I assume they knew because of the enigma cracking?
If that was the only way they knew they wouldn’t have done it. The Germans not knowing the enigma was cracked was a lot more important than a silly prank.
That is very Monty Pythonesque. British humor is something special
I’ve read about it and iirc, it’s wasn’t even official mission. It was just pilots goofing off and dropping a training bomb, without command approval.
Where did you read about it?
They had training missions into enemy territory with fake ordinance?
Anyone have an actual citation on this particular fact?
Unfortunately, unlikely, per Snopes: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wooden-bomb/
This is one of those things where I truly don’t care if it’s real or not, as my life is better for knowing about it either way.
The Germans were utterly fucked when it came to gathering intelligence because threatening captives doesn’t work. Allies put captured generals in a luxury prison and bugged them.
That was true of Nazi interrogators with the exception of Hanns Scharff. He’s famously known in military intelligence for his use of kindness to extract information from unknowing participants.
It’s almost like Nazis were naturally unkind people.
Yeah. It’s in the name
Nazi is short for national socialist. That wouldn’t per se suggest unkindness by name alone. The appearance is deceptive, of course.
No, it was a joke. Like the “are we the baddies?” meme
It is worth pointing out that the national socialist party existed before Hitler. As Hitler gained power he forced out the true socialist. By the time he was in power there was no more real socialism in the party.
Ah yes of course, how could one possibly assume unkindness of someone just because they’re a Nazi. It’s just short for two common words, surely we can’t assume genocidal intent or otherwise fairly criticize anyone for something so trivial
Even regular pows had it pretty good, lots were out to work on farms in the Midwest then stayed and hung their shingle.
“But ve worked very hard to trick you :(”
