Victory Model Capture gun?

[woolleyworm]

I don't have any pics, but wanted to know if anyone has any scrap of info about any Victory models that fell into German hands and how they were dealt with. I am going to go look at one tomorrow that is a supposed capture gun. From the guys description, it appears to have several German proof marks and HAMB on it. "he says, it was a pilots sidearm and was captured, inspected by the Germans and proofed" I do know that the Germans had no problem and have a history of using capture weapons and stamping them with their own Waffenamt to ensure that they had been inspected. I have a pretty good idea of what to look for and not to get suckered into something that just aint' right, but it would be nice to get some other inputs and what to possibly look for.

Appreciate the help,

Woolley

[wonderwhippet]

The story is totally phony. No US Navy pilots were assigned to the European theater. Either it has forged WWII acceptance marks, or it was given to the German police after the war and they put postwar proofs on it.

[SSMN]

Dear Mr. Whippet,
I think you are doing this gentleman a dis-service by giving him the impression that Victory S&W revolvers were only issued to the Navy. They were issued to both Navy and Army and 571,629 were issued by Commonwealth countries between October 1941 and May 1945 when the war ended.

The most often found property marks on the Victory model are UNITED STATES PROPERTY, US PROPERTY and US NAVY. Army property mark was shortened to US PROPERTY at about serial number V300000. The acceptance mark W.B., for Ordnance officer Waldemar Bromberg will be found on the butt of early guns, up until number V145000. The G.H.D. acceptance mark which stands for Ordinance officer Guy H. Drewery is then found on the butt. At V300000 when the Property mark was shortened to U.S. PROPERTY, the G.H.D. was moved to the left top strap.

Serial numbers for the .38 special Victory model began at about V1 in early 1942 and ran until VS811119 with a date of late August of 1945 (end of production). Early finish was a sandblast blue, then sandblast midnight black (appears grayish black) and finally a parkerized finish. Hammer and trigger are case hardened.

Hundreds of thousands of captured weapons fell into German hands throughout the war, with three hundred thousand alone ranging from battle ships to artillery pieces to small arms captured at Dunkirk. A weapons reconditioning armory was located a KL Stutthoff concentration camp near Danzig and did nothing but recondition and reissue captured allied weapons.

NARA archives contain many German documents dealing with the receipt and shipment of these weapons and list everything from Stens to US revolvers (undoubtedly the Victory S&W revolvers among them).

So you see his story is entirely plausible. I am sure that a substantial number of Victorys were issued to USAAF pilots.

David

[SSMN]

A point that might be of interest. Herman Goering carried a S&W Military & Police model revolver that he purchased from a dealer in Hamburg prior to WWII. He is found wearing it in many photographs. He was wearing it when he surrendered and it is now in the West Point Military Museum.
David

[woolleyworm]

Originally Posted by SSMN

A point that might be of interest. Herman Goering carried a S&W Military & Police model revolver that he purchased from a dealer in Hamburg prior to WWII. He is found wearing it in many photographs. He was wearing it when he surrendered and it is now in the West Point Military Museum.
David

very interesting! I'll see what happens tomorrow and post up what I find.

[Alpo]

Hermann Goering's M&P

[wonderwhippet]

A Navy marked Victory Model was issued only to Navy pilots and aircrew in the Pacific Theater. U.S. Property marked Victory Models were issued primarily to civilian guards at defense plants and stateside military installations. Some Army MPs were issued Model 1917 .45 pistols, but I can find no record of their being issued Victory Models. Victory Models in caliber .38 S&W were issued to many British troops and were used primarily in the Pacific Theater. I am looking forward to seeing what the proofmarks are. Incidentally, is that a Field Marshal's baton in the photo?

[SSMN]

I keep looking, but for the life of me I can find no reference to Wollsey's Victory being US Navy property marked. The only reference to the Navy that I can find is by Mr. Whippet

Several corrections to the above:

1. Victory models supplied to defense contractors did not have ANY property marks, much less US PROPERTY marks. They were delivered by US Defense Supply Corporation (DSC) to defense contractors and public agencies that required them for guarding war sensitive materials.

2. The British models of which 571,629 were produced were in caliber 38/200 (NOT .38 S&W)and were for Commonwealth countries. Union of South Africa (21,347), Canada (45,328) Australis (8,000). The remaining 384,100 shipped between 1941 and the end of WWII were supplied through the lend lease program to Britain for distribution.

It will be interesting to find out the caliber of this gun. If legitimate and .38 Special caliber, it would be USAAF. If in caliber 38/200 it will likely be from a British pilot.

I am not aware of British Military participation in the Pacific Theater? (Unless you consider Southeast Asia a part of the Pacific Theater?)

The Marshalls Baton is one of Goerings and is with his S&W in the West Point Military Museum. Another of his Marshalls batons is in the National Infantry Museum at Ft. Benning and is velvet covered and of the same color as the pale blue uniforms he wore at times.

[RJay]

Oh, I find it very plausible that the Germans would take a single firearm, proof it, and issue it , of course there was no supply code or source for 38S&W nor 38 Special but what the hey, If a field Marshall can find a supply of 38 Special then a German grunt should be able to. I also believe that the SS chromed plated all of their handguns just before they surrendered them to the capturing forces. I believe that Japanese infantryman carried small portable grinders and if they found them self in a situation that they believed they would be captured or killed they ground off the mum. I also believe Batman and Robin are alive and well in Hollywood.

[wonderwhippet]

RJAY, I' glad to see you have laid out all the facts so correctly. You forgot to say that all P38s were assembled by slave labor who sabotaged most of them, and that they are unsafe to fire. Incidentally, in 65 years of collecting, I have never seen a Victory Model without some sort of U.S. marking. Also, 38/200 and .32 S$W cartridges are virtually identical and are interchangeable.

[SSMN]

I'm sorry Mr. James, I don't understand, are you making statements derisively to indicate that you do not believe the Third Reich captured, reconditioned and reissued captured Allied firearms?

[Teejay9]

I've seen German marked Czech, French, Spanish, and Belgian marked pistols, but never an American one. That doesn't mean the Germans didn't have any, as I've seen photos of an SS trooper with an M-1 carbine. TJ

[jack404]

Originally Posted by SSMN

I am not aware of British Military participation in the Pacific Theater? (Unless you consider Southeast Asia a part of the Pacific Theater?)

got a education for you then eh

[RJay]

Originally Posted by SSMN

I'm sorry Mr. James, I don't understand, are you making statements derisively to indicate that you do not believe the Third Reich captured, reconditioned and reissued captured Allied firearms?

Not one at a time

[Danny]

I have a 38 special with holster. It is in super condition. However I have seen plenty of the Navy marked ones & several of the US Property ones also. Mine is a plain Jane , but great to shoot.
There has been theory for years that since Goering & Linburger where great friends, that the 38 was a gift by Lindy. Lindy also had a fraulein over in Germany and made many trips prior to the war to see both of them.
On the thought of the Victory being German captured, well anything was possible?
Danny

[SSMN]

Mr. James,
I looked back through this thread. I cannot find any reference to single issue of captured guns, although in the end result every gun becomes a single issue to a single individual. Captured guns were stored in Paris as well as other places and eventually shipped to the Rauscha Armory (Present day Poland) for issue or shipped to the Stutthof reconditioning facility which handled huge amounts of captured weapons.

I am attaching two secret Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office) documents which address the shipment of captured weapons including 95 "Amerikanisch Revolvers" in one shipment and 50 12mm "Kolt Pistolen" in a second shipment. The most common captured weapon to show up in secret RSHA documents are Stens. They were usually shipped by the thousands or more leading me to believe they were Dunkirk booy, stored in Paris Warehouses for years.

Mr. Whippet...I don't think that your not having seen Victory pistols without property marks does not prove that they did not exist. They do in fact exist.

[SSMN]

In regards to Mr. James comment that the Reich had no source for .38 Special etc....Goerings' M&P model was purchased prewar and certainly had access to ammunition. There is no reason to believe the the most highly industrialized nation in the world at the time was not capable of producing ammunition in any caliber they found necessary. Here is a document which includes 2 Colts and 200 rounds of ammunition. (Bottom) It only stands to reason that ammunition such as indicated in this document was captured in quantity along with weapons.

There is a third revolver listed under item "C" (12 mm) That would have been another Colt. They referred to .45 cal interchangeably as either 11mm or 12mm.

[RJay]

The original poster stated he was looking at a Victory model that had been captured and proofed. singular. Yes, Germany even made 45 ACP cartridges however they were not a normal item in the supply chain, however I'm sure if a German Field Marshall needed such a cartridge he could acquired some, but some how I can't see a German infantryman going down to the supply shack and asking " Hey Gus, give me a couple of boxes of 38 Special ". Even on the Russian front with the captured Toks the Germans converted them to 9MM rather than put another odd ball cartridge into the supply system. Disregard anything I may have typed after the above. I do not want to start any flames. In fact I think I will take a few days break.

[SSMN]

I apologize but how do you respond to someone you believe to be wrong without saying "I believe you are wrong?" and then stating the reason for your belief?

[Jim K]

Maybe folks need to get their minds out of WWII. Germany, in the post-war era, had a thriving arms trade and many war surplus guns were advertised in the gun magazines, including Model 1911's Model 1917's and S&W M&P's. (I understand their current law is much stricter, especially with handguns.) If the markings are, as I suspect, German postwar commercial proofs, all that means is that the gun was at one time sold in Germany, either in a German gun shop or in an American PX/BX. Either way, it had to be submitted to proof.

If it was captured by the Wehrmacht (more likely from the British than from Americans) and issued by the Germans, it should have the standard eagle/swastika acceptance stamp. Yes, the Germans issued many captured guns, but they tried to stick to those whose ammunition was either already in their supply chain of for which ammunition was available. They might have issued a captured .38 revolver, but it would have been unlikely unless there was a supply of ammunition with it. They didn't even issue any significant numbers of Norwegian .45 pistols, even though there was a supply of ammo available.

As to manufacturing ammo, the German ammunition industry had all it could do to turn out the standard ammo; they were not going to tool up to make .38 Special or .38 S&W or .45 ACP for a few revolvers, no matter how they were obtained.

(Göring's S&W revolver was a commercial gun, not one captured from U.S. or British troops. Presumably his ammunition had been obtained before the war.)

BTW, the RSHA wasn't concerned with weapons captured from the enemy in combat (which would have been a Wehrmacht concern), only with weapons seized from resistance forces. The US and British weapons mentioned in those documents were not captured at Dunkirk, but had been dropped by parachute (as the one document says) or landed in France. There is also no indication in those documents that the arms were to be re-issued, although I would assume that German issue weapons would be restored to Wehrmacht authority or given to the Waffen-SS.

Jim

[Teejay9]

Originally Posted by jack404

got a education for you then eh

The Aussies were in the Pacific Theater. They kept the Japanese from capturing Port Moresby, went and took many positions in New Guinea, including Buna, Salamaua, and right on up. They were involved in Borneo, too. The British were also in the Pacific Theater. Their Navy had ships in many of our task forces. The Aussies don't get the credit they deserve in the Pacific. They had Army, Navy, and Air forces actively engaged. The problem was with MacArthur giving them the "dirty work," i.e., clean up by-passed areas. They contributed to the winning of the Pacific War. TJ

[wonderwhippet]

In order to proofmark a pistol, it would first have to be fired with specially manufactured proof loads. One cannot believe they manufactured proof loads in foreign calibers, in addition to standard ammo for odd ball firearms.

[Jim K]

The post-war German proof houses certainly had .38 Special proof rounds, as some revolvers in that caliber were made in Germany at that time.

Woolleyworm, we need a look at those proof marks. The "HAMB" could be part of the name and address of a German dealer in Hamburg, since it was common for German arms retailers to mark the guns they sold with their name.

Jim

[wonderwhippet]

I was referring to the lack of proof loads prior to 1945.

[Jim K]

We still don't know what proof marks are on the gun; unless the OP chooses to supply pictures, I think this thread is going in circles.

Jim