Dummy bombs on dummy airfields

Ascent · Sep 28, 2017

I saw something the other day that seemed quite interesting.

It said that the Germans built a dummy airfield as a diversionary target with wooden planes and the like. However the British had intelligence that it was a dummy so when it was completed they sent a plane over that dropped a wooden bomb.

Now it acknowledged that it might just be a story and not true so I thought I'd ask the members here if they have any idea of the truth of it.

KiwiBiggles · Sep 28, 2017

Ascent said:
I saw something the other day that seemed quite interesting.

It said that the Germans built a dummy airfield as a diversionary target with wooden planes and the like. However the British had intelligence that it was a dummy so when it was completed they sent a plane over that dropped a wooden bomb.

Now it acknowledged that it might just be a story and not true so I thought I'd ask the members here if they have any idea of the truth of it.

Seems unlikely. If you've seen through an opponent's deception, then you're best to pretend that you haven't, and let your opponent proceed on the assumption that you've taken his bait.

The British were pretty on-to-it with deception, and usually had very good processes for controlling this kind of thing, so unless someone has specific information about such an incident, I myself would write it off as a myth.

buffnut453 · Sep 28, 2017

It's probably a myth. The earliest recorded telling of this story comes fro CBS news correspondent William L. Shirer's book, Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941, in which he recorded the following entry for 27 November 1940:

X tells me a funny one. He says the British intelligence in Holland is working fine. Both sides in this war have built a number of dummy airdromes and strewn them with wooden planes. X says the Germans recently completed a very large one near Amsterdam. They lined up more than a hundred dummy planes made of wood on the field and waited for the British to come over and bomb them. Next morning the British did come. They let loose with a lot of bombs. The bombs were made of wood.

It's a great story but probably no more than that...a story.

davebender · Sep 28, 2017

German air defenses included a multitude of decoy installations and they were bombed on a regular basis. However I would not place stock in stories about RAF bombers carrying wooden bombs. Heavy bomber sorties are far too expensive to waste on such silly efforts.

pbehn · Sep 28, 2017

I found this
Myth Or Real? Germany Built Wooden Airfields to Fool the Allies, So They Bombed It With Wooden Bombs - Page 2 of 2

Dummy bombs on dummy airfields

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