![]() It took them less time to assemble it than it took the average shooter to load and fire the weapon. Three hundred employees worked around the clock to put together the 23 individual parts that made up each pistol in an average of 6.6 seconds. The assembly work took an astonishing 11 weeks. Manufacturing was done in total secrecy at General Motor’s Guide Lamp factory in Anderson, Ind. The FP designation stood for “flare projector,” and was part of a subterfuge to mislead enemy spies. SIX MONTHS LATER on August 21, 1942, one million FP-45 pistols had been completed. The expectation was that at least some of the weapons would be found by those intrepid souls who dared to resist the yoke of totalitarian rule forced on them by Germany and Japan. Hopefully, their anxiousness would be heightened by some fatal close range head shot casualties too. Once delivered in theater, these little handguns would subject the enemy’s garrison troops to great mental anguish because even though they would find some of the weapons, they would never know how many they didn’t find. They recommended a light, simple, inexpensive, powerful handgun that could be dropped from aircraft – or other distribution methods they might contrive to suit the circumstances – to litter the countryside of occupied nations. In a little over two weeks, the Joint Psychological Warfare Committee completed a detailed plan of action and recommended urgent implementation, which was supported by Army Chief of Staff George C. ![]() His request for assistance with arming resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied areas was important enough that it reached the attention of the American assistant chief of staff for intelligence (G-2) of the War Department General Staff. The idea seems to have originated with a Polish military attaché in March of 1942. ![]() Only 5 inches long and weighing a pound, this single-shot pistol was conceived as an instrument of chaos in the darkest times of the war. Constructed mostly of welded, stamped sheet metal parts with a die-cast zinc cocking piece, each gun cost the federal government a bit over $2, boxed for delivery with 10 rounds of. THE FP-45 PISTOL was inexpensive by design. creates a build-it-yourself kit of the FP-45 Liberator, which cosmetically matches an original Liberator (left) well. Myths and misinformation hide the pistol’s real story they weren’t wildly inaccurate junk guns that exploded after a few shots, and they were never tossed out of airplanes over occupied Europe en masse. It remains the rarest of American martial handguns from the conflict, with original examples usually starting in the $1,500 range for rusty, damaged pieces and the best examples, with their impossibly rare waxed shipping boxes, bringing over $7,000. Building And Shooting The Vintage Ordnance Co.’s Reproduction Of The FP-45 Liberator STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY FRANK JARDIMĬlandestine weapons like the World War II FP-45 pistol, later dubbed the Liberator by the Office of Strategic Services in 1944, have always intrigued me.
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