A hilarious story from World War II's Battle of Britain:

[Aristus]

It’s well known that one of the reasons for the Royal Air Force’s victory over Germany’s Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain was the exceptional courage and skill of its pilots. Lesser known, but just as important, was England’s mastery and use of radar to direct the air battles. It was a rare case of Britain besting the more technologically-advanced Germans in the race for war-winning tech.

English ground controllers (radar was still too heavy and bulky to be installed aboard fighter aircraft) used radar to detect incoming German fighters and bombers, and then direct their own interceptors to the Luftwaffe squadrons without the need for wasteful patrols. This saved the British time, fuel, wear and tear on their aircraft, and most importantly, the lives of their dwindling ranks of pilots.

One intrepid German-speaking English radar controller happened upon the frequency the German controllers were using to communicate with their own flyers. He used his radar-accessed knowledge of their locations to misdirect them, using German-language commands, far out of their way to useless or unimportant targets. This wasted huge amounts of fuel, and the Germans would have to break off the engagement and head back to base to refuel, leaving their intended targets safe and unharmed. This caused a great deal of confusion and frustration among the German ground controllers.

One of them eventually caught on that there was an imposter on the radio waves, tricking the Germans into engaging the wrong targets. He tried to warn his pilots not to listen to the Englishman, and instead take orders only from him. The Englishman retaliated by insisting that he was the German controller, and not to listen to the ‘Englishman’. This battle of wits went back and forth until, in the heat of battle, the German became so exasperated that his pilots were wasting fuel and hitting no British targets, that he swore, loudly and profanely into the open microphone.

The English controller, who must have been some kind of goofy improvisational genius, called out: “The Englishman is now swearing!” The German, nearly weeping with frustration, wailed: “It is not the Englishman who is swearing; it is ME!”

[ProudLib72]

1. Sehr gut! I...I...I mean very good.

Where did you learn about this story? Do you have a link?

[Aristus]

2. No. It's in the Battle of Britain volume of my Time-Life Library on WWII.

n/t

[Sherman A1]

3. Here is another one that I found fascinating

Operation Outward: Military Success For Very Little Outlay

In the dark days of September 1940, Britain and the Commonwealth stood alone. The Nazis occupied most of Europe, the Japanese were on the offensive and had the upper hand in the Far East and even Egypt and the Middle East weren’t safe. Fear of invasion from Italian forces in North Africa had stretched the British Army to breaking point. The fiasco that was the rout at Dunkirk had had a positive spin put on it by politicians and was made to be seen as a victory. In reality, it was a defeat — most of the modern tanks, vehicles and heavy weapons that had gone to France with the BEF had been left behind. Prime Minister Winston Churchill called for action but what action could the country take when so thoroughly on the back foot? Then on the night 17/18 September 1940, Britain conducted a stealth raid into occupied Europe. A raid so stealthy, they didn’t know they had done it!

Strong winds had broken loose a number of barrage balloons from their moorings. These balloons drifted across the North Sea and (crash) landed in Denmark and Sweden. The sturdy steel cables trailing from the balloons caused damage to power lines, careered into railway traffic and collided with the antenna of the Swedish International radio station, causing it to go offline for a while. Five balloons (but maybe more) were reported to have drifted as far as Finland.

How many balloons had ‘escaped’ was never reported but upon hearing the news of the damage and confusion they caused, Churchill was jubilant. He reasoned that if such a low cost ‘weapon’ could do this, then a further, more detailed study should be taken with a view to doing something along the same lines…but deliberately.

In fact the matter had already been investigated a few years earlier. The British Air Ministry had begun producing barrage balloons as far back as 1936. Forward thinkers had seen the war clouds gathering so in 1937 the Air Ministry conducted a study to determine how much damage a balloon could cause if it broke free from its mooring and its steel cable was dragged across the countryside. The study showed that, if the steel cable were to short out power lines, electricity supplies would be out for at least six hours. This study had been undertaken as a Civil Defence measure — to determine how long people and industry would be without power in the event of an accidental balloon drift over Britain. The use of barrage balloons as an offensive weapon had not been considered — until Churchill became involved.

https://www.sotcw.co.uk/operation-outward/

[lapucelle]

4. Brilliant trolling...before the concept even existed.

Thanks for sharing.