German Boots on British Soil in 1943

[Yarkshire Gamer]

Fair enough, your mate has a theory and he's doing some archaeology, more power to him, it will be intersting to see what conclusions he arrives at.

Still it remains true that whether his investigation follows the logic of the late Mr Searle or not, you are left with the fact that if true, it would not be an insignificant event. If people were brassing each other up around, what were then, still sensitive facilities, someone would have noticed. Not just someone but quite a few someones. The 20 odd folk posted to the facility. The RAF regiment chaps, charged with its defence. the sector command, people higher up the chain all the way to Whitehall. Potentially hundreds of people.

Now, as there is no record of this, we are to assume that the application and enforcement of the OSA was so profound that all these men went to their graves without breathing a word? Somehow MI5 has clamped down on everything and no record exists? You do know the prospect of a secret surviving intact is directly proportional to the number of people that know it? Somehow the rest of the security services must have been complicit as there is no German record of any of this taking place either. Does it not strike anyone as odd that Goebbels wasn't loudly proclaiming such a triumph of arms? The British papers trumpeted the Bruneval Raid, the supposed spur to this action, not long after.

Isn't that odd given that we have the details of far more secretive, far more potentially damaging wartime events?

The podcast was an interesting listen and I wish your mate all the best in his endeavours. The forensics on the ammo etc quite fascinating but underneath all of that there's a fundamental flaw. Overcoming human nature's desire to share a good tale.

I think Paul has shown an absolute desire to not jump to conclusions where as you seem to have an inherent bias against the raid.

You mention the book again, it has NOTHING to do with the book.

There are lots of interesting WW2 stories I agree but essentially my Podcast is not a WW2 History show, there are lots of other much better Podcasts who do that.

So I'm given an interesting story and I have gone with it. Now I investigate serious incidents for a living and if I smelt a rat with this I would have dropped it when I covered it the first time round. I'm impressed with the methodical and forensic methods that have been used and the very fact that Paul hasn't jumped to conclusions. What he has done is find some interesting artifacts and from their looked at numerous hypothesis. He has also (covered in previous episodes) had serving military at the site to walk the ground and with knowledge only of the terrain and target came up with similar plans which match the concentration of finds.

There is a record locally of "Germans seen in dinghies" I forget where but its in the latest episode as well as previous ones. I will defer to Paul's research regarding other recollections of the events.

Yes I am very aware of OSA as a signature of it myself, the island is abound with rumours of the raid so it's definitely spoken about locally.

If the reason for the raid is confirmed it increases the chances that it was covered up, I will await the information on that before I jump to conclusions.

I don't think Goebbles would shout about a raid which more than likely failed. I also know secrets are kept for many many years before they get out, even with people who know, some or all of the truth and that would be especially true in war.

I think it's best for Paul and his team to continue their research which has been years in the doing and continue their work without people ridiculing it and liken it to looking for aliens !

[carlos marighela]

Fair enough, I wish your pal well. Be interesting to see where this all leads and if he can prove that it's not all a fantasy, I'll be the first to admit I was wrong.

Me, I'm naturally sceptical of such things and to me the whole thing doesn't really pass the sniff test. I don't need any particular agenda not to be convinced of the fantastical. One just applies exising knowledge of the context to such things.

One of the mysteries of this tale is why choose RAF St Lawrence? In 1943 Chain Home was essentially old technology that had been surpassed across the channel.  Valuable as it was during the Battle of Britain, it was not exactly bleeding edge technology in 1943. The Germans had a fairly good knowledge of its capabilities too by then, so its doubtful they would feel much need to aquire associated tech from it.

The Bruneval Raid that took place 18 months earlier had an actual military purpose. Bomber Command really did need to know about Wurzburg.

Launching a raid that would, take up valuable time and resources, risking a U-boat or even an S-Boat and its crew, not to mention the raiding party and any technicians for something hardly worth stealing doesn't make much sense. I doubt that even Adolf would have woken from his slumbers and said 'Remember that British raid on our radar installation last year? I want you to do the same thing just to show we can do it too'.

For me the premise of it all makes no sense. YMMV.

[Rick]

Hmm Carlos, so tell me please, how long did the 'Operation Tiger' cover up last for? Over 40 years and thousands initially knew and all kept quiet because 'there was a war on' - sometimes no more reason than that; the wartime message of 'loose lips sink ships' holds very strong with an entire generation of British people.

[carlos marighela]

Well Rick, it didn't last until 2025 did it?

In actual fact, SHAEF released the casualty figures along with those on D-Day (bit sneaky that), a press release about it in August and several people mentioned explicitly what happened at Slapton Sands in memoirs publised just after the war. It remained a closely guarded secret for what four months? It probably came into the popular public imagination in the 1970s or thereabouts.

Not quite sure what your point is, but then I rarely am.

[Rick]

Actually no. The casualty figures, as you say, were conveniently disclosed around D-day but they didn't differentiate between friendly fire casualties from the beach assault fiasco and the disaster of the return journey. It did actually take over 40 years for the details of what occurred to come out - many of those involved either conveniently forgot what happened or were encouraged to conveniently forget. It really was only much, much later that the details were uncovered and, even today, there are certain details where we still don't have a full understanding.

[carlos marighela]

Well, even if I were to accept your thesis, which I don't*, the point you have just made is that shit eventually comes out in the wash, even if there is an immediate and real reason to tamp a lid on it (D-Day). 

So by your reasoning, if an event that involves the loss of several hundred US servicemen on the coast of England whose potential damage to inter-Allied relations, Allied morale, military reputations, Opsec for D-Day, etc, etc is out there for all to see, why wouldn't a piddling, supposed raid by the Germans, presumably a failure and of little or no consequence to anyone or anything come out in the intervening 80 years?

There's a difference bewteen something being little known and something being secret just as there's a difference between something that's little known but demonstrably true and something fictitious or only hypothesized. Keeping an open mind is a good thing but there's sometimes a fine but distinct line between open mindedness and simple credulity.



* There was an article in Stars and Stripes about Exercise Tiger for fuck's sake and a bloke on Eisenhower's own staff wrote about Slapton Sands in his memoirs in 1946.

[Rick]

Don't know. Maisie battery is one case where although the outline was known, the specifics were obscured - similarly, although some of the exercise tiger information is known, some details are still unknown - the precise numbers of casualties, for example; figures estimate somewhere between 750 and 950 men died but not the exact figure. Also we have eyewitness accounts of deaths during the beach assault where men were landed in the wrong places and came under live artillery fire yet not one single source separates the casualties on the beach assault from the casualties on the return journey - still a certain amount of opacity there. There are still some odd little incidents from WW2 that are opaque - why were some German bunker complexes, once cleared, left for the locals to sort out whilst a few others were shut down, sealed off and cannot be unsealed, even today. Oddities here and there - I don't know why or what the circumstances were but interesting nonetheless.
Similarly with this - the evidence in the ground points in a certain direction and does seem to completely contradict the counter hypotheses put forward; odd and decidedly interesting.

[HerbertTarkel]

I mean… this is from History Channel, which sounds like English Channel - to me - so, totally plausible, right?   You betcha.

[Rick]

Aha yes. When you find your counter hypotheses are as implausible as the initial hypothesis then use the old "reducto ad absurdam" defence and try to make everyone involved in the conversation look like an idiot! 

Not quite what I might have done, old chap, but nice attempt anyway.

[HerbertTarkel]

Aha yes. When you find your counter hypotheses are as implausible as the initial hypothesis then use the old "reducto ad absurdam" defence and try to make everyone involved in the conversation look like an idiot! 

Not quite what I might have done, old chap, but nice attempt anyway.

 

Humour never hurts. Much. 

[Rick]

Humour never hurts. Much. 

Humour's good, I like humour in an intelligent conversation. 

[Harry Faversham]

Will some kind soul apply The KISS Principle, please?
If the raid did take place, was it as big a success as Johnny Frost and his lads, or a dismal failure?
My 'umble opinion is, if it was a stunning victory, Lord Haw-Haw would have been gloating loud and long. Dismal failure, and Pathe News would have been gloating loud and long. We had a better sense of humour than the Germans.
Think of that glum looking Luftwaffe pilot who'd just gifted us a mint condition 'Butcher Bird', after confusing the British Channel with the English one. That clown even did a victory roll over the airfield, before lobbing in!

 

[Yarkshire Gamer]

Will some kind soul apply The KISS Principle, please?
If the raid did take place, was it as big a success as Johnny Frost and his lads, or a dismal failure?
My 'umble opinion is, if it was a stunning victory, Lord Haw-Haw would have been gloating loud and long. Dismal failure, and Pathe News would have been gloating loud and long. We had a better sense of humour than the Germans.
Think of that glum looking Luftwaffe pilot who'd just gifted us a mint condition 'Butcher Bird', after confusing the British Channel with the English one. That clown even did a victory roll over the airfield, before lobbing in!

 

The reasons for the raid may well come to light, as we discussed in the Podcast. Paul has an hypothesis which he is exploring.

I don't think the British would shout loud about defeating a raid, it would be a disaster for morale suggesting that German Forces were wandering around on the coast at will.

I don't think the Germans would shout it out either. If they were after British tech for example, they probably didn't get it, was their Intel wrong for example, that's not much of a story, we turned up, what we wanted wasn't there and we left empty handed !

As I've said previously on this thread and elsewhere ad nauseum, this is an ongoing investigation, the results of which are still coming in and this Podcast was an update on an ongoing enquiry and that's how it should be listened too.

Regards Ken

[Rick]

It's also worth pointing out that the multitude of spent 9mm cartridges were from fired live rounds, not blanks (Paul didn't explicitly say but I'm sure he'd have mentioned if they were blanks) so that would seem to rule out the exercise hypothesis as well as the 'dropping 'em down a chimney into a stove' hypothesis!
It's all rather interesting and I can't wait to find out what else they've turned up on the site.

[anevilgiraffe]

Will some kind soul apply The KISS Principle, please?
If the raid did take place, was it as big a success as Johnny Frost and his lads, or a dismal failure?
My 'umble opinion is, if it was a stunning victory, Lord Haw-Haw would have been gloating loud and long. Dismal failure, and Pathe News would have been gloating loud and long. We had a better sense of humour than the Germans.
Think of that glum looking Luftwaffe pilot who'd just gifted us a mint condition 'Butcher Bird', after confusing the British Channel with the English one. That clown even did a victory roll over the airfield, before lobbing in!

whats the British Channel? Google just comes up with the English Channel...

EDIT - Bristol Channel... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Faber