Navy Victory Revolvers were not just issued to pilots. My father was the ball turret gunner in a TBM Avenger off the Yorktown. So, all of his flight crews were issued revolvers. I have a picture of him in his flight suit next to his plane and he had a shoulder holster with extra rounds on the strap, some of them were tracer rounds. He somehow managed to bring his Victory Revolver back after the War, and I remember seeing it in his closet when I was young. He sold it back in the 60's. It is now on my bucket list to have a Navy Victory. Another quick, funny story from the War, a very good friend of mine, he has since passed, was a ball turret gunner on a B-24. They also carried revolvers, and he said there was a Thompson hanging inside the plane, if they had to bail out. He had many stories, but one was on the way back from a mission, one of the waist gunners took out his revolver, hung out the waist gun's opening and fired his revolver with tracer rounds straight forward past the window of the co-pilot, who then yelled that they were being attacked. Well, that gunner was disciplined by the pilot on the ground after being found out to be the prankster.
