June 6th, 1944. Somewhere over Normandy, paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions are about to jump into the darkness. Strapped to their legs is a weapon so ugly soldiers called it a plumber’s nightmare, the cake decorator, and most commonly because of what it looked like, the grease gun.

 It cost $18.50 to make the Thompson submachine gun. It was meant to replace, over $200. The M3 was designed to be disposable, literally thrown away when it broke because spare parts weren’t even being manufactured. Soldiers hated it at first sight. Yet, this stamped metal monstrosity would serve American forces for 50 years, longer than any other submachine gun in US military history.

It fought in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and even the Gulf War in 1991. Special forces still use suppressed versions today. This is the story of the gun nobody wanted that became the gun nobody could replace. By 1941, America had a problem. The Thompson submachine gun was magnificent. Gangsters loved it. GIs loved it.

 It was beautifully machined and deadly. But it cost over $200 per unit in 1939. And even after simplification, still cost $45 by 1944. Worse, each Thompson required 150 man-h hours of skilled labor and precision manufacturing. America was about to fight a two-front war across two oceans. They didn’t have time or money for perfection.

 The Army Ordinance Department looked at what was working elsewhere. The Germans had the MP40, stamped steel, simple, effective. The British, desperate during the Blitz, had created the Sten gun. So crude it looked homemade, but it worked and cost almost nothing. In October 1942, the specifications were clear. Build us a submachine gun from stamp steel.

 Fire 45 ACP ammunition. Keep the rate of fire under 500 rounds per minute and make it cheaper than everything else. Way cheaper. Enter George Hyde, a designer from General Motors inland division, and Frederick Samson, chief engineer at GM’s Guide Lamp Division, a factory that normally made blackout lights for trucks.

 What they created was revolutionary in its simplicity. Two pieces of stamped steel welded together formed the receiver. The barrel, bolt face, and trigger mechanism were the only machined parts. Everything else was pressed, stamped, or welded. The entire weapon had just 23 parts. The final cost, $18.50 per unit. The military brass declared it disposable.

 When it breaks, throw it away and grab another one. Production began in May 1943. The development process from concept to prototype to adoption to production took just 7 months. No other firearm in US military history has ever matched that speed. By war’s end, over 606,000 M3s and 15,000 improved M3A1s had been manufactured.

 The M3 made its combat debut on the biggest stage of World War II, D-Day, June 6th, 1944. Paratroopers jumping into Normandy in the pre-dawn darkness carried them. Unlike the Thompson, the M3 didn’t need to be disassembled before a jump. You could strap it to your leg, leap into the night, hit the ground, and start fighting immediately. At just 22.

8 in with the stock collapsed, it was perfect for cramped aircraft and gliders. But the initial reactions were brutal. Private Don Bergett of the 101st Airborne called it a piece of junk. Many troopers in the 802nd refused to give up their Thompsons, viewing the grease gun as an insult to their elite status. Private D.

 Eberhart of the 42nd Infantry Division who trained on the M3 at Camp Gruber, Oklahoma, said he and his fellow infantrymen held it in mild contempt, considering it a cheap knockoff of the German MP40. Why the hatred? Early models had serious problems. The sidemounted cocking handle, a delicate piece of sheet metal, would snap off if the gun was dropped on its right side.

 While it could survive a left side drop without issue, hit it on the right and the handle broke. Once that happened, you couldn’t the bolt and the weapon became a useless 7-lb paper weight. Field repair depots in France were overwhelmed with broken M3s after D-Day. Ordinance technicians had to improvise, cutting slots into the receivers and fabricating crude replacement handles just to keep the guns functioning.

 Photos from General Patton’s Third Army around the Battle of the Bold Show M3s repaired this way. The National Military History Museum in Luxembourg has five M3s with these field modifications in their collection. The magazine was another nightmare. The single column 30 round magazine was difficult to load and prone to jamming if even a tiny bit of dirt got inside.

Sergeant M. Morris writing for Yank magazine described how one infantry company told him the magazine release on the grease gun is too loose and when slight pressure is exerted on it as the gun is carried slung on the shoulder the magazine will fall out. Consequently, the men take a ball hammer and bend the release slightly so as to make it more secure. Soldiers improvised everywhere.

Some cut M1 rifle operating rod springs into four sections to strengthen the magazine release. Others found creative ways to carry spare magazines without stressing the weak magazine catch. But something interesting started happening as the war continued. Soldiers began to realize something.

 When the M3 worked, it really worked. An Army combat observations report dated February 5th, 1945 from small unit leaders in the 99th Infantry Division stated, “The M3 submachine gun is the best weapon we use for patrolling. It can be put into action quickly and at short ranges is accurate and powerful. The gun weighed just 8 pounds loaded compared to the Thompson’s 13 plus pounds.

 A soldier could carry more ammunition and stay in the fight longer. The rate of fire, 300 to 400 rounds per minute, was half that of the Thompson, which meant better control and longer engagement time before running dry. And there was something else. The M3 was absurdly reliable once the early bugs were fixed. One GI quoted in Warfare History Network summed it up perfectly.

 I hated that gun when they gave it to me. It wasn’t as sharpl looking as my Thompson and looked like a leftover from the parts locker. But when I needed it, that gun never let me down. I didn’t clean it in combat. I just loaded it and drugg it through the mud and it kept shooting. The M3 worked in the burning deserts of North Africa.

It worked in the frozen forest during the Battle of the Bulge. It worked when dropped, when caked in mud, when soaked in rain. Records show the M3 performing better in mud and sand tests than any other American submachine gun ever tested, thanks to its fully enclosed operating system and generous tolerances. Tank crews loved it.

 By late war, Sherman tanks came fitted with up to five M3s for personal protection. Corporal Carlton Chapman of the 761st Tank Battalion, the famous African-American Black Panthers, was photographed on November 5th, 1944, peering through his Sherman’s hatch near Nancy, France, with his M3 visible. Armorer Russell Spooner explained, “An M3 lifted above the hatch opening could spray the countryside with a lot of bullets in a matter of seconds.

 This would discourage a nearby enemy from any attempt to interfere with those who needed to abandon their tank. The M3 even liberated P camps. On April 6th, 1945, when combat command B of the 14th Armored Division reached O flag B prisoner of war camp in Hamburg, Germany, they found the gates locked. Two troops from the 47th medium tank battalion solved that problem quickly.

With their M3 grease guns, they shot the locks off and freed nearly 500 American officers, including some captured during the Battle of the Bulge. But there was another side to the M3’s story, one that remained classified for decades. The Office of Strategic Services, the OSS, predecessor to the CIA, needed a suppressed submachine gun for clandestine operations behind enemy lines.

 The M3’s compact design and use of subsonic 45 ACP ammunition made it perfect for suppression. In late 1942, the OSS contracted with High Standard Company to produce 1,000 suppressed M3s. Guidel division drilled ports in the gun barrels, and technicians at Bell Laboratories designed a special 14.5 in suppressor using wire mesh instead of baffles.

 The perforated barrel extended only through the large diameter section of the suppressor with tightly wrapped wire mesh acting as an expansion chamber to slow propellant gases. The result, the suppressor was so effective that the cycling of the gun’s action made more noise than the actual gunshot. These suppressed M3s were issued to OSS agents and European resistance fighters for assassination missions in German occupied territory.

 One example with excellent providence was provided to a European resistance fighter for a specific mission right at the end of the war. The war ended before it could be used, leaving it in collector grade condition. OSS agents also used 9mm conversion kits that allowed the M3 to fire captured German ammunition. Crucial for operations deep behind enemy lines where resupply was impossible.

 In the Pacific theater, US Marine tankmen carried M3s on Ewaima and Okinawa. Navy vessels kept them in small arms lockers for shore parties. Chinese Army personnel and OSSE gerillas in Burma used them against the Japanese. And the M3’s secret war didn’t end in 1945. The M3 was supposed to be disposable. It was supposed to last just long enough to win the war, then be scrapped.

 Instead, it became one of the longest serving weapons in American military history. In December 1944, the improved M3A1 was adopted. The fragile cocking handle was completely eliminated, replaced by a simple finger hole cut into the bolt. The wire stock was redesigned to function as both a magazine loading tool and a barrel wrench.

 An oiler was built into the pistol grip. The gun could be completely disassembled into a 13-in package for clandestine operations. During the Korean War, Ithaca Gun Company manufactured an additional 33,200 M3A1s to meet increased demand. The Greece gun became the main submachine gun for US and South Korean forces, partly because communist forces were using captured Thompsons donated during World War II.

 In Vietnam, the M3A1 served with regular troops, South Vietnamese forces, helicopter crews, and special operations units. Suppressed M3A1s were carried by Marine Force Recon, Navy Seals, and Army LRPS on secretive operations behind communist lines. Montinear tribal fighters armed by US advisers used them to defend against Vietkong attacks.

 When Delta Force was formed in 1977, the suppressed M301 was their initial submachine gun. Some sources report Delta operators carried them during Operation Eagleclaw, the failed Iran hostage rescue mission in 1980. Though this remains controversial and still the M3 served throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, M3A1s remained standard equipment in American armored vehicles.

 M60 main battle tanks, armored personnel carriers, tank recovery vehicles. Soldiers who served in Desert Storm in 1991, 50 years after the gun’s development, reported tank crews still carrying them. A former tank company commander stated he had two M3A1s in his unit arms room as late as 2001. The M3 wasn’t officially retired from US service until 1992.

 By then, some grease guns were nearly half a century old and still functioning. The M3 grease gun represents one of the great ironies of weapons development. Sometimes cheap and ugly beats expensive and beautiful. It was designed in 7 months by a company that made car headlights. It cost $1850. It looked like something from a hardware store. Soldiers initially despised it.

The military called it disposable. Yet, it outlasted the beloved Thompson, outlasted the M1 Garan, outlasted the M14 rifle. It served in more wars across more decades than almost any other American firearm. The M3 proved that in war, what matters isn’t how a weapon looks or how much it costs. What matters is whether it works when you need it most.

 And for 50 years, through jungles and deserts, frozen forests and sweltering tanks, from Normandy to the Persian Gulf, the ugly little grease gun did exactly that. George Hyde and Frederick Samson, the designers who created America’s cheapest submachine gun, built something that became priceless.