this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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Tinfoil is good for more than just making hats... (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by trollercoaster@sh.itjust.works to c/historymemes@piefed.social
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In order to deceive Nazi Germany about the real target of the D-Day invasion, the Allies dropped literally tons of aluminium foil strips (then codenamed "Window", now known as Chaff) from aircraft to create the appearance of a large fleet moving across the English Channel towards Calais on German Radar screens just before the actual invasion started

Thanks to Bletchley Park reading German ciphers, Allied high command could watch the Germans fall for the deception almost in real time.

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[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 33 points 2 months ago (2 children)

My favourite is when the germans made a fake airport/landing strip thingy to make the english spend resources bombing it, and the english bombed it with a single fake wood bomb!

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

The only thing missing was a flag that popped out that said “BOOM!”

[–] trollercoaster@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago

The wooden fake bomb allegedly had an inscription saying something like "fake bombs for fake airfields".

[–] whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)
[–] jqubed@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

It seems to be a “maybe” with anecdotes from soldiers on both sides but little documentation

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago

Excellent 👍🏼!