Just to fill in some information, during WWII most ordinary American civilians could not buy new guns, as nearly all production capacity was devoted to fulfilling military demands. There were provisions made for arming non-military personnel who needed guns, such as law enforcement, defense plant guards, etc. That was handled as part of the duties of a government agency called the Defense Supplies Corporation (DSC). Gun purchase requests for essential users were routed through DSC. If validated, DSC would forward a purchase order to the gun manufacturer for direct shipment of guns to, say, the Chicago PD or to some government defense contractor who had a guard force for its factory. It is not unusual for a S&W historical letter to provide that information something like " Serial number V 258488 was shipped on July 14, 1943 to the Chrysler Corporation, Detroit Michigan as part of a shipment of 12 revolvers." The letter will not tell you what specific guard used it, only the company or law enforcement agency to where it was shipped. DSC revolvers did not have any military stampings, and if yours has none, that is a strong indicator that it a DSC gun (but there are other possible reasons why a wartime revolver has no characteristic military stampings). Sometimes the end user would apply some identification to the gun for internal purposes and your H&B stamping may (or may not) be that. S&W would not have stamped it, nor could it know its meaning.
