Humor in WWII

I could have just linked to this article, but I find it too funny for that. Therefore, here’s a complete quote from an article in The Economist about ‘Priceless pranks’:

The finest prank in history was perpetrated towards the end of the second world war, against a background of gloom and horror that made it all the more brilliant. German and allied airforces were launching bombing raids on each other’s factories with ferocious regularity. The Germans hatched a plan to deceive allied intelligence by building mock wooden factories painted in industrial colours, the hope being that the enemy would waste much of its precious ordinance on them. Soon enough the British figured out what the other side was up to, and sent a lone Avro Lancaster to an industrial area near Duisburg. The plane’s mission: to drop a wooden bomb on one of the fake factories.

Imagine the looks on the faces of the German army officials, staring at a harmless “bomb” made from wood, and looking up at the sky, where a crew had earlier put their lives in jeopardy for the sake of a jape. Even they must have been touched by the humour of it.

Go read the entire piece because there are some other good pranks in there.

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Published:
01.03.06 / 7pm
Category:
20th Century, World War 2