http://www.psywar.org/braddock.php SOE started work on what was initially called the Moon Project and later rechristened Operation Braddock. Two schemes were developed by SOE. Braddock I consisted of parachuting 50,000 attack packs behind enemy lines to potential resistance fighters in coordination with the invasion of Europe. The attack packs contained specially designed grenades, pocket incendiaries, and a small, one-shot, personal firearm that SOE called the Liberator pistol. Eventually Braddock I was abandoned. The plan for Braddock II was to scatter around three million incendiary packages over Germany and Italy to be used by foreign workers and anti-Nazis for sabotage purposes. SOE reasoned if only one percent were used by saboteur arsonists, it would result in 30,000 fires across Germany. It took until November 1943 to manufacture three million incendiaries or Braddocks as they were now named. The first release of Braddocks happened during 25 September with the United States Air Force dropping 200,000 of them over the Frankfurt and Mainz region. The last bomb of Braddocks was dropped over the town of Furth on 5 April. The remaining stocks of Braddock were ordered destroyed on 3 May with the comment: They would make a good VE bonfire. R.I.P.
I remember reading somewhere that Liberators were dropped to groups of the French Resistance in the Normandy area before the invasion.
Named after an ill fated British general who was whipped in Colonial America? George Washington was present.
