. Ed.

S&W also produced a 9mm light semiauto carbine for the British, but it didn't work out so good...

Read the Jinks book about this chapter in company history. The story is that the 9mm "light rifle" was a debacle and the British Government agreed to accept M&P revolvers in .38-200 (38 S&W) as payment since the money had already changed hands. These revolvers saved the company's bacon. A very interesting read........

This maybe splitting hairs, but the Model 1940 Light Rifle ( that nomenclature is the Britishh name for the gun, as the 9mm round they specified for the gun is a "Light" cartridge in their ordnance vocabulary. If you have ever lifted or fired one of these, it's far from light!) is not technicaly a WW2 weapon , insofar as S&W and the USA involvement in WW2 hostilities. It was abandoned before the conflict in Europe became a world wide war on Dec. 7, 1941. Ed.

Actually it was a world wide war on 3rd September 1939 when Britain declared war on Germany and within a day, Canada, Australia, South Africa, India, and New Zealand followed suit. Other smaller countries in the British Empire joined in soon after.

Is that all S&W produced? I would have guessed they made other items also. If not completed goods perhaps just parts for others? It could even be mundane things like springs or washers. They did have heat treating and plating lines. Some places just did machining of sub assemblies.

Some years ago I was very interested in the war production, war board and how and what different companies made during the war. Its a fascinating part of history, almost anythings possible!

WG28, It kind of worked the other way around. Look at garands, carbines, M-1911A1's, Model 2 HB's etc. etc. and those companies that got into the gun business during WWII. Not to mention heavy equipment, aircraft, shipbuilding, automotives etc.

An interesting transition was Kollmorgen who built periscopes. They bought Redfield who made precision iron sights and took them into scopes.

That S&W was knocking on their middle millionth M&P in a 5 year frame, and turning all their production to a single model, all the while recruiting, training, expanding is for me impressive enough.

My understanding is that S&W pretty much filled up their production capacity by making over 800,000 .38s for US and Britain during the war years.

Interesting passage in McHenry's and Roper's S&W Handgun book:

"At the present writing (1944) it is next to impossible to buy a new S&W revolver of any kind, and just as hard to find ammunition. What S&W has been producing since some time before the US entered the war is a military secret, but what they are like and what they do cannot be told in full until the was is over."

The Military Police probably used S&W handcuffs to haul in a few unruly GIs.

As a cash register dealer,and collector of antique registers, I always found it interesting that NCR built the Norden bomb sights.

It is interesting for sure. The war production board had A LOT of power and they could get things done.

I have a book someplace Otis War Production (or very close to that name) It goes into what Otis Elevator made during the war. What comes to mind is landing gear for planes, attenuators for AA guns, engine cases for Curtis Wright, some electronic stuff and several other items. Now it get interesting they made machine tools for other people, they built Norton surface grinders and Mori (?) screw machines. The builders could not keep up, Otis had the equipment and ability so they got to build them. They didnt have an Otis name on it and most folks would have never known. Otis built the Norden sights in the 1950s. Ibm made the Nordens during WW2 also. Ibm must have loads of interesting items for the war!

Another interesting thing in the Otis book is that they had to make a small grocery store in the plant so workers could buy food with out going out to shop as the hours were long.

I would agree more or less but a lot of companies were like Smith Corona (03A3s) and IBM (carbines) they didnt make every last bit some parts were supplied from outside even if just for filling in gaps or start ups.

Some parts were hard to make and with out an experienced operator and staff it took time to learn how to get it right.

A company like RBW may have supplied the screws to Springfield, Remington, GM, Ford or a host of others.