OSS Experimental Weapons: You'll Want to See This
Guess what we have today
Hey guys, I'm excited about today's video because I'm going to be doing a video on the guns of the OSS. Now this is not something I knew a lot about. Shout out to Ed who is an OSS collector, he stopped by and said, you really should do a video on this. And I agreed. So I'm learning with you. He gave me this book. I don't own it. I don't know that it's available. You can check Amazon. It does say $59.95. But I read through this book and I'm basically going to go through what I learned about guns of the OSS. So I'm excited to do that with you. Thank you Ed for bringing these items by.
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Now for the OSS guns
Hey, let's get to some OSS guns. Okay, I did a wardrobe change but I want to go through this book. I think the best way to go over the weapons is to go through this book. OSS stands for Office of Strategic Services, which kind of clouds what they do. So what do they really do? Oh, I work for Strategic Services, as opposed to after World War II they morphed into the CIA. Everybody knows what the CIA does. Depending on what country you're from you might view them very positive or very negatively. But we know what the CIA does; not too many people knew what the OSS did. And they kept it that way, they kept it very secretive and many of their missions are still secret. You hear stories from time to time, but they're not well publicized.
First up, the liberator
So let's go through the book. And the first one that they cover is the liberator. Now, this is one I already knew about and probably the most well-known of the OSS operations.
Check out our earlier video on the liberator
Here's a picture of the liberator. And actually we did a video if you go to the link, you can see. I did a whole video on the Liberator and Ed our collector brought one over for us. So here it is.
Check out the Instructions
And again, you can see from the picture that it did come in a box, with instructions. The instructions are all like a cartoon character where you can just watch the instructions. And the important part of that you can see here that there is a watermark inlay within the instructions. That's important if you're buying one because these can be a lot of money. Certainly between $4000 - $6,000 if it comes with the entire kit.
Not fakes but replicas
And they do fake them, no they don't fake them. They make reproductions and people confuse them and get disappointed if you buy them in an auction, and it turns out to be a replica then it is fake. But the people who made the replicas were not trying to fool anybody. And one of the things you want to look for is the watermark.
Not fakes replacement parts
Now the guns, they do have replacement parts. This one looks all original because you can see the patina. Now, this is sheet metal that was formed. And you can see the welds here as they put it together.
Shooting the liberator stings
We actually in our original video we have a video of Ian shooting one and it stings. When you pull the trigger, I've done the same thing, it does sting sometimes and I just love that. Well here it is. Just love that.
Operating the Liberator
And the operation is simple. Again, this is .45 caliber, you keep extra rounds under here. So you have extra rounds under here, but it's one shot, the operation is you just pull out the lever, lift this up, put one bullet in, close it down and pull the trigger. And that's where it can sting because it pinches sometimes, but it was just made very quickly and as cheaply as possible. So the miracle of the Liberator is that this operation worked.
The miracle of the operation
They didn't distribute a million, but they made a million and the miracle of this operation was about 200 women working for General Motors, it was actually their guide lamp division that made headlights and things like that. So 200 women made 1 million of these in a period of about two to three months. The order came out in May of '42. And they started production in June of '42 and had them all finished by August of 1942. About half of them went to the European Theater through London, and half of them went to the Asian theater, mostly distributed through the OSS Secret Operations dropped behind enemy lines. I did read in this book, that the original idea for this actually came from the Polish resistance, which contacted the allies and said, we need some small arms that we can distribute to our guys.
Why did they need the liberator?
Now the purpose of this, if you haven't heard it before, is you walk up to a lone sentry. He's carrying an MP40 and he says, where're your papers? You reach into your back pocket and you shoot him in the head. You'd shoot this once, maybe you keep it maybe you don't. But the point is, it's one shot to get and then to capture an enemy weapon. I'm not sure how many times during the war actually happened.
John Bruner and the Flare Pistol
The author, here's a picture of the author, that is John Bruner, he was actually in the OSS. And the field of operation was China. And this is a picture of one of the Chinese resistance fighters he took a picture of and you can see it's called the FP45, that's the model number. FP stands for flare pistol and that's because they wanted to disguise its real purpose as a real pistol. So they called it a flare pistol so that people wouldn't figure out what they were doing. But they were used by resistance fighters against the Japanese as well as the Germans.
Moving right along
Let's flip a couple pages here and I'm just going to tell you about what they have next because I don't have one here but I have seen these before, and this is called the Stinger.
The Stinger
Now the Stinger was about the size of a pen, and I guess you would carry it in your suit jacket or pocket. It's a concealed weapon. This is only a .22 caliber. And you can see the device, actually, there's one here that's taken apart. Again, very cheaply made. They made about 40,000 of these, and about 32,000 of them were distributed to the OSS. So the purpose of this is a one-shot .22 caliber. It's to be a concealed weapon, and it's a last-ditch kind of weapon. Here you can see a color picture of them. They came in in a box and again, you see the instructions on how to use it. So you can see how simply it was used. And again, I don't have one of these but I thought I'd show it to you, it is called the stinger.
Up next! A Silenced .22 caliber
Next again, turn a couple of pages and we find a silenced .22 caliber. This again, I don't have but I thought I'd just show you very quickly that high standard didn't make one for the US government and the OSS got them in a silenced version. When I saw this it reminded me of the Welrod.
The Woodsman and the Welrod
Here's a picture of the Woodsman right next to the Welrod. Now the Welrod was a 9mm British weapon where the silencer was built into the gun, in other words with Woodsman it was threaded, and you would screw on the silencer. But on the Welrod, it was all one piece. And the story that I heard with this is agents in occupied territories, everybody, not everybody, a lot of people rode bikes. And this looks a little bit like a bicycle pump. And what I was told was they had special bikes were this was built into the body of the bike so that it looked like a bicycle pump or part of the bike and they would ride around with a silencer. That may be folklore. But I did read that story about the British intelligence services.
The pancake flipping knife
Okay, I just flip a couple more pages and we'll come across something that I actually do have in hand and that is this knife. I call it the pancake flipping knife for obvious reason. Not sure the purpose of that fanned [inaudible 09:59] but you can see this is an OSS made stiletto. There's a picture of what the original looks like. Sometimes this is referred to as the Fairbairn and Sykes Knife because it was designed by the two of them. They actually taught the OSS and other intelligence services, and different raiders and Special Forces, they taught them the use of the stiletto in a knife fight. So basically, they taught knife fighting. The story is told that Fairbairn was actually stationed in China. And he learned a lot of these knife fighting techniques in China, came back to the United States, designed this knife with Sykes and trained the troops on knife fighting.
Here's one
Now I do have one here. Okay, you can see here from the book, this one is in near perfect condition. And this is the original size. Now that fits on your belt, and there's I guess, a higher loop and a lower loop. I don't know why it has to be so big. But in this case, the person who was issued this one decided I don't need this second set. So they trimmed it to make it even smaller and lighter. And again, the whole key here is they wanted a concealed weapon. And so that's why I'm sure this was done. This one has seen some age, a little bit of pitting. So they put it away with moisture probably, in the scabbard, that's leather which would hold moisture. So it got moist. And it is a well-balanced knife, that they would practice knife fighting, and it would go on your belt. So these are again, they do make replicas because these can be very expensive, especially the pancake flipper part. They do make replicas. So if you buy one just buyer beware, make sure you talk to somebody who knows what they're buying before you invest in something like this.
Thanks ED
Thanks a lot Ed for introducing me to this because the more I look at this stuff, the more I think I just have to get some of this OSS stuff. Very cool to collect some of these relics from World War II.
It's like Q, from James Bond
I turned a couple more pages and there are pictures here of silenced machine guns, they actually had a silenced MI Carbine but I'm told they were never really put into production. But they did. Again, they were trying out new weapons and different guns and weapons like this, which I'm going to do next. It's a lot like Q though in James Bond if you know Q and he actually had much cooler stuff because a lot of that was fantasy. But you know from his car to his watch that sets off an explosion. His watch can blow up 10 city blocks, but in real life, they would just experiment with ideas and then try them out at Aberdeen Proving Grounds or other places but the silenced machine gun beyond the scope of what we're going to do. I'm going to talk about this next.
What's a Spring Kosh?
This is a Spring Kosh. Now Spring Kosh sounds like a meal that you would eat, you know Kashi with a little spring roll. But it's not a Spring Kosh looks like this. And the first time we got one of these in, we did have somebody send us one of these and I didn't know what it was. It took me a while to figure it out. But I just assumed it was something that the Nazis used on their prisoners or maybe in some of the work camps. And in fact, the Spring Kosh was invented by the Germans back in the 30s. And it was used by the Nazis in the camps and for prisoners, obviously, for torture.
A concealed weapon for the OSS
In the case of the OSS, they took the design and they decided it makes a good concealed weapon. Obviously, you could carry around a metal pole and hit people with it, but because of the way this folds up, you could carry it in your pocket. And it really is used in hand to hand. When I can't have a gun because I'm going to be searched. Well actually, they would take this if they were searched too, so I'm not sure what the advantage is but here's what I've read.
How did the Spring Kosh make sense?
This spring Kosh was for self-defense, hand-to-hand combat. The advantage over a knife, if you have a knife, this actually extends a lot longer than the knife. And so it gives you the leverage of being able to hit somebody from further away. And the string action by the way, it causes a whipping effect. Which the velocity, if you just hit somebody this hard, that's the full velocity. But with the whipping action, it actually speeds it up. I don't know how much, I'll say three times more but I just made that up. It gives you more leverage with the spring action. And so in a knife fight it's the element of surprise. The person has no idea. You pull this out and they go you brought that to a knife fight? Yeah, sucker! And I would also think that if you hit somebody across the face or the head it would probably knock them out. Yeah, it definitely hurts. And that is metal, but easy to hold, easy to engage.
It's a great self-defense weapon
Now, I'm thinking about giving this to my wife when she's walking the streets of the city. I think this is a great self-defense weapon. Sucka!
Finally! My favorite
Alright, now you're in for a real surprise because we're going to turn a couple of pages. And we come to my favorite, The Beano. I never heard of the Beano. Have you ever heard of the Beano? This is a Beano.
The Beano
That's right. It's actually a hand grenade. I'm just going to take off my gloves here, make it easier. This is a hand grenade. And so the explosive charges inside, it does have a pin, I'm not pulling it out because it's in really tight. And this is Bakelite. This rim is bakelite, which means it easily breaks, it's not made of metal. It also says fuse T-5, I want to explain that a little bit. Because there are at least five, I think it's five or six variations of fuses. Because here's the bottom line, these didn't work very well.
They didn't work so well
These killed more American testers than it did the enemy. Because it's an impact grenade. So you when you pull this, it's on a spring. And when this lands, or what's supposed to happen, you throw it and I'll say more about that, you throw it and when it impacts it blows up. So unlike the typical grenade, where you have a delay, this explodes on impact. So sometimes when they were practicing and dropped it, it actually blew up and killed some of the people who were testing. And so several people, a good number of people were injured and some were killed.
Hence, numerous variations
And so they kept taking it back and working on trying to get it to work. They did an issue about 3000 of these. They were not used very much. They said in the cold, the fuses would freeze and not go off. Also, if you threw it into the snow, it would not go off. Sometimes if you threw it into a tree, or the mud it would not go off. But if you're practicing, and you dropped it, it would go off. So, therefore, it was not a real success. But I never heard of a Beano.
Here's the story behind the Beano
Now the story in here when they sold the idea of this, they said what red-blooded American doesn't know how to throw a baseball. So this one is the exact dimensions of an American baseball. I don't know if there's any other kind of baseball. So I'll say a baseball, whether it's American or not, is the same size as a baseball. We know the Japanese love baseball as well. And it is close to the weight of a baseball. Now right now it's it feels a little light because we hope the explosive charge has been removed. So this is a little bit lighter, but this would be my fastball. And then I spit on it, and it becomes a spitball. But basically, it feels exactly like a baseball. So any American knows how to throw a baseball and that's why they designed this. It was not a big success. They made about 3000, I've never seen one before. Very cool.
Let me be very careful
Before I run away. I mentioned this is bakelight, I don't want to pull this in. And believe me, I tried but it's not mine and Ed would be upset with me. But you can unscrew it. And you can see where the device here. And then the charge which it started out as TNT and then they use something else. I don't remember what it was, but it's something a little more explosive. But that would be the powder and the fuse. There's your little rubber gasket. And this again was designed to explode on impact and not when you're holding it in your hand demonstrating it to the trainees.
Have I been selling OSS Guns for US Army?
Okay, now for some standard guns that went to the OSS. So most of these guns you've seen before, especially if you watch my channel or you're a collector. You've seen these guns, but maybe you didn't realize that there were special orders of these guns that went to the OSS. So part of this education for me, I may have been holding OSS guns in the past and sold them as US Army, when in fact due to the serial range and I'm going to show you one right now, here is a 1911 A1 Ithaca that went to the OSS.
Let's check out this Ithaca
So you can see this is made by Ithaca, Ithaca, New York. Of course, you can see the initials of the inspector and the P-mark, that's all standard. You can see it's parkerized, this has the correct grips, it has the correct magazine. Now this gun from serial number was made in late 1943 but was issued to the OSS in 1944. You can see here the serial number is 1238 followed by three more numbers. So 1,000,238 and if you go to Clawson or Meadows they're the Bible for 1911 collectors, 1911 A1s.
Pay attention to the Serial Numbers
Clawson and Meadows, these are two different books and you do need to be a super sleuth to figure this out. But you can see that in that serial range 120 - 124, 5000 of them, in January 11th, 1944 they were sent to the OSS in the Fowler building. You'll see that again in other documents. But in Rosalyn, Virginia was the OSS headquarters. So these were ordered for the OSS.
Super Sleuth
Now, there's a lot more than 5000, so which 5000 wins. And that's where you have to be a super sleuth, it's hard to know. But anytime you see one in the serial range, you need to dig a little deeper. And you can see here, I don't want to get too far into the weeds. If you read up on this a little bit more and dig into it, you see 71,000 Ithaca's went to the military, but the first 5000 in 1944 went to the OSS. So from 123, 5000, all the way through 124 went to the OSS. Actually my math is a little bit off, but you get the idea. So this one we have to conclude was one of the 5000 that went to the OSS.
How else can we verify this information?
Now the other way to verify this information -- Oh, and by the way, Ithaca does not offer factory letters, but Colt does. And this is a Colt Commando. You see the serial number, it comes in .38 caliber. Colt Commando went to the Office of Strategic Services, OSS, in the Fowler building. In this case, they got a thousand of these Colt Commandos. This is in minty condition, just hardly anywhere at all. So maybe it sat in an office, you see the grips are a little bit different. I think they're kind of cool. The color on the grip is a little different, but and a thousand, and the serial number by the way is right here, and right here. And the serial number is verified here. So again, with the Colt, you can get a Colt letter; with Ithaca, I don't know of a way to get an Ithaca letter. I don't believe they offer that service.
Colt Commando
But this Colt Commando, you see here Colt Commando in .38 caliber, this is a parkerized finish. It went to the OSS. This one looks like just a standard commercial gun. Probably because it is, it's a Colt Detective again .38. Snub nose, so it's better for concealment if you're putting it in your jacket pocket or if you have your Legacy shirt on, you can put it inside a holster inside your Legacy shirt. But you can see the serial number again here and here, it matches the serial number on this letter. And this was issued in 1944. I didn't do the date on the other one. The other one was October of '43, this one is June of '44. So all the way up to the end of the war, the OSS and by the way, they're very active in China to train volunteers and insurgency within China against the Japanese. So this is a Colt Detective. It's a commercial grade gun, you see the high polish finish, you see the Colt stallion, everything about this says its a commercial gun. However, it was diverted to the OSS, probably for an agent because it's the right size for the inside of the pocket shoulder holster.
The Colt Super
Okay, I have another gun I want to show you that went to the OSS. Now this one you do have to be a secret agent to figure out that it went to the OSS. But the book on OSS guns does say that the Colt Super, this is a super .38 caliber, the Colt Super about 300, maybe 375 went to the OSS and this would be one of those guns, because we do have a factory letter.
Do I always say that?
Now I humor myself from time to time and you guys give me feedback. You know, when I did this Singer, I said this is the rarest of all 1911. Some of you wisely corrected me the rarest of the 1911 A1. And then of course I did the North American Arms gun and I said this is the rarest of the 1911. And people say you always say that, well this is the rarest of all the military issued Colts. It's really not. But I always like to say it's the rarest. It's kind of like when I was growing up for my birthday, my mom always made me my favorite pie. And she'd say, what's your favorite pie? And I would say the one in front of me. Basically, meaning whatever you make, I'll eat. So this is the rarest of all the military Colts.
Detective Work on the Military Colts
Let's take a closer look. Okay, let's start off with the factory letter. You can see that it's a Cold Super .38 automatic and this is late war. Actually the war in Europe is over, July of '45 but we're still at war with Japan. And here's the detective work, it went to the Fowler building and that building housed the OSS and also Naval Intelligence. So we know that it went there and again that is recorded in the book. You see it's listed by serial number and also the number of guns that went to the OSS on this particular day. I have no idea why they ordered .38 caliber, because obviously the military had 45 all over the place. And why did they want a lower caliber? Certainly there were plenty of 1911s available. We've already talked about 1903s and 1908s, model 1903 and model 1908s going to the OSS.
It is not for sale
Why they ordered this, I honestly don't know but this is an incredible finish on this gun. Again, it was issued to an office building and probably just went to a desk and never used. The bore is mirror bore, so hardly ever used. Look at the front strap. You can see that the magazine is marked Colt Super. And it does have the two tone which is typical of the war. Actually that's typical of the World War I era. But this has the two tone magazine. And what makes this really unusual it is military inspected so GHD which was Guy H Drewry, that was his inspection mark and then also the cross canon cartouche which is very clearly marked. It's such a beautiful gun, and extremely rare and therefore extremely valuable. Now I do not own this and we are not selling it a friend of mine. Let me borrow it. And this by serial number does indicate it went to the Fowler building, which was the office for the OSS.
Some guns went to the Naval Intelligence
Okay, not every gun that went to intelligence units went to the OSS. So of course there was Army intelligence, and also Navy intelligence. This gun in particular we got from the family of James Walter Hamilton. And this gun, they said was issued to him at Naval Intelligence, the Office of Naval Intelligence. Now, interestingly, and by the way, here's a picture of him and a letter that the family shared with us. But this is a 1911 Colt from World War II.
World War II 1911 Colt
Well, let's take a closer look at it. You can see the parkerised finished. That's obviously holster wear, the bore is very good, which I would expect because a naval intelligence officer probably did not shoot it a whole lot. But there is a wear pattern from keeping it in the holster. You see it is from about 1943. You see the GHD marking, you'll see if you pull this back and move the -- I have a verdigris in my thumb. I was cleaning this out and look at that, I got a green thumb. I guess I go plant my garden. If we remove this firing pin retainer, you'll see the number on the slide matches the gun. And that was '42 and early '43. You see the serial number here and you will find it on the slide here. It has the proper Colt barrel, everything about it is proper. These are the proper grips with a World War II L - Littleton, L marked magazine. And then I mentioned the vertigris. That is from being in the holster, the button on the other side of a brass button, will get the verdigris on it and it gets in the checkering and I can remove that. But what I really need to do is get a toothbrush and clean it out. But that just kind of authenticates the age of the pistol.
Any Beano's for Sale
So a very cool group of weapons. I just really enjoyed that; I learned a lot just preparing for this. I hope you learned something as well. And thank you for Dr. Bruner for his service to our country but also for writing this and he is a collector of OSS weapons. And I'm about to do the same. I'm going to see if I can get my hands on some of these. I got to get a Beano. If you have one contact me I'd love to love to buy it.
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