A Victory Variant You May Have Never Seen Before

[ordnanceguy]

Gentlemen:

It is not often that a "new" variant of the venerable Victory Model surfaces. S&WCA member Charlie Pate's landmark book, "US Handguns of WWII: The Secondary Pistols and Revolvers", took much of the pre-existing mystery away from the Victory and many other guns of the era. Pate demonstrated that the Victory Model was a martial revolver rich in history and variety for the collector and one that could easily be classified into discrete categories. First published almost two decades ago Pate's tome continues to be the standard reference on the Victory to this day. However, even "U.S. Handguns of WWII" had almost nothing to say about this hitherto unknown variant, the guns inspected by John S. Begley (J.S.B.).

While this story has been known to S&WCA members for some months due to the publication of the article entitled "The Unknown Victory: The J.S.B. Inspected Guns" in the Spring, 2016 edition of the Journal, I thought Forum members would enjoy learning about this variant now.

In brief, the J.S.B. inspected Victories are guns which were selected for re-manufacture to new standard by the U.S. Navy in 1945. These were war-weary guns, both pre-Victory and Victory Models, which were suitable for rebuild and which were needed for the anticipated fight to the finish against Imperial Japan. The Navy entered into a contract with Smith & Wesson in May, 1945 to re-manufacture 40,000 guns. Of that amount 39,678 were completed and the remainder scrapped as not repairable.

Those completed and inspected before July 15, 1945 were brought to new standard with the new safety hammer block, a re-finish, new stocks and new markings consistent with the markings in use in 1945. The left top strap of those guns are marked on the left top strap with the Ordnance Department "shell and flame" insignia/U.S. PROPERTY and G.H.D. signifying acceptance of the revolver by Brig. General Guy H. Drewry, the Army Inspector of Ordnance for the Springfield Ordnance District at the time.

Those guns completed and inspected after July, 1945 had the same treatment except the G.H.D. initials were replaced with J.S.B., the initials of John S. Begley. Mr. Begley was a civilian, a local attorney and well-connected go-getter who had gone to work for the Springfield Ordnance District (S.O.D.) in 1942. He replaced BG Drewry as the Army Inspector of Ordnance for the District on July 15, 1945. Thus, for guns completed after that date his initials are present on the top strap. J.S.B. initials are also found on new production Colt M1911A1 and Service Model Ace pistols completed after that date as the Colt factory in Hartford, Conn. was located within the S.O.D.

At the time the article was published only 5 examples of the J.S.B. revolvers were known to the author after many years of searching. Since publication earlier this year one additional example has been discovered. It is unknown how many of the re-manufactured guns were J.S.B. marked but given the very low numbers discovered to date it is assumed that only a small percentage of the 39,678 overhauled guns were so marked. It is reasonable to assume that additional examples are out there waiting to be discovered by the collecting community.

Additional details can be found in the article, but this summary gives Forum Members the big picture. Charlie Pate's book mentioned the J.S.B. guns in passing at page 47 stating that only one example had been noted.
The image below is of pre-Victory serial number 992745 S. The factory letter reveals that it shipped to the U.S. Navy in May, 1942. To the casual observer this revolver appears to be a standard 4 inch .38 Special Victory Model.



Note that the S, signifying the addition of the safety hammer block during overhaul, was added as a serial number suffix rather than a serial number prefix. Insufficient room for the letter S as a prefix on the butt is the likely reason.



The telltale left top strap marking showing the J.S.B. initials. They are easy to overlook. Some collectors, accustomed to the usual G.H.D. initials at that location, may have assumed that the gun they were looking at was a G.H.D. gun when a closer inspection might have revealed the elusive J.S.B. marking.



So there you have it. A Victory Model variant that has only rarely been seen. There are probably others out there waiting to be found. Start looking!

 

[gjamison]

I read that article, very well written. Been on the lookout since then...

 

[Absalom]

Charlie:

Thank you for that very interesting summary!

On the by-the-by, it clarified something for me that seems to misinform quite a few older threads here where the converted S-stamped guns are the topic: the Navy did not collect and send revolvers to the factory in order for them to be converted to the new hammer block; these were actual re-work contracts for the whole guns, and in the May 1945 contract this re-work simply included the conversion to the new hammer block.

The example in your pictures looks to be in almost unissued condition. With the war being over by the time the J.S.B. marked guns would have realistically been back in distribution channels, I wonder how many even made it back into active service.

 

[BibleronKJV]

Did they remove the original GHD markings from the topstrap before stamping the JSB markings or did they simply overstamp them? Thanks. Ron

 

[ordnanceguy]

Did they remove the original GHD markings from the topstrap before stamping the JSB markings or did they simply overstamp them? Thanks. Ron

Hello Ron:

It is my opinion that any pre-existing left top strap markings were removed at rebuild with the then-current markings applied. However, since the U.S. PROPERTY GHD markings did not begin to appear until the second quarter of 1943 those guns had less opportunity to become war weary and, therefore, less opportunity to be eligible for re-manufacture. Thus, I would surmise that the GHD guns were probably just a fraction of the 40,000 guns submitted by the Navy to S&W.

Beyond that, in the course of preparing to write the article I was able to eyeball 3 of the 5 (now 6) known examples. They did not appear to me to have been overstamped. Rather, the left top strap markings appeared to have been applied to smooth, unmarked metal. Thus, those guns either had left top straps that had never been marked or had top straps where the earlier markings had been removed.

 

[opoefc]

Charlie, Do you believe all J.S.B. guns should have the "S" suffix? Do the six examples you have mentioned all have the "S" suffix? Do you know if any of the six have factory letters that document the reworks. ( "factory" meaning both S&W and SWHF ) I would assume the factory shipping records list the second shipping of these serial numbers, therefore a factory letter should show both ship dates, right ? Ed.

 

[Absalom]

Charlie, Do you believe all J.S.B. guns should have the "S" suffix? Do the six examples you have mentioned all have the "S" suffix? Do you know if any of the six have factory letters that document the reworks. ( "factory" meaning both S&W and SWHF ) I would assume the factory shipping records list the second shipping of these serial numbers, therefore a factory letter should show both ship dates, right ? Ed.

Ed:
Sorry to jump into your question to Charlie, but do I interpret it correctly as indicating that SWHF letters are requestable on 1942 revolvers, as these would be? I'd order one right away on my rather interesting DSC/US marked, almost certainly reworked pre-Victory from Jan. 1942 (see separate thread), but didn't think I could because the posted instruction I've seen seem to say that SWHF records only cover up to 1941.

Thank you if you can clarify that!

 

[DWalt]

If indeed 39,678 re-manufactured revolvers were completed in the 1945 program, how many of those have been accounted for, regardless of what initials are stamped on them?

 

[Doc44]

The records from 1942-1946 are yet to be digitized and indexed by the S&WHF. They will not be started until late this year.

Bill

 

[mikepriwer]

One way to address the question about the shipping records possibly having double shipping dates is to ask Roy to look up 892745 (or 992745) - the gun shown in the early part of this thread.

Mike Priwer

 

[mikepriwer]

Some thoughts about this story

Charlie and others

I found this story very interesting, and very well organized and prepared. After re-reading it, I came up with a few thoughts about it. I should add, up front, that I am not a military historian; hopefully I am not being naive with these thoughts.

First, because only 7 or so guns have shown up, I have to wonder what happen to all the others - specifically about 40,000. This is a lot of guns to go into hiding. Its almost double the entire .38 1899 production, and its more than all the .38 1899's and original 1902's .

Second, why would the Navy have elected to re-manufacture these guns? I'm not a military expert, but I would expect that Navy Victories would have had relatively little service, certainly compared to the Army's use of these guns. Seems like there ought to have been relatively little hand-to-hand combat for the Navy during WW2, so except for any corrosion from ocean air, the guns should have been in fairly good condition. I don't know what the contract price was for these guns, but re-manufacturing would certainly have cost something.

Third, the estimates for casualties for the invasion of Japan vary wildly, anywhere for
100,000 to 500,000 . I wonder what kind of impact, or result, they were expecting from 40,000 rebuilt guns vs not having them refurbished.

Fourth, from various reading I've done, the US in particular, and the Allies in general,
were already expecting the war to end sooner rather than later. Plans were already being drawn up for the economic aftermath of the war. And, the timing for any planned invasion of Japan was for 1946 or even 1947. So, there would have been plenty of time for S&W to make up another 40,000 new guns. And, where might these 40,000 guns have come from, to be returned to the factory ? Did this leave 40,000 Navy personnel without guns ?

Fifth, and getting back to a previous point, why the Navy, and not the Army ? I'm under the impression that the Army was the dominant ground-invasion forces, whereas the Navy was about battles at sea. I wonder what the Navy was thinking about, as regards to an invasion of Japan . Were they expecting to be a part of the land invasion ?

I'm not so much looking for answers here, but rather having sort of a monologue with
myself about these questions. On the other hand, if you have any insights, I would be happy for you to share them with us.

Regards, Mike Priwer

 

[jebstuart]

Well here's my two cents then;
The first J.S.B. stamp likely took place 7/15/45. The first "A-bomb appeared at Hiroshima three weeks later on 8/6/45. The 2nd at Nagasaki three days after that on 8/9/45 (I think). Six days later, Unconditional Surrender by Japan.
I don't know what the status of revolver production or refurbishment was in the closing minuets of WWII, but assuming it stopped pretty quickly, 3 to 5 weeks doesn't seem like a lot of time to stamp revolvers with J.S.B. before gunmakers were asked to "stand down". So my thinking is - there must be few. Just me thinking out loud.
Jeb

 

[Absalom]

.....
Second, why would the Navy have elected to re-manufacture these guns? I'm not a military expert, but I would expect that Navy Victories would have had relatively little service, certainly compared to the Army's use of these guns. Seems like there ought to have been relatively little hand-to-hand combat for the Navy during WW2, so except for any corrosion from ocean air, the guns should have been in fairly good condition. I don't know what the contract price was for these guns, but re-manufacturing would certainly have cost something...

Mike:

You raise a number of interesting points. Allow me to add my thoughts to one particular aspect.

WW II was not a handgun war; I think whether or not a handgun was actually carried into battle and fired or not would have little impact on its wear. Also, in no service did the US Victory see service with frontline combat forces; even within the Army and Marines, the 1911 went to the sharp end, and the Victory was carried by those who fought the war primarily with other weapons, like aviators. The BSR version did see widespread duty as a primary service gun with British forces, but the generally worse condition of surviving BSR's has in my opinion more to do with the climate (South Asia, North Africa) where many saw use. The wear we see on the US Victory is use and carry wear, and there it matters little whether a gun is handled and loaded/unloaded, tossed and banged about and generally abused in the metalled confines of a Navy ship, an Army Air Force bomber and crew quarters, or a defense plant guard shack. Add to that the potential for saltwater exposure, and I would think Navy guns would wear down about as quickly or faster than Victorys in other services.

I do not believe that sending revolvers back to the factory for re-work started with this contract; this happened to Victorys before, I have one, Charles Pate discusses others. So this contract from May 1945 may not be some new concept, related to a specific plan like the invasion of Japan, but likely just a continuation of an ongoing practice, the only new aspect being the addition of the new safety.

Pate gives the cost of the contract as $9.50 per gun, by the way.

Once the 1942 to 1946 records are digitized by the SWHF and accessible, as indicated by Bill above, maybe they will reveal something about where the finished refurbished guns were shipped post-war.

 

[Absalom]

.....
I don't know what the status of revolver production or refurbishment was in the closing minuets of WWII, but assuming it stopped pretty quickly, 3 to 5 weeks doesn't seem like a lot of time to stamp revolvers with J.S.B. before gunmakers were asked to "stand down". So my thinking is - there must be few....

Since Charles states that "... 39,678 were completed...," it appears the refurbishment did not stop with the end of the war.

 

[ordnanceguy]

Charlie, Do you believe all J.S.B. guns should have the "S" suffix? Do the six examples you have mentioned all have the "S" suffix? Do you know if any of the six have factory letters that document the reworks. ("factory" meaning both S&W and SWHF ) I would assume the factory shipping records list the second shipping of these serial numbers, therefore a factory letter should show both ship dates, right ? Ed.

Hello Ed:

I'll take your questions in order:

1. Do you believe all J.S.B. guns should have the "S" suffix? I believe that all J.S.B. marked pre-Victory (not Victory) guns should have the "S" suffix. It was a suffix because I believe that there simply was not enough space to add the "S" as a prefix.

2. Do the six examples you have mentioned all have the "S" suffix? Of the 4 J.S.B. marked pre-Victory guns that I am aware of all of them had an "S" suffix. One of them had an SV suffix which I found to be rather odd. The Victory guns had the "S" added as a prefix to the V since there was sufficient space to add the "S" on the Victory guns.

3. Do you know if any of the six have factory letters that document the reworks. ("factory" meaning both S&W and SWHF.)? None of the six have factory letters that mention the re-manufacture. As Doc44 has pointed out the WW2 era records have not yet been digitized by the SWHF, so I remain hopeful that more information on this variant will be found when that process is completed.

4. I would assume the factory shipping records list the second shipping of these serial numbers, therefore a factory letter should show both ship dates, right? I don't know the answer to that one. I will say that when I got Roy's input on this article before submission to the Journal for publication he did not indicate that there was any additional information accessible to him that would be relevant. Remember that these guns came back to the factory as random selections by the Navy. Imagine the process of trying to put together a consecutive serial number list of 40,000 incoming guns that were probably not sorted in any way.

I also suspect that S&W most likely did create an inventory of those guns that were re-manufactured and shipped against this Contract, as well as those it deemed to be "unrepairable" and which were scrapped. Navy beancounters would have insisted upon that, I am sure. Whether that presumed-to-have-been-created list of re-manufactured guns still exists is unknown, but if it does I am betting that the S&WHF has it.

I hope this answers the questions you posed.

 

[DWalt]

Back to the 39,678 revolvers. Assuming for the moment that number is correct and has some factual basis, has it been established with certainty that all of those 39,678 underwent retrofit to the 1945 hammer block safety? I remember reading somewhere, and I do not remember the source, that only a very small number (and I can't say what that small number is) of the pre-1945 revolvers were modified with the new hammer safety because the cost of the conversion was so close to that of the government's cost of a new revolver that the conversion made no economic sense.

As Mike Priwer said earlier, "...because only 7 or so guns have shown up, I have to wonder what happened to all the others - specifically about 40,000. This is a lot of guns to go into hiding." Seems very strange to me also.

 

[Absalom]

.......
As Mike Priwer said earlier, "...because only 7 or so guns have shown up, I have to wonder what happen to all the others - specifically about 40,000. This is a lot of guns to go into hiding." Seems strange to me also.

We REALLY need those 1942 to 1946 records, don't we?

One thing worth speculating about is how front-loaded the May 1945 contract was and how many of these 40,000 guns were completed before July 15, 1945.

As we recently had occasion to discuss, all remaining contracts for the British Service Model were cancelled, according to Pate, in the first quarter of 1945. Since S&W had the capacity to produce several thousand complete revolvers per month throughout the war and always produced more BSR's than US victory models, and to my knowledge did not take up production of other civilian models again right away, that would have freed up the capacity to complete a substantial number of mere refurbishments in a few months.

I also don't believe that the Navy would have negotiated the contract for that specific (and somewhat random) number of 40,000 unless the guns were already collected and at hand for delivery to the factory. That's not how a bureaucracy works. The guns had likely accumulated at arsenals as defective and maybe some were at the factory already.

So JSB may not have had that many guns to inspect. Wherever the other ones are hiding, I think we are looking for only a fraction of the 40,000.

 

[DWalt]

"As we recently had occasion to discuss, all remaining contracts for the British Service Model were cancelled, according to Pate, in the first quarter of 1945."

As I have previously alluded to, there is some question in my mind if any .38/200s were made in 1945. Some may have been built up from pre-1945 frames and components in inventory for early 1945 shipment, but actual 1945 BSR manufacture might be another story. The question I have asked in the past is still unanswered - are there any SV-series BSRs known to exist? I have none on my list, but then I have only a tiny percentage of revolvers represented there.

 

[ordnanceguy]

Thanks for all the nice comments. I am glad that you guys have enjoyed this thread on the J.S.B. guns.

Ed's question above about the markings on other examples caused me to think that you might also enjoy seeing pics of one of the other 5 known examples. Here is the butt marking on 974302 S. It shipped to the Navy in 1942. The S suffix butt marking is consistent with the other J.S.B. marked pre-Victory guns.



I did not mention it earlier in the thread but, as one might expect, all of the J.S.B. marked guns observed to date have the small "s" marking on the side plate signifying installation of the new safety hammer block. Here is the marking on 974302 S.



And, of course, 974302 S also bears the characteristic left top strap marking with the J.S.B. initials.



Has anyone else run across a J.S.B. inspected pre-Victory or Victory? If so, please let me know so that it can be added to the short list of these interesting martial Smiths.

 

[Simson-Suhl]

USN Wear & Tear

From September/October 1957 to June 15, 1960 I served aboard the USS BULWARK (MSO425), a wooden hull ocean going mine sweeper, a small ship, 5 officers, 60 man crew. In port the Petty Officer of the watch had a 45 auto, unloaded, with the standard magazine pouch with two magazines containing 5 rounds each.
I cannot remember the manufacture of the pistol, however, I do remember it had very little if any finish. One of the late night items was to slightly withdraw the pistol from the holster, then ram it back into the holster catching the rear sight on the holster's edge cocking the hammer on the holster's edge and completing the second draw! Did this myself a few times. Behind the fore mast, (really the only one we had), was a small metal desk attached to the bulkhead and the pistol, holster, and magazines were placed until we returned to port again. This desk is out in the weather. I do not believe the pistol was cleaned or serviced in my entire service time in the BULWARK.
PD Neel SOG 2 USN 1956/1960.