106
Tinfoil is good for more than just making hats... (lemmy.nz)
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by trollercoaster@sh.itjust.works to c/historymemes@piefed.social
11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] bob_lemon@feddit.org 15 points 8 months ago

Both sides had radar in general, and knew about the other side having it.

The carrot propaganda part is true though, but it is specifically about covering up the fact that the allies had developed aircraft intercept radar, i.e. radar mounted on the planes.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/carrots-cant-help-you-see-in-the-dark-heres-how-world-war-ii-propaganda-campaign-popularized-the-myth-28812484/

this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
106 points (100.0% liked)

History Memes

3007 readers
59 users here now

A place to share history memes!

Rules:

  1. No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, assorted bigotry, etc.

  2. No fascism (including tankies/red fash), atrocity denial or apologia, etc.

  3. Tag NSFW pics as NSFW.

  4. Follow all Piefed.social rules.

  5. History referenced must be 20+ years old.

  6. Avoid posting AI-generated content whenever possible.

Banner courtesy of @setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world

OTHER COMMS IN THE HISTORYVERSE:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
PugJesus@piefed.social
Deceptichum@quokk.au
PugJesus@lemmy.world