A VC .38 Victory Model S&W from Vietnam..

[John HOLBROOK]

I originally posted this on the Gun Talk Forum.

I was in South Vietnam in 1967 doing Bomb Damage Assessment. The Navy was using MK 82 500# bombs that were dated back to WW II!!! Many were not detonating and the VC were digging them up and making booby traps out of the explosive.. I was a Navy CPO and was the leader of an EOD team. We usually had a Army or Marine Squad assigned to protect us depending on where we were working and the local conditions.. We would dig up these duds, remove the fuses and then detonate them...

On one of these missions, we ran into a little trouble with some VC. I was at the time carrying an M14 after a bad experience with an M16A1. I stepped from behind a tree and came face to face with a VC. He was just a boy, about 14 or so. He was armed with an AK and had a pistol in his hand. As he raised the handgun and began to point it in my direction, I brought the M14 up and fired two quick rounds, both of which hit him in the chest...

He fell back against a tree and I moved over to him and kicked the pistol out of his hand. After the situation stabilized, I picked up the pistol and saw it was a Victory Model S&W. I observed a bullet sticking out of the barrel, so I emptied the chamber of live rounds, which were WW II dated USGI, and dropped it into my pack.

When I had a chance to examine the gun, I could feel lumps in the barrel and so I knew that there were rounds in the barrel. I brought the gun with me when I flew back to the ship on my way back to the States. At the time I was working part time for Dick Green at his gun shop on Whidbey Island, WA. I removed the barrel and using a dremel tool, I cut a section out of the barrel and found 9 rounds stuck nose to tail!!!!! That means he had to reload it at leaast once!!!!! I made a new barrel for it, and that is why the barrel lug is cut off.... I replaced the original barrel in the receiver when I started working the gun shows. Thousands of people have seen this relic...

This pistol is chambered in .38 Special, however the barrel is marked .38 S&W CTG. which is a different round.... However, they are both .357 bullet diameter. the round sticking out of the barrel is a tracer, which is probably the curprit, and the rest are GI Ball....

The VC did not get the memo that I was a non-combatant, and they tried several times to kill me!!!

[Griff Murphey]

We picked up tons of these, the later Parked ones, from the Vietnamese in 1975 on the USS DURHAM LKA-114. The 1-4 Corpsmen each had a .45 and one of these, all U.S. PROPERTY marked. The desk drawers in the BAS at the MAU camp in Subic Bay were full of 'em. I was offered a bucket of them, but at the time I was considering making the Navy my career and I was too chicken to try to send them back. One Marine Sgt. got a pair of them back by hiding them behind some heavy ornamental Filipino masks he bought out in town.

[Nick Riviezzo]

While Commanding an Air Cav. Troop at Ft. Carson, Co. in 1972 our Table of Organization and Equipment[TO&E] changed.Part of that change was to re-arm all the aviation personnel with .38 Spl. revolvers.We turned in our .45s and received several cases of .38s. I don't remember now,but I think it was maybe 5 or 6 wooden cases with twenty or twenty four [?]revolvers per case.The revolvers were all Victory Models with 4" barrels in NEW condition.I don't know if they had been rebuilt or not but I don't think they were.I remember thinking that some collectors would kill for a case of factory new WWII Victory Model revolvers.I also remember thinking I wouldn't want to shoot a sick old lady off of a chamber pot with those things I hated giving up my .45 pistol. Nick

[John HOLBROOK]

This is my US NAVY stamped "Flying" Victory Model. I gave it to one of my grandsons several years ago..



And me in the Ready Room on the FDR in about 1960 preflighting for a mission with another Victory Model.

[Griff Murphey]

Would that Bandolero have been all tracers? Considering the date I would think being lost at sea was more of a danger than hostile action after ejecting.

Admin question, did you turn in the ammo, how often, etc.? Always wondered how that was done.

[John HOLBROOK]

Yes, in peacetime we carried all tracer for signaling. When we went to the integrated torso harness, we also had a survival vest and I carried a small quanity of ball ammo. Before each, flight an ordnanceman would be in the Ready Room with weapons that we could check out and return them after the flight. Some of us carried personal weapons.

The first time I went to Vietnam, I took a Colt LW Commander in 9MM. I pulled some .38 tracers and reloaded them in 9MM cases. They worked just fine... I also bought one of the then new S&W Model 39s with a steel frame! only the first 1,000 were made entirely of steel. It was just to pretty to carry, so I stuck with the Colt. I later sold the Model 39, still new in the box, unfired aaaaaargh!!!

Later, I carried a Colt M1911A1 for serious work while incountry!!!! The 1911 was too heavy and bulky for flying and I carried the Victory Model as in the photo.

[John Sukey]

One of the pilots I knew had a holster for a chopped down M1 carbine sewn to his parachute harness. One day the airman running the PE shop asked if he could remove it because they were going to have an IG inspection the next day. He assured the pilot that after the IG team left, he would immediatly sew it back on. Well my friend checked the schedule and he was not on the mission list for the next day, so he said OK. The next day, one of the pilots scheduled to fly (Misty FAC) got sick and guess who had to go in his place! AND guess who had to eject that day? Fortunaly he was was rescued.