WWII Innovations - Codebreaking, Radar, Espionage, New Bombs, and More

Part 6: WWII Innovation s - Codebreaking, Radar, Espionage, New Bombs, and More.

Part 7: WWII Innovations - Codebreaking, Radar, Espionage, New Bombs, and More.

Objective: How new innovations impacted the war, people in the war, and people after the war.

Assessment Goals: 1. Research and understand at least three of the innovations of WWII that made a difference on the war and after the war. (Learning Target 3)

2. Determine whether you think dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a wise decision or not. (Learning Target 2)

Resources: Resources in Binder (Video links, websites, and articles)

Note Graph (Create something similar in your notes):

Use this graph for researching innovations:

Innovation #1: ______Innovation #2: ______Innovation #3: ______(Specific notes about impact on war and after) (Specific notes about impact on war and after) (Specific notes about impact on war and after)

Use the graph on the next page to organize your research about the atomic bomb.

Evidence that dropping the bombs was wise: Evidence that dropping the bombs was not wise: (Include quotes, document citations, and (Include quotes, document citations, and statistics) statistics)

● ●

My position:

My overall thoughts about the choice to drop the bombs:

If I were a Japanese civilian, what would I have wanted to happen and why?

If I were a U.S. soldier, what would I have wanted to happen and why?

Resources: Part 7 - WW2 Innovations - Codebreaking, Radar, Espionage, New Bombs, and More.

Links: ● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hAzmh6XSr8 World War II Code Breaking Video Part 1 (There are more available on YouTube) ● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M7q44gVHIE Documentary about FDR and Espionage during WW2 ● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27AFh4aIBis Video highlighting types of technology used in WW2 to give ideas for further research ● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IqKdf6In_k Video about Manhattan Project, The Science ● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kFr5zTxsUM Documentary about the Manhattan Project ● http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-navajo-code-talkers.htm Interview with Navajo Code Talker Chester Nez ●

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/code_breaking/ More information about:Code breaking

Cryptography was used extensively during World War II, with a plethora of code and cipher systems fielded by the nations involved. In addition, the theoretical and practical aspects of cryptanalysis, or codebreaking, was much advanced. Probably the most important codebreaking event of the war was the successful decryption by the Allies of the German "Enigma" Cipher. The first complete break into Enigma was accomplished by Poland around 1932; the techniques and insights used were passed to the French and British Allies just before the outbreak of the War in 1939. They were substantially improved by British efforts at the Bletchley Park research station during the War. Decryption of the Enigma Cipher allowed the Allies to read important parts of German radio traffic on important networks and was an invaluable source of military intelligence throughout the War. Intelligence from this source (and other high level sources, including the Fish ciphers) was eventually called Ultra. A similar break into an important Japanese cipher (PURPLE) by the US Army Signals Intelligence Service started before the US entered the War. Product from this source was called MAGIC. It was the highest security Japanese diplomatic cipher.

World War II: Navajo Code Talkers http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-navajo-code-talkers.htm

As 1942 dawned, World War II was not going well for America and her Allies. Japanese carrier-borne bombers and fighters had crippled the U.S. Navy’s proud Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941; attacked American bases in the Philippines and on Guam; and were intent on seizing other island bases in the south and central Pacific. In Europe, France had fallen to Germany’s blitzkrieg, and stalwart Britain was still staggering from the Nazis’ relentless nighttime bombing during the previous year. Half a world away, two great British ships — the battleship Prince of Wales and battle cruiser Repulse — and members of their crews lay at the bottom of the sea off the coast of Malaya, unfortunate victims of Japanese bombing attacks on December 10, 1941. Meanwhile, Germany’s armies continued to advance methodically into the Soviet Union, while Hitler’s submarines wreaked havoc on supply convoys outbound to Russian ports from the United States. For the U.S. Armed Forces, communications, which had always been a complex issue, had now become a bewildering problem. Japanese cryptographers were proving themselves amazingly adept at breaking top secret military codes almost as rapidly as newer, more complicated procedures could be devised. Many of the Japanese code breakers had been educated in the United States where they had learned to speak English and had become familiar with American colloquialisms, including slang terms and profanity. As a result, American battle plans became known to the enemy almost immediately, often before they had become operational, and there appeared to be no immediate workable solution. The result was an appalling loss of American lives. One war analyst commented, ‘Military communications were made available to the enemy like sand sifting through a sieve.’ Some months before, Philip Johnston, a middle-aged civil engineer who lived in Los Angeles, read a newspaper article on military security. During World War I, he had served with U.S. forces in France, and although too old to fight in World War II, Johnston wanted to aid the current war effort in some way. From the age of four, he had lived on the Navajo Indian Reservation, where his parents were Protestant missionaries, and had consequently grown up speaking the Navajo tongue with his playmates. Now, as he read, the concept of a secret military code based on the Navajo language flashed across his mind. In February 1942, after formulating his idea, Johnston traveled south to Camp Elliott near San Diego, where he tried to convince Lieutenant Colonel James E. Jones, the Marines’ Signal Corps Communications Officer, that a code based on the Navajo language could not be broken by the enemy. Jones, after listening intently to Johnston’s idea, responded: ‘In all the history of warfare, that has never been done. No code, no cipher is completely secure from enemy interception. We change our codes frequently for this reason.’ But Johnston’s graphic presentation proved so convincing that the two men agreed to set up a test. Johnston’s confidence in his theory lay in the fact that the Navajo language includes a number of words that, when spoken with varying inflections, may have as many as four totally different meanings. Navajo verb forms are especially complex. To most listeners, the language is virtually incomprehensible and has been variously likened to the rumble of a moving freight train, the gurgling noises of a partially blocked sink drain, or, jokingly, the resonant thunder of an old-fashioned commode being flushed. As a result, use of the Navajo tongue was confined almost entirely to the reservation; few non-Navajos spoke or understood it. And it was a ‘hidden language,’ there not yet being an alphabet or written form for others to study. Returning to Los Angeles, Johnston spent nearly two weeks seeking bilingual Navajos from among that city’s population. On February 28, 1942, he returned to Camp Elliott with four Indians in order to prove their linguistic capability before a group of skeptical Marine staff officers. Sent in pairs to separate rooms, the first two Navajos were given a typical military field order to transmit in their own language to the others several doors away. When retranslated back into English, the message received by the second pair proved to be an accurate copy of the order as it was given. The Marines were amazed at the speed and accuracy of the interpretation, and the presentation was pronounced a complete success. Major General Clayton Vogel, Camp Elliott’s commanding officer, composed an urgent letter — supported by another from Johnston — describing the demonstration to the Marine Corps commandant in Washington, D.C., and urging the immediate recruitment of two hundred young, well-educated Navajos to serve as Marine communications specialists. After an agonizing delay, General Vogel was authorized by Washington to recruit just thirty Navajos for training in a trial project. The commandant of the Marine Corps, unwilling to risk turning over such a vital element of the war effort to a civilian and two hundred Navajo Indians, reasoned that if a program using the thirty men did not work out, the Marines would not have expended too much time and effort. By mid-April, Marine recruiting personnel appeared on the Navajo Reservation. They proceeded to enlist thirty volunteers from agency schools at Fort Wingate and Shiprock, New Mexico, and Fort Defiance, Arizona. In addition to being fluent in both the Navajo tongue and English, each enlistee had to be physically fit in order to serve as a messenger in combat. The Navajos were told only that they would be’specialists’ and would serve both in the United States and overseas. Some members of the group were underage, but as birth records were not usually kept on the reservation, it was easy for a recruit to lie or be mistaken about his age. Carl Gorman, a 36-year-old Navajo from Fort Defiance, was too old to be considered by the Marines, so he lied about his age in order to be accepted. For almost all of the Navajos, travel was a brand new experience. Some had never been off the reservation, and many had never ridden on a bus or train. The majority of them had never seen an ocean and did not realize that they would soon be a part of the ferocious war being fought in the middle of the Pacific. Several of the recruits’ families insisted that before leaving, their sons participate in a religious ceremony to pray for the young men’s safe return. The group of Navajos who reported for basic training at the San Diego Marine Corps Recruit Depot had never experienced any sort of military discipline, and several found it difficult to cope with their new lifestyle. Although now officially designated the 382nd Platoon, U.S. Marine Corps, at boot camp, the group was referred to as ‘The Navajo School.’ Following their basic training, the Navajo Marines were moved to Camp Pendleton at Oceanside, California, where their new officers were quick to realize that these young men were, in some ways, different from those with whom they were used to dealing. But the Navajos learned to march in cadence, obey orders, and keep their quarters scrupulously clean. On one occasion, during a dress parade on a particularly hot day, several non-Indian Marines passed out from the heat, while all of the Navajos, who hailed from the hot climate of the Southwest, remained erect in formation and stood at attention during the personal inspection that followed. One writer for the Marine Corps Chevron reported that ‘At present they’re a typical Marine outfit of budding specialists. They gripe about the things that all Marines gripe about — liberty, chow and the San Diego weather.’ In short, the Navajos were rapidly shaping up into excellent Leathernecks. At Camp Pendleton, the Navajos, in addition to their other duties, were required to devise a new Marine Corps military code which, when transmitted in their own language, would completely baffle their Japanese enemies. The code’s words had to be short, easy to learn, and quick to recall. After working long and hard on the project, the men devised a two-part code. The first part, a 26-letter phonetic alphabet, used Navajo names for 18 animals or birds, plus the words ice for I, nut for N, quiver for Q, Ute for U, victor for V, cross for X, yucca for Y, and zinc for Z. The second part consisted of a 211-word English vocabulary and the Navajo equivalents. This code, when compared with conventional Marine Corps codes, offered considerable savings in time, since the latter involved lengthy encoding and deciphering procedures by Signal Corps cryptographic personnel using sophisticated electronic equipment. Exactly how the Navajos did their job remained a mystery to many Marine Corps staff officers. However, their proficiency, both under training conditions and later in actual combat, proved that the Navajos were completely reliable and erased the initial distrust felt by some Marine officers. Several of the Navajos remained in California as instructors; two became recruiters; and one did not complete the course. The remainder of the original contingent reported for combat duty in August 1942 to Major General Alexander Vandegrift’s First Marine Division on Guadalcanal. The general became so impressed by the code talkers’ performance that he requisitioned Washington for 83 additional Navajos to be assigned to his division alone. By the time the Guadalcanal campaign ended that December, General Vandegrift had no doubt about the Navajos’ dependability. Meanwhile, a second, much larger contingent of Navajos had been recruited and sent to boot camp in San Diego. Following completion of their basic training, the men were assigned to the top-secret code-talker program at Camp Pendleton. By August 1943, nearly two hundred young Navajos had been trained at the camp. The staff sergeant in charge of the code-talker program there was Philip Johnston, who, although overage for duty with the Marines, had volunteered his services. In jungle combat in the Pacific, the Navajos’ innate strength, ingenuity, scouting and tracking ability, habitual Spartan lifestyle, and utter disregard for hardships stood them in remarkably good stead. At first utilized usually only at the company-battalion level, the Navajos became virtually indispensable as their capability and reliability were recognized. Frequently, and especially when a Marine regiment was fighting alongside an Army unit, the Navajos’ physical resemblance to the Japanese led to confusion that resulted in several Navajos almost becoming casualties of ‘friendly fire’ by their fellow-Americans. Many Navajos actually were captured and taken for interrogation. One such Navajo, William McCabe, was looking for something to eat while waiting on a Guadalcanal beach for his transport ship. ‘I got lost among the big chow dump,’ he recalled, ‘All of a sudden I heard somebody say, `Halt,’ and I kept walking. `Hey, you! Halt, or I’m gonna shoot!’. . . . [T]here was a big rifle all cocked and ready to shoot. I’m just from my outfit, I was coming here to get something to eat. And he said, `I think you’re a Jap. Just come with me.” After that incident, McCabe was accompanied by a non-Navajo at all times. On the eve of the First Marine Division’s departure for the island of Okinawa, which was expected to be the bloodiest landing of the Pacific War thus far, the Navajos performed a sacred ceremonial dance that invoked their deities’ blessings and protection for themselves and their fellow Americans. They prayed that their enemies’ resistance might prove weak and ineffectual. Some of their non-Indian buddies, standing on the sidelines, scoffed at the whole idea. When Ernie Pyle, the famed Scripps-Howard war correspondent, reported the story afterward, he noted that the landings on Okinawa beach had indeed proved much easier than had been anticipated and noted that several of the Navajos were quick to point this out to the skeptics in their units. Farther inland, however, Japanese resistance stiffened, almost slowing the American advance to a halt. As might be expected, a Navajo was asked by another Marine with whom he shared a foxhole what he thought of his prayers now. ‘This,’ the Navajo replied, ‘is completely different. We only prayed for help during the landings.’ Eventually, Navajo code talkers served with all six Marine divisions in the Pacific and with Marine Raider and parachute units as well. Praise for their work became lavish and virtually endless as they participated in major Marine assaults on the Solomons, the Marianas, Peleliu, and Iwo Jima. Commenting on the Marines’ Iwo Jima landing, Major Howard Conner, the Fifth Marine Division’s Signal Officer, said that ‘The entire operation was directed by Navajo code. . . . During the two days that followed the initial landings I had six Navajo radio nets working around the clock. . . . They sent and received over 800 messages without an error. Were it not for the Navajo Code Talkers, the Marines never would have taken Iwo Jima.’ On an August evening in 1945, the Navajos were, quite naturally, among the first to receive the news that everyone had been waiting to hear. After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki three days later, Emperor Hirohito had urged the Japanese nation to ‘endure the unendurable’ of surrender. The war was over. In all, 421 Navajos had completed wartime training at Camp Pendleton’s code talker school, and most had been assigned to combat units overseas. Following Japan’s formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, several code talkers volunteered for duty with U.S. occupation forces in Japan. Others were sent to China for duty with American Marines there. One code talker, Willson Price, remained in the Marine Corps for thirty years, finally retiring in 1972. Several months elapsed before the first Navajos returned from the Pacific to their homes. For most of the returning heroes, their homecoming initiated a round of family reunions and purification rites, traditional dances, and curing ceremonies, all coupled with their mothers’ thankful prayers for their sons’ return, safe in both body and mind. These ages-old Navajo religious rites had originally been adopted to protect returnees from any harmful or toxic influences they might have encountered or duties they had been forced to perform while away from the reservation. But there was surprisingly little evidence of serious psychological problems or combat fatigue among the returning Navajo veterans. For many of them, however, returning to reservation life proved difficult after their years away. They missed the excitement, the challenges, and especially the privileges they had grown accustomed to in the service. Some of the men rejoined the same Bureau of Indian Affairs’ high school classes from which they had originally been recruited. Others enrolled in various colleges or universities under the G.I. Bill. For Teddy Draper, Sr., on occupational duty in Japan, there was no such immediate problem. During his off-duty hours, he learned to speak Japanese so well that he eventually served as an interpreter. He later commented: ‘When I was going to boarding school [before the war], the U.S. government told us not to speak Navajo, but during the war, they wanted us to speak it!’ He remembered thinking that ‘if I can get back to the reservation safely, I want to become a Navajo language teacher and educate young Navajos.’ His wartime training had given him new insight into modern teaching methods, which he later used to teach other Navajos at home. But for most of the men who wished to marry and raise families, there were severe problems. Jobs were scarce; in fact, there were none to be had on the reservation. Many banks refused to make G.I. loans even to honorably discharged veterans because Navajo families held their reservation land parcels in trust and had no proof of title. The men felt, with considerable justification, that it was a shameful way for their government to treat them. But, as one veteran code talker remarked, ‘We’ve faced difficult situations before, and tough trails have never defeated us! Somehow the Navajos survived.’ Almost a quarter of a century elapsed before the Fourth Marine Division honored its Navajo code talkers at its June 1969 annual reunion in Chicago. An attractive medallion, struck by the Franklin Mint in commemoration of their services, was presented to each of the group of twenty veteran code talkers who had flown to Chicago for the occasion. To show its appreciation, the division entertained the men in sumptuous style, and the Navajos, many dressed in their best tribal regalia, marched with the Fourth Marines down Michigan Avenue. Today, a few veteran code talkers still take part in holiday parades, though some must now ride in open convertibles. Several code talkers have held the Navajo Nation’s top executive positions, both as chairman and vice-chairman, while others served on its Tribal Council. Fittingly enough, the men also have their own fraternity — the Navajo Code Talkers’ Association — which meets regularly at Window Rock, Arizona, the Navajo Nation’s capital. In December 1971, President Richard M. Nixon presented the Navajo code talkers with a certificate of appreciation from the nation, thanking them for their ‘patriotism, resourcefulness, and courage.’ Those brave veterans had given the Marine Corps its only unbreakable means of battlefield communication, saving thousands of American lives in the process. A Japanese general admitted after World War II that the most highly skilled Japanese cryptographers had not been able to decipher the Marines’ messages. After being informed that it was a code based on a Native American language, he said: ‘Thank you, that is a puzzle I thought would never be solved.’ ...

This article was written by William R. Wilsont and originally published in the February 1997 issue of American History Magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today!

http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-alan-turing-cracked-the-enigma-code

How Alan Turing Cracked The Enigma Code

Until the release of the Oscar-nominated film The Imitation Game in 2014, the name ‘Alan Turing’ was not very widely known. But Turing’s work during the Second World War was so crucial that Winston Churchill acknowledged his role, saying that Turing made the single biggest contribution to Allied victory. Who was Turing and what did he do that was so important?

Mathematician

Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician. Born in London in 1912, he studied at both Cambridge and Princeton universities. He was already working part-time for the British Government’s Code and Cypher School before the Second World War broke out. In 1939, Turing took up a full-time role at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire – where top secret work was carried out to decipher the military codes used by Germany and its allies.

Enigma and the Bombe

The main focus of Turing’s work at Bletchley was in cracking the ‘Enigma’ code. The Enigma was a type of enciphering machine used by the German armed forces to send messages securely. Although Polish mathematicians had worked out how to read Enigma messages and had shared this information with the British, the Germans increased its security at the outbreak of war by changing the cipher system daily. This made the task of understanding the code even more difficult.

Turing played a key role in this, inventing – along with fellow code-breaker Gordon Welchman – a machine known as the Bombe. This device helped to significantly reduce the work of the code-breakers. From mid-1940, German Air Force signals were being read at Bletchley and the intelligence gained from them was helping the war effort.

Hut 8, Bletchley Park

Turing also worked to decrypt the more complex German naval communications that had defeated many others at Bletchley. German U-boats were inflicting heavy losses on Allied shipping and the need to understand their signals was crucial. With the help of captured Enigma material, and Turing’s work in developing a technique he called 'Banburismus', the naval Enigma messages were able to be read from 1941.

He headed the ‘Hut 8’ team at Bletchley, which carried out cryptanalysis of all German naval signals. This meant that – apart from during a period in 1942 when the code became unreadable – Allied convoys could be directed away from the U-boat 'wolf-packs'. Turing’s role was pivotal in helping the Allies during the Battle of the Atlantic.

Turingery and Delilah

In July 1942, Turing developed a complex code-breaking technique he named ‘Turingery’. This method fed into work by others at Bletchley in understanding the ‘Lorenz’ cipher machine. Lorenz enciphered German strategic messages of high importance: the ability of Bletchley to read these contributed greatly to the Allied war effort.

Turing travelled to the United States in December 1942, to advise US military intelligence in the use of Bombe machines and to share his knowledge of Enigma. Whilst there, he also saw the latest American progress on a top secret speech enciphering system. Turing returned to Bletchley in March 1943, where he continued his work in cryptanalysis. Later in the war, he developed a speech scrambling device which he named ‘Delilah’. In 1945, Turing was awarded an OBE for his wartime work.

The Universal Turing Machine

In 1936, Turing had invented a hypothetical computing device that came to be known as the ‘universal Turing machine’. After the Second World War ended, he continued his research in this area, building on his earlier work and incorporating all he'd learnt during the war. Whilst working for the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), Turing published a design for the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine), which was arguably the forerunner to the modern computer. The ACE project was not taken forward, however, and he later left the NPL.

Legacy

In 1952, Alan Turing was arrested for homosexuality – which was then illegal in Britain. He was found guilty of ‘gross indecency’ (this conviction was overturned in 2013) but avoided a prison sentence by accepting chemical castration. In 1954, he was found dead from cyanide poisoning. An inquest ruled that it was suicide.

The legacy of Alan Turing’s life and work did not fully come to light until long after his death. His impact on computer science has been widely acknowledged: the annual ‘Turing Award’ has been the highest accolade in that industry since 1966. But the work of Bletchley Park – and Turing’s role there in cracking the Enigma code – was kept secret until the 1970s, and the full story was not known until the 1990s. It has been estimated that the efforts of Turing and his fellow code-breakers shortened the war by several years. What is certain is that they saved countless lives and helped to determine the course and outcome of the conflict.

5 FAMOUS WWII COVERT OPERATIONS http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/5-famous-wwii-covert-operations

From the spy that never was to a band of Nazi impostors, learn the stories behind five of the boldest and most bizarre special operations carried out during World War II.

OPERATION MINCEMEAT In April 1943, the waterlogged corpse of a British Royal Marine was found floating off the coast of Spain. The dead Brit had a suspicious-looking attaché case chained to his wrist, and this soon caught the attention of the Germans, who colluded with pro-Nazi elements in the Spanish military to surreptitiously gain access to its contents. Inside they found a shocking letter to a British officer in Tunisia outlining a secret Allied scheme to stage an invasion of Sardinia and Greece in the coming weeks.

The dead man’s documents would have been a major intelligence coup for the Nazis, if not for one small issue: they were all fakes. As part of a plan dubbed “Operation Mincemeat,” British spymasters had dressed the body of a deceased tramp in the guise of a fictitious Allied courier named William Martin. After the corpse’s briefcase was stuffed with phony military plans, a Royal Navy submarine secretly deposited the body off Spain in the hope that it might hoodwink the Nazis. The result was the perfect con: not only did the Germans intercept what they believed to be crucial information about where the Allies would attack the Mediterranean, they were convinced they had done so without tipping off the British. Duped by Operation Mincemeat’s bogus intelligence, Hitler diverted tank divisions and other personnel to Greece, only to be caught off guard in July 1943, when the Allies instead invaded Sicily and Italy with some 160,000 troops.

OPERATION EICHE Also known as the “Gran Sasso Raid,” 1943’s Operation Eiche saw a team of German commandos pull off the daring rescue of none other than Benito Mussolini. The mission came in the wake of the Allied invasion of Italy, which had resulted in the fascist dictator being expelled from office and arrested by the king of Italy. Concerned that Mussolini was crucial to keeping Italy in the war, Adolf Hitler ordered Waffen SS officer Otto Skorzeny to free “Il Duce” before he could be handed over to the Allies as part of a peace deal. After several false starts and dead ends, Skorzeny and his team tracked Mussolini to the Hotel Campo Imperatore, a ski resort situated on a remote mountaintop in the Apennine range.

With no easy way to reach the resort from the ground, Skorzeny opted for a risky aerial attack. On September 12, 1943, he and a team of commandos made a silent descent on the mountain in twelve gliders and stormed the hotel, easily overwhelming the bewildered Italian guards. After destroying the post’s radio equipment, the commandos located a much-relieved Mussolini, who supposedly exclaimed, “I knew my friend Adolf Hitler would not leave me in the lurch!” Desperate to make his getaway before reinforcements could arrive, Skorzeny convinced one of his support aircraft to make a precarious landing on the rugged mountaintop and then personally escorted Mussolini to safety in Austria. The dictator went on to spend several months as a puppet leader in northern Italy before partisan forces finally captured and killed him in April 1945.

OPERATION GUNNERSIDE The little-known Operation Gunnerside began in February 1943, when a small team of British-trained Norwegian exiles parachuted onto a frozen plateau near the Norsk Hydro Vemork plant in Norway. At the time, the Nazi-controlled site was the world’s only significant producer of heavy water—a substance crucial to the development of atomic weapons. The plant had already allowed the Germans to make progress in their atomic research, and Winston Churchill and the Allies were desperate to deny the Nazis any chance at developing an atom bomb.

On the night of February 27, the Norwegian commandos skied to the Norsk Hydro site, descended a gorge, forded an icy stream and made a perilous climb to the outskirts of Vemork. After bypassing German sentries and minefields, the men entered the plant through a cable duct and planted explosive charges on the heavy water chambers. As the crew made their getaway, the bombs detonated and successfully destroyed the facility. Operation Gunnerside only crippled German heavy water production for some six months, but it wasn’t the last Norwegian act of sabotage against German atomic research. In February 1944, resistance agents used explosives to sink a boat as it tried to ferry a large supply of heavy water to Germany.

OPERATION GREIF During the early stages of December 1944’s Battle of the Bulge, Adolf Hitler dispatched commando leader Otto Skorzeny—already famous for his September 1943 rescue of Benito Mussolini—on a secret mission to wreak havoc on Allied communications and morale. As part of “Operation Greif,” Skorzeny disguised a small collection of English-speaking Germans in captured American uniforms, provided them with forged U.S. Army documents and sent them on an undercover mission behind enemy lines. In a matter of days, the sham soldiers had successfully directed tank and convoy traffic down the wrong roads, destroyed ammunition dumps, switched road signs and destroyed telephone lines—all right under the Allies’ noses.

While Skorzeny’s commandos failed to achieve any significant military objectives, their hijinks were successful in inciting confusion and panic within the American ranks. As word of the phony troops spread, American soldiers set up checkpoints along major roads and began quizzing their fellow G.I.s on baseball and pop culture in the hope of outing the impostors. The security stops only heightened the chaos. Many Allied troops were briefly arrested or detained, and operations briefly ground to a halt. When a few of the Germans were captured in the dragnet, they kept up the ruse by claiming a commando team was en route to Paris to murder General Dwight D. Eisenhower. As a result, the Allied commander was briefly kept under house arrest to protect him from would-be assassins. Skorzeny’s remaining commandos finally withdrew from behind enemy lines in late December after the Nazi offensive stalled, but the Allies’ would continue their frantic search for German impostors for several more months.

OPERATION FORTITUDE SOUTH D-Day was one of the largest land invasions in military history, but it was preceded by an equally elaborate campaign of subterfuge known as Operation Fortitude South. Spearheaded by the British, Fortitude South was a ruse designed to deceive the Germans into thinking the Allies would make landfall in France at the Pas de Calais instead of Normandy. To help sell the con, the Allies created a fictitious invasion force known as the “First U.S. Army Group” and fed the Germans phony intelligence suggesting the phantom army would lead a charge on the Pas de Calais. Operatives used inflatable tanks, wooden airplanes and dummy fuel depots to trick reconnaissance pilots into believing that the First U.S. Army Group was assembled in Kent, England—the most likely staging ground for an attack on the Pas de Calais. To top it all off, they even placed the much-feared General George Patton in charge of the fake army to lend it an additional air of authenticity.

Operation Fortitude South continued even after the Allies launched their invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Aircraft focused many of their bombing runs on the Pas de Calais instead of Normandy, and double agents worked to convince the Germans that the D-Day invasion was merely a feint designed to screen a second, larger offensive from the south. The swarm of contradictory reports, bluffs and misdirects ultimately had their intended effect. When the Allies stormed the beaches at Normandy, the Germans had a large concentration of troops languishing at the Pas de Calais, waiting for an assault that never came.

● Author ● 5 Famous WWII Covert ● Publisher ● Evan Andrews Operations ● A+E Networks ● Website Name ● URL ● History.com ● http://www.history.com/news/hist ● Year Published ory-lists/5-famous-wwii-covert-op ● 2014 erations This copy is for your personal, ● Title ● Access Date non-commercial use only. ● December 23, 2016 © 2016, A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

8 groundbreaking and lifesaving technologies from World War II http://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/8-ground-breaking-and-life-saving-technologies-from-world-war-ii-11363989109925 From radar to Nylon, we celebrate the innovations that remain with us more than 70 years after the end of the Second World War.

By Chris Smith Last updated: 13 December 2016, 13:45 GMT

Military needs often end up pushing and pioneering technological innovation. That was as true in World War II as it is today. Here are some of enduring inventions that came to the fore during the conflict and eventually trickled down to consumers in one form or another.

The programmable computer

Before the war, Alan Turing had a vision for a Universal Machine which could be pre programmed to do anything. His singlepurpose Bombe machine, which deciphered the Enigma code, was a precursor, but didn’t yet fulfil the criteria.

However, the followup machine Colossus (above) was both programmable and electronic. The machine, designed by GPO engineer Tommy Flowers at Bletchley Park, was used to crack the more advanced Lorenz cipher was and allowed the allies to decode the highest level of German communications. It was fully operational by the time of the DDay landings in 1944 and played a vital role in confirming German forces has swallowed the allies’ planted misinformation ahead of the landings.

Many of Colossus's components were made in the GPO Research Station in Dollis Hill, where Flowers had worked since 1926.

When the war had ended Flowers got invovled in making the first allelectronic telephone exchange in Europe, the Highgate Wood exchange.

The Slinky

One of the world’s most popular and enduring toys was invented by accident during World War 2 by U.S. Naval Engineer Richard James in 1943. He was attempting to discover how springs could be used to keep important and expensive equipment safe at sea, when he dropped a torsion spring and noted its peculiar walk. A few postwar tweaks here and there would result in 250 million Slinky sales by the end of the 20th century.

Penicillin

Discovered in 1928 by Sir Alexander Fleming (above), Penicillin only came to the fore during WW2, when it was mass produced as a means of treating infections. The antibiotic was found to be especially effective against gangrene, saving limbs and lives, and by 1945, 650 billion units a month were being produced.

Aerosol can

The modern spray can was invented by Americans Lyle Goodhue and William Sullivan. The ‘Bug Bomb,’ named for its distinctive shape, helped to save thousands of British and American soldiers from malariacarrying mosquitos during a campaign in the Philippines. Now 14yearold boys everywhere are using cans to repel the opposite sex just as effectively.

Nylon

Another prewar development to come into its own during WW2 was the ‘miracle fibre’ nylon. The Du Pont chemical company invented this strongerthansilk material in 1935 and it soon became wildly popular as an alternative to the more expensive silk undergarments.

However in 1941 the US military soon commandeered supplies to manufacture parachutes, tents, rope and more. Women were even encouraged to give up their stockings to aid the war effort and there were riots when rations ended in 1945.

Jet engines

The world’s fully operational first plane to carry a jet engine, the Heinkel He 178, took flight in August 1939.

1943 aerosol advert

It was developed and designed by German physicist Hans von Ohain. The tech continued to improve on both sides of the conflict, but jet planes were largely unused during the war due to high fuel consumption and lack of speed of early models.

Pressurised aircraft cabins

In 1944 the United States sent the B29 Superfortress airborne with the first ever mass produced system for regulating air pressure, which helped combat hypoxia and altitude sickness among other ailments.

1938’s Boeing 307 Stratoliner had the distinction of being the first to debut the tech, but only 10 were ever made. After the war, this would roll out to passenger planes, allowing us all to fly with relative comfort.

Radar

The first radar (Radio Detection and Ranging) technology was developed in the 1930s by Robert Watson Watt and Arnold Wilkins, as the threat of aerial bombardment became very real.

During WW2 it would indeed become critical. Historians say the Battle of Britain may have been decided by the British reliance on its radar defense systems, and Germany’s decision to focus on bombing cities, rather than taking out the stations along the coastline.

As a result, Britain was able to spot German bombers while they were up to 100 miles away, focus their smaller aerial forces and evenup the numerical disadvantage.

Supporting information from BTArchives. Photo credits: Slinky ad 1946 by Source via Wikipedia, Aerosol 1943" by USDA, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Is there any type of miltary or historical technology you'd like to know more about or that you think we need to cover on BT.com? Let us know in the Comments box below.

Overview Section 1 www.AtomicBombMuseum.org/1_overview.shtml

In just one second on August 6, 1945, the world was changed forever. Since 1942, a secret U.S. weapons program, called the Manhattan Project, had been at work on two revolutionary bombs of such intense heat and explosive force that they would reduce the two target cities—Hiroshima and Nagasaki—to vast scorched wastelands. But it was the bombs’ radioactivity, which remained deadly long after the debris settled and the smoke cleared, that changed our world forever.

The Hiroshima bomb was exploded at a height of 580 meters (1,870 ft.) for maximum effect. The bomb’s explosive force immediately impacted the earth directly below (ground zero), spread swiftly out to surrounding hills, and then rebounded back into the city. A housetop weathervane later found pointing toward the city center testified starkly to the rebounding force.

I don’t believe anyone ever expected to see a sight quite like that. Where we had seen a clear city two minutes before, we could no longer see the city at all.—Enola Gay co-pilot Bob Lewis, postwar interview.

The energy release of the Hiroshima bomb was the equivalent of 12.5 kilotons of TNT. At burst point, the temperature reached several million degrees Centigrade. This heat was 35% of the bomb’s total energy release. Hiroshima’s resident-plus-temporarily present population at that time, is estimated at 340,000–350,000.

Then a tremendous flash of light cut across the sky. It seemed like a massive sheet of sunlight.— Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, in John Hersey’s Hiroshima.

The Nagasaki bomb was exploded at a height of 503 meters (1,540 ft.) above a densely populated valley just north of the city’s center. Here, too, the explosive force and heat instantly impacted ground zero, swept out to the hills and back. Its destructive heat and force exceeded that of Hiroshima. The combined resident-plus- temporarily present population total for Nagasaki on the bombing date is estimated at 260,000–270,000.

There was a blinding white flash of light, and the next moment—BOOM! CRACK! A huge impact like a gigantic blow smote down our bodies, our heads, our hospitals. —Dr. Tatsuichiro Akizuki, Franciscan Tuberculosis Hospital, Nagasaki

The initial burst of both bombs took only “an unspeakable second,” and their explosive energy was fully spent in about 10 seconds, though the destructive effects were overpowering for days and weeks, and lingering damages to human bodies persisted for years.

Especially serious was the radioactive fallout that ranged over each city and many miles beyond. Radioactive elements (isotopes), besides direct damage to external tissues, were taken into human bodies by inhalation. The radioactivity also contaminated food and water supplies, thus affecting the people’s blood and vital organs, as well as compounding injuries caused by burns, blast, and falling structures.

The Bombings

THE ROAD TO “MANHATTAN”

The U.S. had been at war with Japan since the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the day Japan also bombed Manila and took control of the Philippines. By mid-1942, Japanese forces had gained control of all East Asia, most of Southeast Asia, and half the Pacific area—altogether, approximately 1/6 of the earth’s surface.

Thus, no offensive bombing of Japan proper could be launched until Japanese island bases in the Pacific could be taken and airfields built to accommodate the large B-29s. Except for a daring raid from China on western Japan in April 1942, Japan’s skies remained free of U.S. bombers until June 1944. And Japan’s major cities—Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, etc.—were still out of range from the Pacific-based bombers.

Meanwhile, from 1942 the U.S. pursued a radically new wartime course: development of a two bombs using radioactive materials with explosive force and long-term effects far beyond anything yet known or experienced. The overall effort was named the Manhattan Project.

This project for developing the world’s first atomic weapons began on a $2 million budget, with a twin project to build 2,000 of the B-29 superfortress bombers at an eventual cost of $3 billion—at the time, the largest-ever U.S. military budgets.

By early 1945, however, a major U.S. naval victory at Midway Island opened the way to U.S. control of the Marianna Islands of Guam, Saipan, and Tinian, only 1,300 miles from Tokyo—that is, close enough for the B- 29s to reach Japan proper and return. Soon the largest-ever military airfields were constructed on these islands.

The B-29 was first used for day-time, high-altitude precision bombing of Germany’s munitions industries. But for Japan, Gen. Curtis Le May changed from daytime, high-altitude precision raids with high-explosive bombs (that had served well in Germany) to low-altitude, nighttime, carpet-bombing with thousands of incendiary (fire) bombs.

Opening round: Tokyo

Throughout the night of March 9-10, 1945, flying in streams 400-miles long, a fleet of 334 B-29s fire- bombed central Tokyo for nearly three hours. Within 30 minutes of the first bomb, fires were burning out of control, embroiling the city’s center in a firestorm with temperatures reaching 1,000° C (1,899° F), hot enough to cause water to boil in canals and fire-safety cisterns. Over 100,000 people—men, women, and children— perished and a million were injured, 41,000 seriously. Another million were made homeless in the scorched capital wasteland.

The Tokyo raid was followed by similar bombings of Nagoya (March 11), Osaka (March 13), and Kobe (March 16). Thus, in eight days, with 1,600 sorties, LeMay’s air force burned out 32 square miles of the centers of Japan four largest cities, killing at least 150,000 people, though probably tens of thousands more. In April, LeMay wrote privately to his commanding general, “I consider that for the first time, strategic air bombardment (shows) that destruction of Japan’s ability to wage war lies within the capability of this command.” LeMay had found, says historian Richard Rhodes, a method “whereby the Air Force might end the Pacific War without (an) invasion.”

These four raids initiated a five-month bombing of Japan’s main islands. Waves of B-29s destroyed over half the total area of 66 urban centers, reducing 178 square miles to ashes. This March-July fire-bombing campaign is estimated to have taken more civilian lives than the half-million killed during five years of Allied bombing of Germany.

*U.S. map of Japan, indicating the 66 cities (Smithsonian)

This map of Japan shows the principal industrial cities that were burned out by incendiary attacks. Figures indicate what percent of a city was destroyed. For comparison, each city is paired with a U.S. city of comparable population size. Yokohama (57.6%) and Kobe (55.7%) appear to have been the most devastated

Meantime, by spring of 1945, U.S. submarines had destroyed Japan’s merchant marine, and isolated the country by mining its harbors and coastal waters. Thus, by early summer, virtually all shipping, manufacturing, transportation, and food distribution had ground to a halt.

In such dire circumstances, one faction of Japan’s central war council pushed for surrender, while a “fight to the finish” faction resisted. Meantime, the U.S. was readying a knockout punch with a new weapon of unprecedented power. Just one such bomb would surpass all the incendiary bombing of Tokyo.

TIMETABLE: Fire-bombing of Japan, March 9-10 and July 1 to August 14, 1945

Destructive Effects

Section 1 www.AtomicBombMuseum.org/3_radioactivity.shtml Major energy forms:

The major explosive energy forms that dominate research and reports on the atomic bombings are three:

Fireball: air absorbs heat, swells to a fireball with a 50-ft. radius and a temperature of 300,000 degrees C. Shock Wave + Air Blast: 50% of total energy Radioactivity: two kinds. initial radiation (explained above), and induced radiation (also called “residual radiation”).

Of these three energy forms, the most radically different, and most deadly over time, was the high level of radioactivity.

A deadly new threat: radioactivity

1. “Black rain” The Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions yielded some 200 different kinds of radioactive isotopes, that is, nuclear fission particles of uranium and plutonium that escaped fission. Following the explosions, these and other materials irradiated by neutrons from the bomb, were carried high into the atmosphere.

The mixing of enormous amounts of airborne irradiated materials combined with heat and thermal currents from the firestorms led to rainfall in both cities within 30-40 minutes of the bombings. As the fallout particles were mixed with carbon residue from citywide fires, the result was the awesome—and injurious— “black rain.”

This “black rain” reached ground level as sticky, dark, dangerously radioactive water. It not only stained skin, clothing, and buildings, but also was ingested by breathing and by consumption of contaminated food or water, causing radiation poisoning.

2. Initial radiation from the bombs About 3% of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs’ energy was spent in generating ionizing radiation— high-energy particles and rays with enough energy to “ionize” neutral atoms, i.e., strip electrons away from them. Some of this ionized radiation was absorbed by the air, but neutrons (electrically neutral sub-atomic particles) and gamma and X-rays (extremely high energy forms of light) did reach the ground, and these rays damaged exposed living tissues. Close to ground zero of both explosions, dosages were high enough to be immediately lethal for persons not already killed by flash, blast, or fire.

3. Induced radioactivity Initial bursts of radiation from the two bombs also created induced or residual radioactivity. Soil and other materials were irradiated in the blast areas. Absorption of “slow neutrons” by all kinds of substances caused the creation of new isotopes that then emitted ionizing radiation.

Japanese physicists examining the areas near ground zero in Hiroshima found unusually high levels of radioactivity in the soil, in the bones of a horse, and even in the sulphur content of electrical insulators on telephone poles. Eventually, a variety of unusual radioactive elements were found in soil, roofing tiles, asphalt, and concrete near ground zero in the two cities. There were many instances of radiation effects on animals and plants.

4.Radioactivity and living tissue Living tissue may be exposed to ionizing radiation directly (emitted by explosion) or by exposure to, or ingestion of, fallout matter that emits residual radiation. The danger is the same either way.

Key: Ionizing radiation transforms a neutral atom into a charged atom that may bond to another atom, altering (i) the structure of the original molecule, (ii) the way it reacts chemically, and (iii) the function it performs when part of a living organism. The altered molecules may act as poisons, hindering the normal functions of the cells of which they are a part.

After the Bomb

Section 1 www.AtomicBombMuseum.org/4_survivors.shtml

THE SURVIVORS

1. How many survived?

A broad accounting of survivors takes into account several groups: (1) directly exposed persons (primary victims), (2) fetuses exposed in their mothers’ wombs, (3) indirectly exposed persons affected by residual radiation (secondary victims), including (4) early entrants into the two cities and (5) fallout victims in areas where the “black rain” fell. Besides these, “victims” included another large group: (6) “others affected” (tertiary victims) by loss of spouse, close relatives, and housing and household furnishings.

While it is impossible to tally all who fall within these various groupings, a national survey of October 1950 gives a national survivor total of 283,508, with 158,597 for Hiroshima, 124,167 for Nagasaki, and 10 persons who experienced both bombings.

Of Hiroshima’s survivors, 79 percent lived in Hiroshima Prefecture, of whom 98,102 (79%) resided in Hiroshima City. Comparable figures for Nagasaki survivors were 111,294 (89%) in its prefecture, with 96,582 (77%) living in the city.

Another useful accounting of survivors is those treated under the A-bomb Victims Medical Care Law (1957), which showed a gradual increase in those treated.

2. Physical and mental suffering

Survivors suffered a wide variety of physical complaints and symptoms, as shown in a chart based on 1953 data.

Main disorders detected by periodic health examinations of 11,470 ambulatory

A-bomb survivors, as of 1971, are shown in Table 27.

The number of patients with serious diseases hospitalized in Hiroshima A-bomb Hospital in the period 1956–65 was 2,259, and over the years to 1974 the grand total was 5.350 (yearly average: 296). These cases covered a wide range of malignancies and various blood, endocrinological, digestive, cardiovascular, respiratory, neurological and renal diseases, as well as motor dysfunctions and sequelae due to foreign matter.

3. Marked forever

“The fate of all survivors is to live with the stigma that the atomic bomb stamped permanent marks on their minds and bodies.”

It imposed on them an abhorrent lifelong burden, one to live with yet try to overcome. One way of dealing with this burden was to write one’s own personal testimony about trying to get on with life.

I hated for people to stare at me.... Yet, every nerve in my body was attuned to the outside world; and to avoid even the slightest sinister look, I walked with a rigid on-guard posture.... Even so, I secluded myself at home and spent hours before the mirror, looking at my own face. What I saw was ugly hunks of flesh, like lava oozing from a crater wall, covering the left half of my face, with the eyebrow burned off and my eye pulled out of shape. My neck was pulled over to one side, and however much I tried to straighten it out, it wouldn’t move back to the normal position. (Nakayama Shiro, Shi no kage

[The Shadow of Death])

A boy in my class was burned by the flash; The hair was gone from half his head, It was slick as glass.

A younger student in a lower grade Was called “tempura, tempura” by all; He covered his face with one hand As he ran down he hall. Someday they’ll grow up, and . . . I thought,

What will it be like then? (“Tempura” is deep-fried fish or vegetables)

* Both quotes from Impact, p. 152-53

4. Breakdown of families

Life differed somewhat in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki according to one’s residence or physical presence at bombing times, whether city center or surrounding zones. A main concern for all was the rupture of household bonds due to loss of members, and also whether one’s residence was burned or demolished. Loss of parents or other household heads left both “A-bomb orphans” and “the orphaned elderly.”

5. A-bomb Orphans

It is not clear how many A-bomb orphans were in either city. People involved in helping some of them in Hiroshima reported “6,500 orphans” following the bombing. Estimates based on evacuation data (most children had been sent to the countryside during wartime) indicate between 4,000 and 5,000 orphans in Hiroshima. Records for Nagasaki are especially scarce. Some schools reported registered pupils without known living parents, yet many cried and called for their mothers.

The care of orphans wandering and loitering in the city, as well as those left in countryside evacuation sites, became an urgent problem. Teachers and Buddhists in Hiroshima took the lead in helping them in that city; in Nagasaki, the Roman Catholics made stellar efforts in the care of A-bomb orphans. Then in 1949, programs for financial support of some as “adopted” foster children was initiated by Norman Cousins in the U.S., and from 1952 by Arata Osada in Japan.

For teenagers in Hiroshima, Professor and Mrs. Seiichi Nakano formed the support group called Ayumi (“Moving on”) to provide counsel and support for these A-bomb orphans. Even so, many were beyond these helping hands; and while some managed to get along well in life, not a few succumbed to delinquency, sickness, and even suicide.

Fortunately, this population group decreased over time; unlike the next, which increased as time passed.

6. The orphaned elderly

Thousands of older persons, whether they suffered the atomic bombings or escaped them by being evacuated to the countryside, lost spouses and children and thus had no one to depend upon. Their numbers increased with the passage of postwar years.

An October 1960 survey of A-bomb victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed that victims age 70 and over were 6.6% of Hiroshima’s population and 5.8% of Nagasaki’s. The aged groups as a whole were only 1.4% in Hiroshima and 1.3% in Nagasaki. Some had employment or were self-employed; but many were without income sources. And many suffered illness or disability.

Of 31 suicides by A-bomb survivors nationwide in the five-year period 1970–75, Hiroshima Prefecture claimed 25, of whom 8 were orphaned elderly victims, for whom illness was the major motive.