Hello Snakeman:

A neat gun in excellent condition. It looks like Mr. Arnold attended the Naval Aviation Free Gunnery School at Whidbey Island, so he knew his way around aviation machine guns. His last rank recorded on his service record was AOM1/c (T) which, I think, translates to "AVIATION ORDNANCEMAN 1ST CLASS PETTY OFFICER, Aviation Turret Mechanic".

From the Victory Model Database I can tell you that your Victory likely shipped from the factory in the October, 1944 time frame. It would have taken some amount of time to travel to one of the Naval Supply Depots where it would have been transferred to an aviation unit for issuance to those aviators (including enlisted aircrew) authorized to have a side arm issued to them. My guess would be that Arnold would not likely have gotten his hands on this revolver before January, 1945.

Hope that information is helpful to you.

Regards,
Charlie

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Charlie Flick
SWCA 729 HF 215