Please note that I made the word "event" plural so as not to discriminate.


One I would nominate would be the infamous Dieppe raid on the French coast.

Because of planning on the General side, a large loss of life occurred for no gain whatsoever.

But little did the common soldier know that the lessons learned about assaulting a fortified port from sea would be so crucial in the massively successful Normandy landing almost two years later.


Everybody should have a go! We can all share some facts that others might not know about.

For a "small incident" with huge consequences my candidate is the forced landing at Melchelen (Belgium) in early 1940 of a liason plane carring part of the original (and uninspired) case gelb plan for a western front offensive. This brough about a cancelling of the Jannuary attack and a rethinking of the plan that led to the hugely succesfull Sichelshnitt plan that was executed in May.

amiens prison raid 1944.... click on year to view..

BBC - WW2 People's War - Timeline

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I felt the transaction of the consignment of fish to America and Britain...
Surprised?

Upon the evacuation of Dunkirk, the invasion of UK loomed on the horizon, and the war cabinet decided to prepare for the worst.
They prepared a plan, for a Government in exile (hereafter called GIE).
In the event of an amphibious landing on the English coast (cross channel); the GIE was to be set up, across the Atlantic in safer realms of North America.

To consolidate and financially stabilize the GIE, the UK had to liquidate appx. 1800 million worth of securities & Gold and transfer it to a safer bank.
The Ideal choice? Canada.
Never before had the investments of a nation's private citizens had been preempted for national defense without the consent of the owners.

The prime need was for secrecy. If news of this leaked out, it was a deathblow to morale as a raid by the Nazis can take the money out of everyone’s hands, and furthermore, the ceaseless Nazi propaganda machine would "Distribute Vital Information That All Citizens of the UK Should know", effectively pointing out that the UK Govt is itself unsure of the chance for survival "And giving the opportunity for the citizens of UK, to do what the Government should have done in the first place".

The money had to be transported by merchant navy, in the U-Boat infested waters of the Atlantic to the Canadian shores. To add more spice, two subs were in the vicinity of the convoy for the first consignment, and none of it (money) was insured (who would insure a major chunk of a nation’s capital in 1940?). The admiral, zig-zagged his way through stormy waters and thick hellish fogs and hail, and finally after a tumultuous ride, docked safely.
From there the cargo was loaded on a train, and headed for the basement of a sun rise assurance building (I think I can’t verify it offhand) which housed a maximum security locker. It was in those basements that the largest deposit account was opened in the Bank of Canada by the Bank of England. And since it was a deposit account, there was a while staff, just cutting coupons and presenting it to the representatives from the bank of England.

In the end what do we have? A Plan B last ditch GIE Stabilization policy, that was done in so much meticulous military systematic precision (not a single shilling was lost), and with a well kept secret (The Nazi’s, nor Any of the Allies save the war cabinet of UK had a clue of this deposit.) that preserved Britain’s morale. This consignment of fish (the money if you haven’t guessed already )was Britains assurance of a last stand against the swastika.


Regards
TBA

gort saying stuff the french..stuff chiefs of staff..stuff churchill.pownall..ironside..the lot of you..monty move north..secure the line..general retreat on dunkirk chaps...

The USN carriers raids prior to Coral Sea.

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WWII Resources. Primary sources.
The Myths of Pearl Harbor. Demythologizing the attack.
Hyperwar. Hypertext history of the Second World War.
Pearl Harbor Attack Message Board
Veteran: USN, 1969-1989

Timing is everything, especially in world history it seems. What if Johann Elser’s bomb, hidden in that column behind Hitler at the Burgerbrau had been set to go off at 9:00 pm instead of 9;20 pm ? Hitler would have been dead in November of 1939, just two months into the war.

Hitler left about eight minutes before the bomb exploded killing a number of people, if Hitler had been there still, he too would have died most likely. Eight minutes that changed the next five + years.

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Happy Trails,
Clint.

When you look at it that way, eight minutes changed the entire world. Chilling? Isnt it?

So, did he know about the bomb?

__________________
WWII Resources. Primary sources.
The Myths of Pearl Harbor. Demythologizing the attack.
Hyperwar. Hypertext history of the Second World War.
Pearl Harbor Attack Message Board
Veteran: USN, 1969-1989

On the Eastern front, Battle at Demyansk Pocket, between january and march 1942. After their retreat from Moscow due to failure of Operation typhoon the previous December, large numbers of German troops found themselves trapped in the Demyansk area, south of Leningrad. Trapped in the pocket were the 12th, 30th, 32nd, 123rd and 290th infantry divisions, and the SS-Division Totenkopf, as well as RAD, Police, Todt organization and other auxiliary units, for a total of about 90,000 German troops and around 10,000 auxiliaries. Their commander was General der Infanterie Walter Graf von Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt, commander of the IInd Army Corps.

Hitller ordered all units to hold position while the luftwaffe resupplied them by air. Some units even received several thousand of the brand new sturmgewehr mp42, (an earlier version of the mp-44) and the ammo to go with them. The luftwaffe resupply effort strained air resources in this sector to the limit, but ultimately was succesful (due to two airfields in good condition being held by the Germans, and an unseasonable change to fair weather early in the year), and German troops were eventually able to fight their way out. (Much of their success was due to Stalin's decision to temporarily abandon the area and to shift forces back to Moscow, due to an expected offensive by the germans in the summer.)

This action was notable in its first use of the new sturmegewehr rifle concept, but most importantly, it may have given Hitler and Goerring unhealthy ideas about the luftwaffe's airlift capabilities - ideas that would eventually lead to disaster at Stalingrad in early 1943.

If that Japanese officer in Shanghai wasnt killed, perhaps the war in China could have been avoided.

When Leningard was under siege, a German radio intercep showed a casual conversation where one party asks for assistance.
Nothing wrong? well, the line ran from Washington (Still neutral if you remember) and London, and it was scrambled.
Who would use it in the future? a Certain Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a certain Winston Churchill.

The Bell A3 scramble device had been under German scanner by the post master general equivalent in Nazi Germany. (Note that the post master general also took care of telegraphs, and teelephones etc..).

He decided to keep mum and perfect the technique of descrambling the scrambled code, without much of a proper foundation to work on. The only lead the Germans had was that one of their scientists had developed a prototype scrambler - de-scrambler, and they built on that. And they had a genuine A3 Scrambler. In theory, they had the raw materials they'll ever need to research till doomsday.
It was perfected in the fall of 1941.

Messages was deciphered instantaneously and so efficiently that only a few syllables were missing till the right key was found.

The best were then transmitted to Berlin, to the Head of Gestapo - Heinrich Himmler, who would use it as per his discretion (Read: Sending the best to Hitler), this communication was unknown to anyone else (including Abwehr, Intelligence of the Army, navy or airforce)

What did they gain by this?
Well for starters, they knew the fall of Italy before hand.
And they knew for certain the opening of the second front in France.

Regards
TBA

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This day, remember those who gave all, so that we may lack none.
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The Bell A-3 wasn't the Ultra, that is the name for coded messages from the Nazis which were broken by Bletchley Park, not the telephonic messages between Churchill and FDR.

The older Bell A-3 was a commercial unit for telephonic communitcations, much like the original Enigma machine. It had been broken by 1941, but it was replaced by the SIGSALY unit (each one weighted 55 tons) for communication between Churchill and FDR. So the Nazis never heard anything between those two leaders after early 1943. It and its code machine counterpart SIGABA were both unbroken throughout the war and the telephonic code machines weren’t removed from service until 1946. The SIGABA remained in service until the late 1950s, and the SIGABA remained a classified patent until the 1990s.

SIGSALY began operation in World War II as a digital encrypted voice telephone system connecting London and the Pentagon. It had been developed by Bell Labs, using early work since 1936 that had produced the vocoder for the 1939 World's Fair in New York. Bell Labs had developed the A-3 telephone scrambler for Roosevelt and Churchill in 1939 using older non-digital technology, but it was not secure and by 1941 was broken by Germany. A Bell Labs contract with the Army in 1942 developed the revolutionary digital SIGSALY 12-channel system by 1943.

(later on in the article)

…The patents and encryption system remained secret until 1976. SIGSALY is considered to represent the first digital quantization of speech and the first transmission of speech by PCM.
　
See:

SIGSALY

The SIGSALY was revolutionary, but more and better voicecoder systems evolved post war. The invasion of France was only discussed using either SIGSALY or SIGABA, and wouldn't have been intercepted by the Nazis. Or if intercepted never decoded, since neither system was breached during the war. The A-3 remained in service for lower echelon communications which would be only of short-term use, such as the message being outdated and of no value by the end of the day.

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Happy Trails,
Clint.

Firstly thanks for the goof up in the bell a3 issue and i edited my post

Secondly, FDR and Churchill had discussed the absolute need for the invasion of france, and hence the Germans knew what was coming.
The only things they didnt know was how, when and where which was discussed after 43.

I hope this clears it up.
Regards
TBA

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This day, remember those who gave all, so that we may lack none.
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Not a problem, another code "faux pas" was the continued use of the "Black Code" by American diplomats and military advisors/observers in Africa. I posted one of my first donations to the forum in a long section on Colonel Fellers in Cairo a while back. Look at #6 for the Fellers portion.

Goto:

I couldn't find an appropriate thread...

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Happy Trails,
Clint.

In early July 1944 the Red Army was getting ready for the final push in the Finnish Karelia area, however:

"On July 2 the Finns intercepted a NON-CODED radio message, according to which the Soviet 63rd Division and 30th Armored Brigade were to launch an attack on July 3 at 04:00 hours. The following morning, two minutes before the supposed attack, 40 Finnish and 40 German bombers bombed the Soviet troops, and 250 guns fired total of 4,000 artillery shells into the area of the Soviets.

The clever fire control system enabled as many as 21 batteries, totaling some 250 guns, firing at the same target simultaneously in the battle; the fire controller did not need to be aware of the location of individual batteries to guide their fire, which made quick fire concentration and target switching possible. This concentration was considered a world record at the time."

Battle of Tali-Ihantala - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The artillery number is rather low compared to many countries in ww2 and the fired shells numbers too, but the troops were concentrated into a small area in order to start the attack and the losses among the Red Army troops were huge. Result:By July 7 the Soviets now began transferring their best troops to Estonia, to fight the Germans

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The battle of Mosty, AUGUST 26, 1939, whose commander was a certain Wilhelm Fras Canaris.
The Abwher was supposed to send combat teams into Poland before the German Army so as to make raids and disrupt communications.
Late on august 25 , the teams where dispatched and after a few moments, a communication from Hitler that the invasion(scheduled for early morning on the 26th) had been postponed.

A Hurried wire managed to stop 15 teams, however one team was already on the warpath. Reaching the railroad station of Mosty, they had it surrounded and about midnight opened fire and attacked and overwhelmed the Polish guards. The team than sat down waiting for the German battalions to arrive.

When after a long time they did not come, the leader of the team questioned the Polish colonel with regards to the state of war between the two countries.

When he denied any knowledge of it, they contacted the Abwher by the feild telephone and hastily packed their bags and left, and did not return till the invasion 6 days later.

This was the first official battle of WWII.

Regards
TBA

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This day, remember those who gave all, so that we may lack none.
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Hitler's reluctance to relieve the troops in the Demyansk pocket. His idiocracy caused the death of AGNs best troops in the sense of they were shattered units never to be fight ready again.

Lord Halifax turning down Chamberlain's old post as British P.M. after it was offered to him by the King.

Halifax felt that, as a member of the House of Lords, he was unsuitable for the post. So, by default, the only other suitable candidate, Winston Churchill, became Prime minister. With Churchill's cabinet well under control, Winston singlehandedly turned British foreign policy around by refusing, under any circumstances, to negotiate a compromise peace with Germany. Hitler, his peace feelers thrown back in his face, found himself in the same position as the Grande Armee did in 1805, standing on the Channel coast and unable to bring it's power to bear.

Following the same line as Napolean, and seeking a descisive outcome, Hitler, a gambler of the highest order, turned against RUSSIA.

The rest is history.....

Heard of Red Eirc?

Eric Erickson, from Stockholm, was put on the allied Black Lists, accused of trading and helping the German war efforts by buying the surplus oil which Hitlers Reich had early in the war.

Hoping to make a profit by the war, he started dealing with Gestapo, forming oil deals and doing other things that aggresive salesmen do.

Allied Intel got the drift that Erickson was inspecting a big refinery, and hence scrambled their bombers to blast him into oblivion, but they missed him.
It seemed that an allied spy was on Erickson's trail as whatever refinery he goes to, it was bombed.

Finally, he made a huge deal with Himmler himself that required the setting up of a plant in sweden, planting Nazi funds there, and an oil refinery which could not be touched by allied air cover.

The plan was accepted, and he was given a car and petrol, with a no restriction imposed letter from Himmler that allowed him to travel anywhere he wanted in the plant.

Though on the allied Blacklist, Erickson maintained a secret contact with Allied intelligence.
Now, after studying the layout of those plants, it was passed out, and as soon as a new plant came up, the air command had it on the map- no matter how well concealed it was.
They knew where all installations , flak positions etc were there, and flew out to meet it.

All convoys were ambushed by the allies and Germany's oil resources were turned against her, by its use in allied machines

The supply of the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe was cut to a trickle, and finally during the big assault, German tanks and planes had no fuel.. they stood there helplessly.

This was one of the best double agent episodes in ww2, which had a great imact on the war.

Regards,
TBA

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This day, remember those who gave all, so that we may lack none.
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