FP-45 Liberator

In my dream, these would be produced in quantity for just a few bucks and tens of thousands air dropped into California, New Jersy, NYC, and Chicago.
 
Yeah, if the country was under Nazi occupation and they air dropped some in I might give them a go. Otherwise I don't think so.
 
Saw two supposedly original liberators with collector dealers at the gun show today.

One was $3k, not sure what the other one was.
 
The whole idea was derived from a novel called The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck, in which the people of an occupied nation freed themselves after their alllies dropped explosives to them. The idea was taken up by something called the Joint Psychological Warfare Committee, one of the many organizations doing that kind of thing, mostly under the impression that the war could be won without messy things like dead Americans.

The Moon is Down was mostly moonshine, as any real psychologist could have told them. In an occupied country, most people hunker down and hope just to stay alive; only a very few will fight, considering the great risk, not just to themselves but to the community. (The Germans reacted to an attack on them by randomly executing inhabitants of the nearest town, a high price to pay for killing one German.) Dropping tons of little pistols in the hopes that a French housewife would find one and be transformed into an avenging Jeanne d'Arc, slaying les Boches right and left, was a pipe dream.

Realizing the improbability of the whole concept, theater commanders made no use of the "Liberator" and they stayed in depots until the end of the war, when they were dumped in the ocean. A few were used in the Pacific area, after the war, to arm some police until better weapons could be obtained, but reports of use against any enemy seem to lack confirmation.

In the real world, the allies (mainly the British) dropped real weapons to known resistance groups. Common small arms were STENs, PIATs, Enfield revolvers, and SMLE or No. 4 rifles. U.S. carbines and some M3 SMGs were also dropped; all by parachute. NO Liberators were dropped, with or without parachutes.

Jim
 
Liberator

I've handled one Liberator. I can't imagine actually firing one. I'd be a little nervous. The concept was that it would be used to get up close and personal and blow a German soldier's brains out and relieve him of his Mauser or machinenpistole' and hook up with a resistance group well-armed and ready to do battle...after using the butt of said weapon to smash the pistol.

Like many other theories, it was good on paper, but wouldn't have borne a lot of fruit. If a few had actually been used, the Germans would have picked up on it pretty quickly, and started forcibly searching any farmer that they happened on. The discovery of a Liberator would have resulted in an immediate brutal beating followed by an execution in full view of family, friends, and neighbors that would have been assembled for the spectacle.
 
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"The whole thing grew out of a piece of romantic fiction and turned out to be a colossal waste of money and production facilities that could have been better used."

Well, at the time the project was conceived, early 1942, it wasn't that far fetched.

Resistance fighters were kicking up all over occupied Europe, but at the time neither Britain nor the United States had a lot of spare arms to send over.

Britain was still rearming after Dunkirk, and the US was still trying to build an army in the first place.

Why not send a $2 throw away gun and give the $50 M1 Garand, Lee Enfield, etc. to a soldier who's going to eventually be called on to invade Europe?

If I remember correctly, it took Inland less than 4 months to change the tooling and manufacture nearly 1 million of these things after they were given the go ahead.

Ultimately, I don't see it as having had a negative impact on the US war production economy.
 
Also wasn't a bad morale booster to tell potential resistance fighters that the US would arm them so they weren't completely helpless
 
Well, at the time the project was conceived, early 1942, it wasn't that far fetched... at the time neither Britain nor the United States had a lot of spare arms to send over... Why not send a $2 throw away gun and give the $50 M1 Garand, Lee Enfield, etc. to a soldier who's going to eventually be called on to invade Europe?
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+1. Remember that in early 1942, Allied victory in Europe seemed far from assured. Much of the contingency planning being done at this time assumed that the U.K. would wind up in Nazi hands. Arming partisans with cheap sheetmetal handguns would have seemed like an easy and inexpensive project compared to planning a joint U.S.-Canadian invasion of Great Britain starting from the western side of the Atlantic! :eek:

It's interesting to me to note that the criticism "...the whole thing grew out of a piece of romantic fiction and turned out to be a colossal waste of money and production facilities..." has frequently been levied at an American weapons system at the polar opposite end of the complexity spectrum: the Convair B-36 Peacemaker bomber, which grew out of an early WWII plan to build a bomber capable of hitting Nazi Germany from the continental United States.
 
Given the situation as it existed in early 1942, I have no doubt that there were many who were wondering if those Liberator pistols might not be needed for service in a Japanese occupied Hawaii.

Up until June of 1942 the United States was getting its butt kicked farther eastward across the Pacific and it didn't look like it was going to end any time soon.

While today, knowing what we know about Japan's war machine, it's pretty evident that they simply didn't have the ability to invade and hold Hawaii, there were many in the American military who fully expected a Japanese invasion attempt by mid to late 1942.

Midway changed that, and made possible Guadalcanal, the first step in pushing the Japanese back.
 
Correct me if I am wrong here. I remember my grampa saying that the ammo in the grip of the Liberator was more expensive to produce than the actual gun itself was. Copper, and brass were expensive comodities.

While neat, and a great conversation piece I will pass on the replica. I would rather spend the money on a firing M1 Carbine clone.
 
Throw away gun was the idea. Use once take dead germans gun leave liberator with the body. They cost $2.40, gun, ammo, box, wooden dowel rod(ejector), and instructions. They were never intended to be used for even the 10 round in the butt of the gun. They were intended to be dropped like propaganda leaflet on mass in an area were the freedom fighters could get them or at lest cause the germans a great pain in the backside scouring the countryside looking for the dropped guns. The government spent $2,400,000.00 on the project. A very inexpensive wartime project.
 
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