Stories, legends, myths: wood for wood

Today's story is linked to the Second World War and even now it's 100% sure it's not just a legend. It is a sample of British humor at a time when everyone was trying to survive in very difficult conditions. The protagonists are Royal Air Force aviators. But let's see what it's all about and what's the connection with wood.

During World War II, the Germans used to build fake targets everywhere from China to France, Belgium and the Netherlands. These targets could be warehouses, munitions factories, ships, truck parks and even airfields. For this part of the story there is no doubt that it is true because there is plenty of evidence to prove it.

All of these targets were built to mislead the enemy, to prevent them from estimating their strength and resources, or to make them waste their resources by bombing these fake targets. In this way a series of fake airfields were built in which were placed wooden copies, sometimes quite unsuccessful, of fighter planes and even fake control towers.

It is said that a group of English airmen, discovering such a fake airfield, decided to play a prank to show the Germans that they had caught on to the ruse and could not be fooled. They built fake bombs out of solid wood, wrote 'Wood for Wood' on them and dropped them one night on the fake airfield.

There are many who say it is impossible that this could have happened because there is no written evidence of the attack. Also, no commander would have accepted to risk the lives of his pilots just to make a joke and to give the German soldiers the slip.

But French researcher Pierre-Antoine Courouble has no doubt that this so-called attack was real, and has published a book entitled Wood for Wood - the Riddle of the Wooden Bombs. Courouble first heard the story in 1973 from his father. While they were traveling together, he told him that not far from the places they were passing had been an airfield during the war with wooden airplanes. Asked why wooden, his father told him about false targets, decoys for the enemy. He also mentioned that the airfield was never really bombed but only with wooden bombs.

Courouble was fascinated by the story and continually searched for evidence and witnesses to the story. He gathered enough material to publish his book in 2009. But a year later he managed to find a very important witness - a German lieutenant, Werner Thiel, who confirmed the whole story, having been on the airfield when it happened. He confirmed that he was there when 12 wooden bombs were dropped from British airplanes, which were marked "Wood for Wood".

When Courouble asked him what he was thinking in those moments, Thiel replied that he took it as a joke. Something along the lines of, "You're a bunch of fools. You built a fake airfield. We've seen it and it's not worth dropping real bombs. "Look how stupid you are. You build a dummy airfield. We saw it and it's not worth dropping a real bomb". Thiel also said he would have very much liked to have met the pilot who made the joke. Looking at the camera as he recorded the words, he said, "You fool," clinking an imaginary glass with the English pilot. Sadly, the following year Thiel died, leaving Couroube without enough time to find a survivor and from the other side of the "part„.

source: vintagewings.ca