Stories, legends, myths - "Wood for wood"

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

During the Second World War the Germans used to build dummy 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. There is plenty of evidence for it.

All these targets were built to mislead the enemy, so that they could not estimate their strength and resources or to make them waste their resources by bombing these false targets. Thus a series of false airfields were built in which wooden, sometimes rather unsuccessful, copies of fighter planes were placed

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 got it and could not be fooled. They built fake bombs out of solid wood, wrote "Wood for Wood" on them and dropped them on the fake airfield one night.

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

But French researcher Pierre-Antoine Courouble has no doubt that this so-called attack did take place, having published a book called Wood for Wood - the Riddle of the Wooden Bombs. Courouble first heard the story in 1973 from his father, who told him while they were travelling together that not far from where they were passing, there had been a wartime airfield with wooden planes. Asking why made of wood, his father told him about the false targets, decoys for the enemy. He also told him that the airfield had never really been bombed but only with wooden bombs.

Courouble has been fascinated by the story ever since and has continually searched for evidence and witnesses to the event. 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 and was on the airfield when it happened. He confirmed that he was there when 12 wooden bombs with the words "Wood for Wood" were dropped from British planes.

When Courouble asked him what he was thinking at the time, Thiel replied that he thought it was a joke. Something like: you're all 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 wished he had met the pilot who made the joke. Looking into the camera as he recorded these words, he said "Stupid" while clinking an imaginary glass with the British pilot. Sadly, the following year Thiel died giving Couroube no time to find a survivor from the other 'team'.

(source: vintagewings.ca)