What is Digg?56 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+37 Baldrick: I have a plan, sir.
Blackadder: Really, Baldrick. A cunning and subtle one?
Baldrick: Yes, sir.
Blackadder: As cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?
Baldrick: Yes, sir. - ramaz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+34Great piece of history.
- SteelChicken, on 10/12/2007, -1/+25503- the server that never was.
- AntBing, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23Yea, because I'm sure no countries are using spies and counter-intelligence anymore.
- FarcicalFart, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19DamnInteresting always has great stories and content.
- ExSlashdotter, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15"es ist eine falle!"
- drmangrum, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18fighting wars is easy.
It's stopping them that's hard. - aratika, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Children, gather round...for this is the story of one dead man with more courage than a thousand live Digg Hippies....
- SigKreator, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14The Nazi officials had specialists on every field, they were not dumb. To pull something like this successfully on them...
...I can say that the Allies did a one heckuva job. Good find!!! - chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Fact is always stranger and more interesting than fiction. Brilliant.
- Radan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8You has to be one of the most naive and moronic persons whose ever learned how to operate a computer. What ever happened to "those who ignore history are bound to repeat it"?
- mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9http://imdb.com/title/tt0049471/
- Alyre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@Tardmaster
I'm certainly not in high school (I'm almost 30) but I'm digging you down. Following your brilliant logic nothing would ever get posted.
I for one had never heard the story before, and it wasn't in any of my history text books. Not everyone knows what you do. - commiecat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8It's a good thing Admiral Akbar wasn't German...
- FiP0, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Nice.
Reminds me of the book "Cryptonomicon" - ray901, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5you are an idiot, perhaps you should spent some time thinking about what the future will hold if you don't understand the lessons of the past. .... or will that take away from your precious future envisioning....
- febryle, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Except about 958 pages shorter, and had a point. (/ducks)
- ostracize, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The allies had quite a few deception operations. All of them are pretty interesting (and very tricky)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:World_War_II_deception_operations - thcobbs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Like the magician they hired to create an army in north africa to help draw german attention that way. That and they put Patton there as well because the germans couldn't fathom the allies using one of their best generals as a decoy.
- ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3There is also an amazing documentary series "Secrets of World War II".
The episode "The corpse that fooled the axis" was about the The Man Who Never Was.
http://uktv.co.uk/index.cfm/uktv/History.item/aid/528179 - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3My Dad (God rest his soul) actually worked with the man in charge of this plan Ewen Montagu, some years after the war, in the 1950's - I think it was in the British Foreign Office, though it's possible it was Reuters news agency. He remembered him well and said that Montagu was very humble and never mentioned the story, though of course everyone knew who he was. Those who perform the greatest achievements at times of war are often the most humble from what I've heard
- galiean251, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@tardmaster
Not only out of high school by a wide margin, but actually pretty knowledgeable in 20th century events - considering modern history textbooks contain less than a page about Pearl Harbor and even less about the Battle of Britain or the massive deceptions before Overlord/D-Day (at least here in New Jersey as of last year (the last time I flipped through one)), I think that this might be worth digging. - monergism, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I've hired you to help me start a war. It's an prestigious line of work, with a long and glorious tradition.
- TDot1980, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Yes, and damn interesting, too!
Funny, that. - sprag80, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That was both moving and fascinating.
Thanks Digg. - 00Dan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If I recall correctly, it wasn't as much of an attempt as a decoy as it was political reasons. Something about Patton hurting some soldiers feelings and getting slapped down. The Germans didn't think the US would react such against someone who brought them such success on the battle field.
- kalpol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Read these two books...."The Man Who Never Was" by Ewen Montagu (who helped come up with Operation Mincemeat) and "Bodyguard of Lies" by Anthony Cave Brown. An interesting ancillary book is "Brave Men" by Ernie Pyle, especially the chapter where he talks about what an anticlimax it was to invade Sicily (since all the Germans were in Sardinia because of Mincemeat, but he didn't know that).
- RevFredSanford, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Since I never could get to the article link, have some fun with the wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat
- buckterium, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Question: Wouldn't the Germans consider the fact that the British will know that a person carrying sensitive documents was killed, and the Allied might possibly revise their plan because the documents regarding their attack plan went was lost with it?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That was damn interesting :)
- mhummel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Good question. Possible answers:
1) Jerry may have believed that the fake attack was strategically the best way to attack Sicily, and that Tommy would go ahead on that basis.
2) They did indeed suspect a ruse but had no real way of knowing what was true in the time they had. It could have gone either way in that case.
3) They might have expected the Tommies to all act like that General from Black Adder - e.g "They know what that we know that we're going to attack through Sardenia and will be expecting us not to, so that is precisely what we shall do"
3) The Hun thought he was so clever in fooling those Allied Schweine by steaming open the envelopes.
5) Inflexible Fritz couldn't possibly imagine that once such elaborate plans are set in motion that they could be
changed so easily. - pyrator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There was a movie about this see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049471/
- Mandeep, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4don't know why he was being dugg down. as much as we hate the nazis, hes right about them not being dumb. i never heard about mincemeat til now and it's really crazy what people in mi5 can come up with.
- inajeep, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3First thing I thought of too.
- galiean251, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Don't forget that they were also their own worst enemies - they believed Goebbel's propaganda machine about Allied incompetence and basically thought they were smarter than everyone else combined. After all, wasn't it their destiny to be the thousand year reich? Many counter-factual scenarios for an Allied defeat in WWII begin with something like 'First, imagine that common sense had taken hold within Nazi leadership...' and that definitely included the Abwehr.
- earlfocht, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Tom Clancy wrote about this in Red Rabbit.
- xGORDOx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1And if this happened yesterday, on the border of Iraq and Iran, the Democrats, ACLU, CAIR, MoveOn, Code Pink, Sean Penn, etc. would be condemning our government for this "human rights atrocity" and the article condemning the actions would be front page on Digg.
Bush would be blamed for this greatest debacle in military and human rights history.
Cheney would be linked to the actual death of the man. (somehow)
Condi Rice would be on trial for releasing the "secret" documents.
There would be a trial about whether or not the documents were "secret" or not.
The Democrat Controlled Congress would be voting on tighter restrictions on covert military operations.
Yadda yadda yadda
blah blah blah - tennesseepos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I remember reading a story about this in a Cricket Magazine when I was like 8, and thinking how awesome it was.
The real story is even more awesome - Flamingmoth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Brave warriors every one.
- RatherDashing, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2exslashdotter owes me a new keyboard. Nothing like a good fark cliche to brighten up my afternoon.
- BladeDanger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1You can do this too. Just donate your organs and body. You'll save lives!
When I die, first they will take any useful organs for patients who need them. Then, the rest of my body will be given to a School of Anatomy, so new doctors can use in for study and research. I full hope to eventually become a skeleton hanging in a lecture hall. :D
Talk to your family about, then fill out your driver's licence. Easy as pie. - kraniac, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1An excellent story.
- whamdanglers, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3That IS damn interesting...
- Nateon, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Does this remind anyone else of North by Northwest? http://imdb.com/title/tt0053125/
- mcfriendly, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0Check out the movie....
- pile0nades, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Pwned.
- TheProtested, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1crazy stuff
- eatsushi, on 10/12/2007, -10/+5I would like to see George Bush used as a dead body to distract other countries from hating us to death
- Eifandil, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1Hah, owned. Maybe that's where Elvis got the idea... -Controversy.-
- nepawoods, on 10/12/2007, -17/+9It was nice when there was more to fighting wars than just blowing ***** up.
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