OSS & CIA Special Weapons and Equipment Books

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1. I still have my somewhat dog-eared Military Book Club hardbacks of these two.

   It’s probably not surprising that most of the CIA’s inventory were mainly “product improved” versions of the OSS equivalents.

   The .22 caliber suppressed rifle, for instance, had a fully-integral suppressed barrel rather than a separate suppressor threaded onto the muzzle. Even up close, it looked like a heavy-barrel .22 target rifle rather than a covert “elimination” tool.

   The CIA had a special suppressor-equipped barrel assembly for the Walther P.38 9mm automatic. It replaced the regular barrel, and came with a 50-round box of subsonic (150-grain) 9mm hollow-point ammunition. The instructions pointed out that by changing back to the pistol’s own barrel after “use”, a ballistics (rifling) match would not be possible.

   (Ahem. Pick up your brass, while you’re at it. Us ballistics geeks look at firing pin, extractor, and ejector marks, too, you know.)

   The more esoteric devices, like the Peskett tool (combined cosh, dagger and garrote) disappeared after the war, but then again they were rarely used during it. Nobody wanted to land in occupied France all “dolled up like Alan Ladd” with such obvious “spy gadgets”. They pretty much shouted “Hi, I’m an American agent, shoot me” to the Germans.

   Similarly, as previously discussed here, the FP45 “Liberator” .45 ACP pistol never showed up in Europe. Those went to the Far East.

   The postwar Vietnam era “Deer Gun” 9mm cast aluminum version never even got issued.

   The Smatchet survived, as did the short-bladed version of the Sykes-Fairbairn knife. Both remained highly useful when things go “up close and personal”, not to mention being a lot quieter than even a suppressed pistol.

   One wartime item that never got into either book was the “X-Ration”. It was supposedly a version of the U.S. “Assault Ration” for landing troops in amphibious operations, intended to provide one day’s worth of food to assault infantry until Quartermasters’ got the K-Rations ashore.

   The X-ration was peculiar in that nothing in it was labeled in English, nor did it have any identifying U.S. Army or etc. stamping. Rather, the outer packaging had no markings at all and the inner packed items, from canned meat to cigarettes, were labeled in French, Spanish, Portuguese, or etc.

   Over 350,000 units were obtained by the War Department from December 1943 to August 1944.

   In researching wartime military rations for my own edification (what can I say, I have peculiar interests), I determined that the X-Ration was never intended for U.S. combat troops. Rather, they were supplied to the OSS and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. (!)

   The French-language rations were used by OSS “Jedburgh” teams in occupied France. The Spanish and Portuguese versions were used by FBI field teams in South America during their covert anti-German and etc. operations there.

   In each case, the idea was to supply field units with rations that both obviated the need to acquire food locally, thus risking betrayal, as well as leaving no evidence of American involvement should a “burn, bash, and bury” site be discovered by the local authorities.

   The labeling languages were of course the local patois’ in each case. Since personnel assigned to such areas would of course be fluent in the local languages, this would not be a problem for them.

   An interesting sidelight of real-life “cloak and dagger” ops as opposed to the Hollywood version.

   But when the remainder (about 30% of the total) was sold off to surplus houses after VJ Day, they probably caused a good bit of head-scratching among people who bought cases of them for $5 as camping supplies…

   clear ether

   eon

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