[BillCA]

In actual use, it would have definitely been a one shot proposition, you either succeeded with your first shot, or you were dead. About a million were made over a period of eleven weeks, which comes out to something like one complete pistol every six seconds or so, twenty four hours a day, for eleven weeks. It's often said that it takes longer to reload a Liberator than it took to make one. Even for as short a time as they were made, there are at least five distinct variations known, including a prototype two shot version that had a sliding breech block which held two rounds.

The Liberator program was initiated by the Army and later became an OSS project that was supposed to be coordinated with the French underground. The goal was to drop the pistols into France no more than 3 days before D-Day. The guns would allow partisans to obtain rifles and ammo from German troops to aid in disrupting Germany's effort to repel the invasion. But by late '43, it was evident from reports that the resistance fighters were having little trouble obtaining arms - from the Germans themselves.

FP-45 "Flare Projector" Liberator Pistol with instruction sheet

Liberators were never dropped en masse over Europe. Instead, after D-Day, they were transported to the Pacific Theatre (PTO) to support MacArthur's upcoming return to the Philippines (Oct '44). Oddly enough, secrecy was the downfall of the Liberator program. The invasion was planned and US commanders knew it; the Japanese knew an invasion was just a month to six weeks away; even the Philippinos knew it was coming. But planners worried that by air-dropping Liberators into the densely forrested islands 48 hours before the invasion, the enemy would not be taken by surprise.

After the Liberation of the Philippines, the Liberator pistols had no real further value. They were deemed unnecessary and ships were ordered to dump them off shore of the islands. Most likely the few surviving specimens were those that were (ironically) "Liberated" from cargo ships inventories by individual sailors. There are reports that some Liberators made their way to China, but that documentation is sketchy.

Re: Manufacturing
I've heard that the GM guide lamp division assembled one pistol every 6.6 seconds. the 23 parts were fabricated out of stampings, barrels cut and the parts organized for assembly, then one gun was produced about every 6.6 seconds, mostly by women employed at the plant. The workers in the plant were told the name of the weapon..."Flare Projector" Caliber .45 (FP-45) as a security measure.

Planned Use:
According to reports compiled by the OSS, French citizens often had personal encounters with German occupiers. Frequently these were Identity Checks, French "servants" of occupiers and others. With the relatively small, flat size of the Liberator, the general idea was to get as close to a soldier as possible and shoot him to get his rifle or pistol and ammo. Once suitable arms were taken, the pistol could be passed on to another person if needed to repeat the process (or to be the surprise gun, backed up by others using captured Wehrmacht guns).

Re: Variants
In the 1960's, another "Liberator" type pistol was made for the CIA. It was not made in the same mass production but one thousand were made with a 16-page instruction book written in Vietnamese.

AMF "Deer Gun" - 1960's Liberator Replacement Pistol

According to an article by David Truby, the Deer Gun was designed by Russell J. Moure, Chief Engineer for American Machine & Foundry's Special Firearms Division, at the request of the CIA. His mission was to design a replacement for the Liberator Pistol. The cost of the pistol was to be under $4.00. After examining Moure's prototype the CIA ordered 1,000 pistols and gave AMF a development contract for $300,000.00. The article says only 1000 pistols were made in the 1962-1963 time frame. This puts the cost at $300.00 each. Moure said that if they had received additional contracts the cost could have been $3.95 each. There are two possible reasons in the article for the name Deer Gun. One does not check out and the other is an opinion, made by an individual. It has been estimated by Keith Melton that about 15 to 20 of these pistols have survived.