Designed to be as inexpensive as possible, assembled from mostly stamped sheet-metal parts, the Liberator was a single shot pistol chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge the US military was using for standard handguns and submachine guns. It was so cheap that each one set the US government back only $2.40 in 1942 money. A million were made in less than three months during the darkest days of WWII, to be airdropped to Resistance fighters in enemy occupied territory.

Read about it at Hell in a Handbasket.