Wooden bomb on dummy airfield redux
Simon Slavin
types of deception used by the British in WWII, featured the
UL about dropping a wooden bomb on a dummy airfield.
In this version, the dummy airfield was in England which makes
the whole thing rather strange.
Simon.
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Gerald Clough
> The programme _Fooling Hitler_, a dramatised account of the
> types of deception used by the British in WWII, featured the
> UL about dropping a wooden bomb on a dummy airfield.
>
> In this version, the dummy airfield was in England which makes
> the whole thing rather strange.
>
> Simon.
Mention here: http://www.homeofheroes.com/wings/part2/09_ploesti.html
of praciticing with wooden bombs on a dummy of the target, but not in
England.
The most outrageous version of the UL has "hundreds of tons of wooden
bombs" dropped on a German-built fake French village.
Gerald 'wooden't you?' Clough
Nick Spalding
> The programme _Fooling Hitler_, a dramatised account of the
> types of deception used by the British in WWII, featured the
> UL about dropping a wooden bomb on a dummy airfield.
>
> In this version, the dummy airfield was in England which makes
> the whole thing rather strange.
The version of the wooden bomb story I heard many years ago had the added
refinement that the bomb was dropped from a De Haviland Mosquito which was
itself built of wood.
--
Nick Spalding
Joe Boswell
<spal...@iol.ie> writes
>The version of the wooden bomb story I heard many years ago had the
>added refinement that the bomb was dropped from a De Haviland Mosquito
>which was itself built of wood.
I remember. It had wooden wings and a wooden fuselage and wooden
engines, but it wooden fly.
--
Joe * If I cannot be free I'll be cheap
Lee Ayrton
> The programme _Fooling Hitler_, a dramatised account of the
> types of deception used by the British in WWII, featured the
> UL about dropping a wooden bomb on a dummy airfield.
>
> In this version, the dummy airfield was in England which makes
> the whole thing rather strange.
That is the usual way I've heard the story: Decoy field in England, German
airplane drops dummy bomb on it in a "Nyah nyah!" move. Someone else here
recently cited _The Secret War_ which is where I thought I was first
exposed to the tale, but a later excursion through the tome yielded
nothing of the sort.
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Paul Nutteing
in message news:clhc2v$q99$5$830f...@news.demon.co.uk...
> The programme _Fooling Hitler_, a dramatised account of the
> types of deception used by the British in WWII, featured the
> UL about dropping a wooden bomb on a dummy airfield.
>
Poor old General Patton being forced to
command the phantom rubber and canvas army.
What they aren't telling you about DNA profiles
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Thomas W Ping
> On Sun, 24 Oct 2004, Simon Slavin wrote:
>
>> The programme _Fooling Hitler_, a dramatised account of the types of
>> deception used by the British in WWII, featured the UL about dropping a
>> wooden bomb on a dummy airfield.
>>
>> In this version, the dummy airfield was in England which makes the whole
>> thing rather strange.
>
> That is the usual way I've heard the story: Decoy field in England, German
> airplane drops dummy bomb on it in a "Nyah nyah!" move. Someone else here
> recently cited _The Secret War_ which is where I thought I was first
> exposed to the tale, but a later excursion through the tome yielded
> nothing of the sort.
The opposite - a German decoy and a British plane dropping one wooden bomb
- is attributed in various online retellings to both:
"Masquerade: The Amazing Camouflage Deceptions of
World War II",Seymour Reit; Signet, 1980.
and
"Deception in War: The Art of the Bluff, the Value of Deceit, and the
Most Thrilling Episodes of Cunning in Military History, from the Trojan
Horse to the Gulf War", by John Latimer, Overlook Press,2003.
I have neither of those resources. I *think* I remember it being
recounted in:
"To Fool a Glass Eye: Camouflage Versus Photoreconnaissance in World War
II", Roy M. Stanley; Smithsonian Books, 1998)
That's a wonderfully illustrated volume, and I highly recommend it, but I
don't have a copy in my possession at this time, for checking.
--
Thomas Winston Ping
Ben Zimmer
>
> On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 09:47:19 -0400, Lee Ayrton wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 24 Oct 2004, Simon Slavin wrote:
> >
> >> The programme _Fooling Hitler_, a dramatised account of the types of
> >> deception used by the British in WWII, featured the UL about dropping a
> >> wooden bomb on a dummy airfield.
> >>
> >> In this version, the dummy airfield was in England which makes the whole
> >> thing rather strange.
> >
> > That is the usual way I've heard the story: Decoy field in England, German
> > airplane drops dummy bomb on it in a "Nyah nyah!" move. Someone else here
> > recently cited _The Secret War_ which is where I thought I was first
> > exposed to the tale, but a later excursion through the tome yielded
> > nothing of the sort.
>
> The opposite - a German decoy and a British plane dropping one wooden bomb
> - is attributed in various online retellings to both:
>
> "Masquerade: The Amazing Camouflage Deceptions of
> World War II",Seymour Reit; Signet, 1980.
Reit's version is on Snopes: <http://snopes.com/military/woodbomb.htm>.
Note that he gives the location as Holland -- two early accounts (from
1940 and 1941) discussed here last year are also set in Holland:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3FD4F406...@midway.uchicago.edu
> and
>
> "Deception in War: The Art of the Bluff, the Value of Deceit, and the
> Most Thrilling Episodes of Cunning in Military History, from the Trojan
> Horse to the Gulf War", by John Latimer, Overlook Press,2003.
Latimer's book is searchable on Amazon. Here's the relevant passage:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1585673811/?v=search-inside&keywords=wooden-bomb
When the fortunes of war had reversed the situation and
the Allies were carrying the air war to the continent,
the Germans themselves made extensive use of decoys to
protect airfields and other targets. One example in the
Netherlands was constructed with particular care, made
almost entirely of wood and including hangars, gun
positions, aircraft and vehicles. However, it took so
long to build that Allied photo interpreters had plenty
of time to observe it. The day after it was finished, a
solitary RAF plane flew over and circled the field once
before dropping a large wooden bomb.
In a footnote, Latimer cites the same source that Reit relies on:
M. E. DeLonge, Modern Airfield Planning and Concealment,
New York, Pitman, 1943, p.135.
DeLonge's account was quoted in an AFU thread back in '96:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=gabrielr-070...@ts38-15.wla.ts.ucla.edu
However, the British have apparently tricked the Germans
as well. It is reported that in Holland the Germans spent
many weeks carefully building a dummy airdrome. Finally
it was completed and the very next day the British dropped
a lone bomb on the field. The Germans must have been
surprised when they found the bomb was wooden.
Reit and Latimer clearly embellished on DeLonge's story, and they
conveniently ignored the weasel words "apparently" and "reported".
Ben "Delonge lost art of vectorage" Zimmer
Monte Davis
>Someone else here
>recently cited _The Secret War_ which is where I thought I was first
>exposed to the tale, but a later excursion through the tome yielded
>nothing of the sort.
I have some books like that, too.
-Monte "site of the cite" Davis