In the post-war years, my father worked in the aerospace industry and one of his coworkers in the mid 60's at Lockheed was a former OSS major. From talks with the major, the Liberator pistol concept had been "floating around" in military circles since 1940 when it was apparent that France would collapse. But no real action occurred until mid 1941 when a crude prototype was fabricated by U.S. Army armorers. All this remained dormant until December of 1941. By February, OSS had a specification and let out an RFP (request for proposal). By April, three samples were produced with the GM Guide Lamp being given the go-ahead and, by August of '42, just over 1 million were produced.
The original plan was to ship these to England and add them to para-dropped supplies to the resistance. The intended purpose was to provide resistance members a crude, concealed gun that could be used up-close against a Nazi solider. The resistance member would then take the soldier's rifle and equipment. By 1942, however, Allied intelligence realized they had underestimated the ingenuity of French civilians who were obtaining arms on their own.
The plan was re-thought and the decision made to hold on to the FP-45 "Liberator" pistols until just before an Allied invasion of "Fortress Europe". Using the pistols for the invasion of Sicily and Italy in '43 were dismissed, in part, because of the fear of arming Italian "mafia" types might pose a danger to U.S. troops and because the Italian underground was much less organized than the French.
By late '43, it was obvious that the French resistance was able to obtain almost any weapons they needed and the use of "liberated" German equipment was preferred, to use the available German ammunition supplies. Meanwhile, progress in the Pacific suggested that the Liberator could be used to good effect in the Philippines. Most Liberator pistols were loaded aboard transport ships in early 1944 and sailed west.
The Philippine invasion was coming. We knew it, the Filipinos knew it and the Japanese knew it. But a decision was made not to para-drop the Liberator pistols because many were likely to be recovered by the Japanese due to the forests and it would disclose the "secret" invasion.
At the end of the war, when no further use could be seen for the pistols, their salvage value was nil and orders came through to dispose of the guns. Most were dumped into the sea where the salt water would make short work of them.
Stamped, bare finish sheet metal, spot welded, smoothbore, single-shot, ungainly and difficult to reload.
It still wins as the "ugliest gun" I've ever seen.
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