No ones going to mention this is obviously horse shit?
Like there’s so much wrong with this story I’m sure where to begin, like they will have produced ammunition in the 100s of thousands, did they write a note in like 1 in 20, or did they just get extremely lucky?
Where did they fund the shells? They either would have gone in one side and out the other, or they would have just disintegrated, especially if they were hollow.
The explosive filled in these shells is fairly significant amount of their mass. Did the Nazis running the factories not notice when the cases of ammunition are 20% lighter than they should be and the workers have several tonnes of explosive filler left over? Was there no quality control in the factories at all?
Why would they just start cutting open shells they presume are high explosive?
This 1,000% didn’t happen.
This is the same kind of logic that would say 9/11 is fake because one of the terrorists’ ID cards was found unscathed in a New York street.
I’m not saying it happened, but your skepticism is way out of proportion.
- The filling issue is an obvious problem, which is why any Czech trying to sabotage it would have spent the first couple years of their enslavement trying to to come up with a method that works. Maybe the factory made its explosives in-house and the explosives guy was in on it too, instead making inert chemicals with the same raw materials. Maybe the explosives where rendered inert through a chemical process. Maybe the explosives were smuggled out of the factory to empower resistance movements and exchanged with dirt.
- When locked in a factory and ordered to make a certain amount of explosives, not making those explosives but making duds instead leaves you with a lot of spare time. If you’re already supposed to be a line worker making thousands of the same thing, why not make thousands of similar letters expressing your hope of rescue?
- The shells would have been more solid than explosive shells, being filled with inert shock-absorbing dirt. Many of them would have exited the craft, but some would naturally have gotten stuck because the point of cluster munitions is to be birdshot.
- It’s good military-scientific practice to study the weapons of the enemy, especially if they don’t do what you expect. British military intelligence was very thorough, down to using novel statistical techniques such as the German Tank Problem. Explosive munitions not exploding is a definite curiosity worth investigating.
- No, the Nazis did not have good quality control. A lot of the popular conception of Nazis as technological geniuses comes directly from Nazi propaganda, repeated by American propaganda for the sake of demonizing the USSR and trying to justify Operation Paperclip scientists like Von Braun being given a warm welcome and getting rebranded as a hero.
I’m not saying it happened, but it is a “known” story. Example: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2023/12/28/all-we-can-do-for-you-now-how-czech-sabotage-saved-a-b-17-crew/
It’s an apocryphal story.
It looks like the source is a memoir written by a soldier. So I guess you’d have to take that one guy’s word for it, assuming interviews etc. with other people who would have seen the same event don’t exist.
I err on the side of people, especially people from generations prior to being able to verify a lot of stuff on the internet, being entirely full of shit.
Was there no quality control in the factories at all?
Is this the first you’re hearing of Nazi weapons factories? Because yeah, QA/QC was nearly non-existent
Nothing you didn’t see has ever happened. Its the vibe I’m getting.
Edit: Dropped a Y
The explosive filled in these shells is fairly significant amount of their mass.
Not really - the explosive charge is less than half an ounce when the whole shell (the projectile part, not including the cartridge casing and the propellant) is about 3.5 ounces. So the explosive charge is about 10% of the weight of the shell.
when the cases of ammunition are 20% lighter than they should be
The entire cartridge weighs about 11 ounces, so a cartridge with an empty charge cavity would be only about 2-3% lighter than normal. A case would also include the belt(s) and the weight of the box, so a case of sabotaged cartridges would be almost imperceptibly lighter than normal, with a difference probably less than 1%.
I agree that story is likely bullshit, but not for that particular reason. I don’t see why workers would risk calling added attention to their sabotage by putting little notes into each shell - not to mention the writer’s cramp this would produce.
That depends on what size she’ll were talking about right? Like I assume we’re talking about plane mounted 20mm here, but if it was flak 88 shell or something that would be much higher percentage explosive filler, although a direct hit with a flak 88 would be very rare.
This is why you Always report images of text with no transcription or citations.
Mods, please delete this misinformation
It gets really bad when you realize that people treat this kind of bullshit with the same relative importance to their lives AND skepticism as they treat their democratic political decisions and stances that actually impact us all.
This comments section is wild. It’s really a pretty simple post even if it’s not spelled out as clearly as it could be; it’s just saying in WW2 an allied bomber (American) was attacked with explosives by Nazi defenses (Germans during WW2) and was thwarted by Czech made blank anti-aircraft shells because they only pretended to work for the Nazis. Given current context, I assume the analogy is that now that Americans are the Nazis, you can still resist the regime by doing what the Czechs did.
That said, I don’t really believe the story since it reads as “and everyone clapped” levels of evidence, but the overall message is fine. This is hope posting, anyway.
Edit: fixed a term
I was pretty suspicious as well, but I was able to trace it back to this story from Military Times which is a pretty respected outlet. Of course, the vet could just be lying, but also WW2 was an insane time and stuff like this really did happen. I have also read about how slave laborers in Nazi Germany would do other things to sabotage, like cutting wires in the planes they were building.
https://greglewisinfo.com/2020/04/18/the-b-17-saved-by-a-miracle/
The ultimate source appears to be a guy’s memoirs:
I came across this story in Elmer Bendiner’s marvellous 1980 memoir, The Fall of the Fortresses, while researching the lives of USAAF crews flying out of England during WW2.
I’m still very sceptical. This guy is not even the primary source actually:
Bohn said the shells had been sent to the armorers to be defused but had then been rushed away by an intelligence officer.
Bohn had tracked down the officer and had hounded him until eventually he had told Bohn the full story – before swearing him to secrecy.
Now, sabotage like this undoubtedly happened, although the scale is impossible to verify. However I think this specific story has just way too flimsy a chain of evidence to put any faith in. Good story though.
🌟
S-Tier Post
You know the thing about “and everyone clapped” meme is silly because those things actually do exist.
It’s just unlikely.
Like winning the lottery. You can read up on hundreds of lottery winners, but winning one yourself is kinda unlikely.
I literally had a “and everyone clapped” thing, where a bus full of people literally everyone clapped and cheered for me. I was pretty drunk and just a few years out of the army and the driver was having some issue with a drunken older woman (like not 60 but close enough, still pretty spry but super drunk), so I ran to the front of the bus, demanded for the to exit the vehicle in a booming voice (I have a very strong voice and I was and NCO) and when she wouldn’t, I just dragged her out. The bus driver closed the door and drove off slightly, I thought he was taking off but he was just driving a bit further so I’d run there. I did, got back on the bus and literally everyone clapped.
Felt pretty great I have to say.
That NCO’s name? Albert Einstein.
Only post in the thread that seems to understand. Wow!
Just a small correction. Not bombs…shells. The Czechs were sabotaging anti-aircraft shells so they didn’t explode.
Sorry, I’ll edit it for clarification. I was quickly typing and the word slipped.
Ideas can be powerful.
Even if it didn’t happen, it doesn’t matter. I want the story to be true, and the hope that it gives me.
ITT: People who know nothing about history.
An important lesson to learn. People in position to do something these days in the face of Nazism are weenies. All the time I’m hearing “this or that judge or officer resigns to give way to Nazis / Doges, instead of planting their feet”. Heck while not meaning to offend, it’s got to be said, if Eastern Europeans can do civility better than you, my boy, that does say something big.
Wish muricans would do that too, but they are too cowardly to protest
“But muh paycheck”
Removed by mod
I didn’t realize sabotaging Nazis and being a Nazi were the same thing.
…
people in “germany” in 1943, writing in czech throwing things at an allied plane?
Who were the people in “germany” in 1943 🤔
You don’t think it refers to the 400k+ Czech forced labourers?
so the hope inspiring message is “you can put notes into bombs you’re forced to make and be thrown at the people trying to rescue you if you’re a slave”?
EDIT : And who are the people forcing them to labor?
“Even in the worst circumstances, there is something you can do”
“Yeah, but, like, why are there bad circumstances? Have you ever thought of that?”
My dude, when the fuck do you think people need hope? When they’re jerking off?
because this post is basically trying to make Nazis throwing bombs at the allies seem like an aspirational situation, and I don’t want to value the things nazis did, because the current authoritarian world is disgusting.
I think you are reading this entirely wrong. Throwing the bombs isn’t the inspirational part. It’s the bad part. The inspirational part is that the Czech forced laborers are rebelling the best they can against the Nazi regime by sabotaging the bombs they are forced to make.
sure. that part is left ambigious, since “the best we can do” can refer to sabotage or “the highest quality bombs we could make”
I’m sorry, but did you read the post? Do you think that the highest quality explosive ordnance they could make would involve zero explosives being loaded in them, with zero of them exploding? The post leaves it completely unambiguous.
What lmao
Who is going to throw things at American things in 1943 in germany? Nazis.
Spoilers : Nazis are bad. The Nazis are bad because they are authoritarian. There are many authoritarian led countries in the world today. So many, that it is exhausting.
In the past, maybe it would have been edgy fun to think of heroes from the “enemy side”. There are too many today, so trying to find hope and heros in Nazis is not fun anymore.
Does a nazi putting a gun to your head and telling you to work making ammunition makes you a nazi? Because that’s what happened. Forced conscription happened. The world isn’t black and white. Allies committed war crimes too. There were good people forced into bad situations too.
Maybe there’s more nuance to the world.
EDIT : And who are the people forcing them to labor?
It’s a real mystery, that one
Holy shit, you’re dumb
Hmmm who are these people, in Germany, in 1943. Gee, I wonder which group it could be.
Freemasons. *nods sagely* Gotta be freemasons.
