I never knew that!

[Phil Bullock]

So searched for a similar thread, couldn't see anything similar so lets see if this has legs....

 

Post and share if you have learnt something you didn't know. About .....anything interesting! 

 

To start off...

 

Operation Canonbury in April 1942 was a raid by 218 squadron on the Skoda factory in Pilsen as part of Anthropoid - the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by Czech partisans inserted by the Czech government in exile and SOE.

 

Had always assumed that this was largely a political exercise to allow the Czech government in exile to show that it was not dormant... but turns out there was another dimension which added an additional incentive. 

 

Admiral Canaris was Head of Abwehr and ran the German espionage networks - but was largely anti Nazi and a double agent - along with many senior Abwehr figures. Heydrich, head of the SD, the intelligence arm of the Nazi party, was getting close to this, thereby increasing the incentive to eliminate him and preserve intelligence flows from the Abwehr double agents.

 

Canaris was eventually assassinated in 1945.

 

Why the personal interest? Sergeant Philip Bullock 570264 was lost on the night of 25th April in Short Stirling W7506 on Operation Canonbury.

 

Hope others find that of interest and more interesting trivia follows....

 

Phil

 

 

[Gibbo675]

Hi Phil,

 

I didn't know that but I did know that the Skoda factory was the centre of General Hans Kammler's technology research centre known as the Kammlerstab. This would be the reason it would have been targeted and also why the US Third Army of General George Patton headed that way instead of toward Berlin. 

 

The Kammlerstab is reputed to be the origination of an electro-magnetic device known as Die Glocke.

 

Gibbo.

[Phil Bullock]

21 minutes ago, Gibbo675 said:

Hi Phil,

 

I didn't know that but I did know that the Skoda factory was the centre of General Hans Kammler's technology research centre known as the Kammlerstab. This would be the reason it would have been targeted and also why the US Third Army of General George Patton headed that way instead of toward Berlin. 

 

The Kammlerstab is reputed to be the origination of an electro-magnetic device known as Die Glocke.

 

Gibbo.

 

Thanks Gibbo

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Glocke

 

Sounds like a lack of firm evidence has resulted in all sorts of myths as to the capabilities of this project!

 

Phil

[EddieB]

Interesting thread, Phil.

 

It was only recently that I found out about the SOE connection with the assassination of Heydrich.  During a visit to what was then still Czechoslovakia, we were taken to the village of Lidice - flattened as a reprisal by the Nazis, its youths and men executed, women and children taken to concentration camps - we were shown the story in film from a Russian propagandist perspective, which obviously omitted the British involvement.

[Phil Bullock]

1 minute ago, EddieB said:

Interesting thread, Phil.

 

It was only recently that I found out about the SOE connection with the assassination of Heydrich.  During a visit to what was then still Czechoslovakia, we were taken to the village of Lidice - flattened as a reprisal by the Nazis, its youths and men executed, women and children taken to concentration camps - we were shown the story in film from a Russian propagandist perspective, which obviously omitted the British involvement.

 

Yes Lidice was a dreadful crime. How could anyone contemplate the atrocities that were committed? I need to get to Prague some time to visit the museum that commemorates these events....

 

Seems 218 Squadron were considered a top line unit at the time - recently converted to Stirlings, they had a visit from some brass hats not long prior to this mission - we have some Pathe celluloid film strips from that visit that were supplied to my Grandparents following my Uncle's loss as they probably contained the last brief images of him.

 

Phil

 

 

 

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

On Tuesday evening I was trawling for something to watch and settled on a 1975 movie called "Operation Daybreak" - an account of the plot to kill Heydrich that I'd never heard about before.  Sat through about 45 minutes before bedtime.

 

  Then two days later I read this thread.

 

Spooky, yet also slightly sad because now I know how the movie will end. ....(I guess its a bit too much to ask for spoiler alerts on the outcome of WW11 operations.)

 

Edited May 23, 2019 by monkeysarefun

[Fat Controller]

Lidice is still remembered in part of the UK not far from you, Phil.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/stoke/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_9418000/9418670.stm

[Ozexpatriate]

The human capacity to grotesquely mistreat anyone defined as 'other', exacerbated by wartime is truly distressing. The Third Reich is fecund with awful examples. The Empire of Japan has some nasty ones too - I'm thinking in particular of places like Unit 731. These are separate from conflict-related atrocities (like Manilla in 1945) or their treatment of POWs.

 

Western nations are not exempt and there are dark chapters there too, some of which did not even happen during war.

 

Edited May 24, 2019 by Ozexpatriate

[J. S. Bach]

Let us not forget Henry VIII.

[Robert]

7 hours ago, Gibbo675 said:

The Kammlerstab is reputed to be the origination of an electro-magnetic device known as Die Glocke.

 

I did some research on this a few years ago. 

 

To be honest, I am not sure that this thread is the place to discuss it given the stories of the people involved and the loss of life, which would be in danger of being trivialised by "strange stories" - but I will go as far as saying the following. 

 

At the end, I came to the conclusion that "Die Glocke" is probably little more than an urban legend.  Although it must be said that there is some tantalising circumstantial evidence.  I say circumstantial because if you connect a group of possibly unrelated events together you can come up with a great story - but it doesn't mean it is true.  There is also a danger of interpreting the "evidence" to fit the story.

 

Also, Unfortunately, many of the ideas seem to have been propagated by a very small collection of people - some of whom are never far away from, shall we say, right leaning narritives.  The various different narritives don't even agree on the aim of the device and consequently I came to the conclusion that on the balance of probabilities it didn't exist.

[Phil Bullock]

6 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

On Tuesday evening I was trawling for something to watch and settled on a 1975 movie called "Operation Daybreak" - an account of the plot to kill Heydrich that I'd never heard about before.  Sat through about 45 minutes before bedtime.

 

  Then two days later I read this thread.

 

Spooky, yet also slightly sad because now I know how the movie will end. ....(I guess its a bit too much to ask for spoiler alerts on the outcome of WW11 operations.)

 

 

Sorry about that!

 

There is also the more recent Anthropoid.

 

And Admiral Canaris appears - played by Anthony Quayle - in The Eagle has Landed.

 

Phil

[sb67]

11 hours ago, Phil Bullock said:

So searched for a similar thread, couldn't see anything similar so lets see if this has legs....

 

Post and share if you have learnt something you didn't know. About .....anything interesting! 

 

To start off...

 

Operation Canonbury in April 1942 was a raid by 218 squadron on the Skoda factory in Pilsen as part of Anthropoid - the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by Czech partisans inserted by the Czech government in exile and SOE.

 

Had always assumed that this was largely a political exercise to allow the Czech government in exile to show that it was not dormant... but turns out there was another dimension which added an additional incentive. 

 

Admiral Canaris was Head of Abwehr and ran the German espionage networks - but was largely anti Nazi and a double agent - along with many senior Abwehr figures. Heydrich, head of the SD, the intelligence arm of the Nazi party, was getting close to this, thereby increasing the incentive to eliminate him and preserve intelligence flows from the Abwehr double agents.

 

Canaris was eventually assassinated in 1945.

 

Why the personal interest? Sergeant Philip Bullock 570264 was lost on the night of 25th April in Short Stirling W7506 on Operation Canonbury.

 

Hope others find that of interest and more interesting trivia follows....

 

Phil

 

 

 

That's a great post Phil, always interesting to hear aout stuff like that. I'm reading a book called the Secret War by Max Hastings at the moment. Some fascinating stuff in there, havent got to Heydrich's assasination yet.

Steve.

Edited May 24, 2019 by sb67

[Nick C]

"Double Cross" by Ben Macintyre is a good read if you're interested in this kind of stuff (in fact, all his books are). Reading some of the stories of the double agents you sit here thinking "if this were fiction, I'd dismiss it as too outlandish".

 

As one example, one in Madrid controlled an entire network of agents feeding information to the Germans from across the UK - except that none of them existed and he was making the whole thing up. British high command got very confused when our own channels leaked his reports back to us (mostly through Enigma decrypts), as we knew the information was fake, but not where it was coming from!

 

There were also several cases where the Abwehr controller (mostly in Spain or Portugal, well away from either high command or any kind of combat) knew full well that their agents were actually doubles, but didn't care as long as the reports kept coming in - they were sending the reports on, requesting more and more money for their agents, and pocketing significant amounts of it for themselves.

[Gibbo675]

17 hours ago, Phil Bullock said:

 

Thanks Gibbo

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Glocke

 

Sounds like a lack of firm evidence has resulted in all sorts of myths as to the capabilities of this project!

 

Phil

Hi Phil,

 

I'm not that daft, I used the word 'reputed' for good reason, not that I would trust The Ministry of Truth [Wonkipedia] for any reason at all ever !!!

 

Who actually knows one way or another whether or not Die Glocke existed, such legend may well have quite a bit to do with the fact that Kammler's research establishment was top secret and after Patton's army secured it I doubt that they were falling over themselves to expose all the top secret things that they found. Amongst other things television guided bombs, fuel air blast bombs and phased array radars, to be fair a lot of the stuff now in military use generally.

 

Die Glocke or no Die Glocke, quite a strange tale all the same.

 

Good luck with your thread !

 

Gibbo.

[Phil Bullock]

Thanks Gibbo

 

Reading further it rather seems Die Glocke was capable of just about anything from interstellar flight to producing a fatal "death ray" - also involved in the myth of red mercury! No wonder the RAF bombed the factory....was probably the source of the deadly joke too...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV8jZ_1Yu6o

 

Phil

 

 

 

 

[sb67]

9 hours ago, Nick C said:

"Double Cross" by Ben Macintyre is a good read if you're interested in this kind of stuff (in fact, all his books are). Reading some of the stories of the double agents you sit here thinking "if this were fiction, I'd dismiss it as too outlandish".

 

As one example, one in Madrid controlled an entire network of agents feeding information to the Germans from across the UK - except that none of them existed and he was making the whole thing up. British high command got very confused when our own channels leaked his reports back to us (mostly through Enigma decrypts), as we knew the information was fake, but not where it was coming from!

 

There were also several cases where the Abwehr controller (mostly in Spain or Portugal, well away from either high command or any kind of combat) knew full well that their agents were actually doubles, but didn't care as long as the reports kept coming in - they were sending the reports on, requesting more and more money for their agents, and pocketing significant amounts of it for themselves.

 

Operation mincmeat is fascinating as well, thinks that is by Ben Macintyre too. 

I do like all that stuff, especially the deception around the d day landings. There's a lot of interesting stuff out there.

Steve.

[Phil Bullock]

1 hour ago, sb67 said:

 

Operation mincmeat is fascinating as well, thinks that is by Ben Macintyre too. 

I do like all that stuff, especially the deception around the d day landings. There's a lot of interesting stuff out there.

Steve.

 

Absolutely Steve

 

And theres a link back up to my original post there as 218 Squadron were part of Operation Glimmer on the night of 5th June - the creation of a spoof invasion force on radar heading for the Pas de Calais using window.

 

Phil

[Phil Bullock]

Just ordered Double Cross - looking forwards to a good read.

 

But here is something else I never knew that delving in to this has unearthed - Hermann Goering's brother Albert 

 

http://www.goering.dk/index.htm

 

Phil

[EddieB]

18 hours ago, Phil Bullock said:

Thanks Gibbo

 

Reading further it rather seems Die Glocke was capable of just about anything from interstellar flight to producing a fatal "death ray" - also involved in the myth of red mercury! No wonder the RAF bombed the factory....was probably the source of the deadly joke too...

 

A substance when placed on men’s shirts causes them to explode?

[EddieB]

On a more serious note, I’d also recommend https://www.amazon.co.uk/Churchills-Ministry-Ungentlemanly-Warfare-Mavericks/dp/1444798987/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1558776926&sr=8-1, which was also on sale at outlets of The Works recently. (Other booksellers are available). It includes inter alia the Heydrich assassination and plot.

 

There are temporary and permanent exhibitions in the huts at Bletchley Park about deception and double agents - the place is well worth a visit (with added bonus of the “new” stock on the Marsham Vale line out of Bletchley!).

[NorthBrit]

In WW2  the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops  (The Ghost Army)   is a very interesting story.

 

The deception tricks they did from D Day to the end of the war are truly amazing.  imho.

[laurenceb]

1 hour ago, EddieB said:

On a more serious note, I’d also recommend https://www.amazon.co.uk/Churchills-Ministry-Ungentlemanly-Warfare-Mavericks/dp/1444798987/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1558776926&sr=8-1, which was also on sale at outlets of The Works recently. (Other booksellers are available). It includes inter alia the Heydrich assassination and plot.

 

There are temporary and permanent exhibitions in the huts at Bletchley Park about deception and double agents - the place is well worth a visit (with added bonus of the “new” stock on the Marsham Vale line out of Bletchley!).

You beat me to it, another one worth reading is Mr Churchills toyshop https://www.forgottenweapons.com/book-review-winston-churchills-toyshop/

[sb67]

21 hours ago, Phil Bullock said:

Just ordered Double Cross - looking forwards to a good read.

 

But here is something else I never knew that delving in to this has unearthed - Hermann Goering's brother Albert 

 

http://www.goering.dk/index.htm

 

Phil

 

Didn't know about Albert Goering! I'll look into that.

Steve.

 

[EddieB]

Talking of the Goerings, Hermann's interest in model railways is slightly less obscure: https://marklinstop.com/2011/12/marklin-at-carinhall-hermann-goerings-miniature-railway/

[62613]

14 hours ago, EddieB said:

Talking of the Goerings, Hermann's interest in model railways is slightly less obscure: https://marklinstop.com/2011/12/marklin-at-carinhall-hermann-goerings-miniature-railway/

Adolph Galland had a model railway at his base in France. After Douglas Bader was shot down, he was allowed to visit, and part of it was that they spent some time playing trains.