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Countermeasures* to this problem reminded me of an incident in which the Germans were able to outsmart Allied military intelligence. * https://en.wikipedia.org

by alanh 11y ago

Countermeasures* to this problem reminded me of an incident in which the Germans were able to outsmart Allied military intelligence. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem#Countermeasures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem#Countermea... This is something I read in The American Axis, which discusses how Charles Lindbergh was duped into helping delay American involvement in WWII. The short version: He was taken on a grand, multi-day tour of the Luftwaffe’s large air-force… never the wiser that the planes he saw on airbase after airbase were the same ones, flown in overnight from the last airbase! Naturally the US MI questioned Lindbergh after his travel and grossly overestimated the power and size of the Germain air force, just as they had intended! (As I recall, Lindbergh wasn’t a Nazi sympathizer so much as a dupe; although the other subject of the book – Henry Ford — certainly was. In fact, Ford plants produced the faultiest American war planes, by far, dooming quite a number of American pilots. There’s every reason to think this was intentional.) Update I read this book 8 years ago and my memory isn't 100%. It looks like Lindbergh, per the book, was also a Nazi sympathizer to some degree, although he comes off much more sympathetically than Ford.

hackuser 11y ago
> Ford plants produced the faultiest American war planes, by far, dooming quite a number of American pilots. There’s every reason to think this was intentional. That is quite an assertion to make about someone, even long dead. Could you provide some evidence?
- alanh 11y ago
  As I mentioned, I’m pulling this from a book. http://www.amazon.com/The-American-Axis-Charles-Lindbergh/dp/0312290225 http://www.amazon.com/The-American-Axis-Charles-Lindbergh/dp... One reviewer on Amazon says: > This is one of the most carefully researched, extensively footnoted, beautifully written, books on this subject ever published. The sources include entries from Lindbergh's journal, Lindbergh's speeches, FBI files, letters from German archives, Ford company records, and many other primary sources. Every assertion of fact is backed up with unimpeachable documentation. IIRC — by this point it was Ford's son running the plant(s) in question, but Henry Ford himself is not just a known anti-Semite, but quite literally ran and anti-Jewish propaganda paper in Dearborn, MI. It hardly takes a leap to look at the abysmal performance of planes built by Ford and suspect that management there was particularly … lackadaisical in their pursuit of quality.
  - hackuser 11y ago
    > Henry Ford himself is ... a known anti-Semite Agreed; he's not my favorite person at all and made an awful call by supporting Hitler. But ... > It hardly takes a leap to look at the abysmal performance of planes built by Ford and suspect that management there was particularly … lackadaisical in their pursuit of quality. Things like that alarm me; it's a proven method for condemning the innocent and unpopular. We can form hypothetical links between many events - Billy is a mean person and disliked Joe, Joe's been murdered, so hang Billy; or, every morning the rooster crows and then the sun rises, therfore the rooster is doing it - but most will be false. We need evidence to differentiate truth from imagination. From the Amazon page, Publisher's Weekly seems to think less of the book (though Kirkus likes it): Although Wallace (Who Killed Kurt Cobain?) is a recipient of Rolling Stone's Award for Investigative Journalism and appears to have done much primary research, he delivers a highly speculative rehash of material handled much better in A. Scott Berg's Lindbergh, Robert Lacey's Ford: The Man and the Machine and such seminal studies as Charles Higham's American Swastika. Wallace tries and fails to sensationalize well-known facts about the parochial American fifth column of the late 1930s and early '40s, a bungling movement of which Ford and Lindbergh were among the most public faces. Wallace sees a conspiracy in what he presents as Ford's pro-Nazi partnership with Lindbergh: a dark and powerful alliance designed to hinder the Allies at every turn. In fact, the two men were far more naive than effectual in their attempts to prop up American isolationism before Pearl Harbor. And Lindbergh, who counted Harry Guggenheim among his closest friends, found Ford's hatred of Jews repugnant. Once war was declared, both Lindbergh and Ford helped the Allied effort. Lindbergh helped develop the Corsair and later, as a "civilian observer," flew more than 25 combat missions over the South Pacific. At the same time, Ford (with Lindbergh's help, and after a few false starts) became the leading manufacturer of the B-24 bomber. Were Ford and Lindbergh half-witted dupes of Nazi propaganda before the war? Undoubtedly. Were they Nazi agents either before or after the start of hostilities? Wallace fails to make the case.
    - alanh 11y ago
      I used the word "suspect," didn’t I? The numerical output of B-24 bombers is dramatically undercut by their failure rate. The quote you’re posting is mostly about Lindbergh. I don’t recall the book trying to say he was "partnered" or "allied" with Ford in a Nazi conspiracy, mostly that he was a useful dupe. This changes nothing. We will probably never know for sure how much of the bombers' poor construction was intentional or not, but you can hardly say there’s no reason to seriously suspect it.
mikeash 11y ago
The Soviets liked to do this sort of thing too. They'd have a groups of bombers fly past during demonstrations. Except instead of many groups of bombers, it was one group of bombers that would fly off, make a circle out of sight, then make another flyby. This let the US to greatly overestimate Soviet production, and produce huge numbers of their own weapons to "match" the Soviets. So it all sort of backfired on the Soviets, since they mostly just convinced the other side to put their much greater productive capacity to use.

by alanh 11y ago

hackuser 11y ago

> Ford plants produced the faultiest American war planes, by far, dooming quite a number of American pilots. There’s every reason to think this was intentional. That is quite an assertion to make about someone, even long dead. Could you provide some evidence?

alanh 11y ago
As I mentioned, I’m pulling this from a book. http://www.amazon.com/The-American-Axis-Charles-Lindbergh/dp/0312290225 http://www.amazon.com/The-American-Axis-Charles-Lindbergh/dp... One reviewer on Amazon says: > This is one of the most carefully researched, extensively footnoted, beautifully written, books on this subject ever published. The sources include entries from Lindbergh's journal, Lindbergh's speeches, FBI files, letters from German archives, Ford company records, and many other primary sources. Every assertion of fact is backed up with unimpeachable documentation. IIRC — by this point it was Ford's son running the plant(s) in question, but Henry Ford himself is not just a known anti-Semite, but quite literally ran and anti-Jewish propaganda paper in Dearborn, MI. It hardly takes a leap to look at the abysmal performance of planes built by Ford and suspect that management there was particularly … lackadaisical in their pursuit of quality.
- hackuser 11y ago
  > Henry Ford himself is ... a known anti-Semite Agreed; he's not my favorite person at all and made an awful call by supporting Hitler. But ... > It hardly takes a leap to look at the abysmal performance of planes built by Ford and suspect that management there was particularly … lackadaisical in their pursuit of quality. Things like that alarm me; it's a proven method for condemning the innocent and unpopular. We can form hypothetical links between many events - Billy is a mean person and disliked Joe, Joe's been murdered, so hang Billy; or, every morning the rooster crows and then the sun rises, therfore the rooster is doing it - but most will be false. We need evidence to differentiate truth from imagination. From the Amazon page, Publisher's Weekly seems to think less of the book (though Kirkus likes it): Although Wallace (Who Killed Kurt Cobain?) is a recipient of Rolling Stone's Award for Investigative Journalism and appears to have done much primary research, he delivers a highly speculative rehash of material handled much better in A. Scott Berg's Lindbergh, Robert Lacey's Ford: The Man and the Machine and such seminal studies as Charles Higham's American Swastika. Wallace tries and fails to sensationalize well-known facts about the parochial American fifth column of the late 1930s and early '40s, a bungling movement of which Ford and Lindbergh were among the most public faces. Wallace sees a conspiracy in what he presents as Ford's pro-Nazi partnership with Lindbergh: a dark and powerful alliance designed to hinder the Allies at every turn. In fact, the two men were far more naive than effectual in their attempts to prop up American isolationism before Pearl Harbor. And Lindbergh, who counted Harry Guggenheim among his closest friends, found Ford's hatred of Jews repugnant. Once war was declared, both Lindbergh and Ford helped the Allied effort. Lindbergh helped develop the Corsair and later, as a "civilian observer," flew more than 25 combat missions over the South Pacific. At the same time, Ford (with Lindbergh's help, and after a few false starts) became the leading manufacturer of the B-24 bomber. Were Ford and Lindbergh half-witted dupes of Nazi propaganda before the war? Undoubtedly. Were they Nazi agents either before or after the start of hostilities? Wallace fails to make the case.
  - alanh 11y ago
    I used the word "suspect," didn’t I? The numerical output of B-24 bombers is dramatically undercut by their failure rate. The quote you’re posting is mostly about Lindbergh. I don’t recall the book trying to say he was "partnered" or "allied" with Ford in a Nazi conspiracy, mostly that he was a useful dupe. This changes nothing. We will probably never know for sure how much of the bombers' poor construction was intentional or not, but you can hardly say there’s no reason to seriously suspect it.

mikeash 11y ago

The Soviets liked to do this sort of thing too. They'd have a groups of bombers fly past during demonstrations. Except instead of many groups of bombers, it was one group of bombers that would fly off, make a circle out of sight, then make another flyby. This let the US to greatly overestimate Soviet production, and produce huge numbers of their own weapons to "match" the Soviets. So it all sort of backfired on the Soviets, since they mostly just convinced the other side to put their much greater productive capacity to use.