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OPERATION CORONA NOTHING TO DO WITH COVID THOUGH

Posted by STEVE M on

Coronavirus has been in the news for a couple of years now and we are very sensitive to anything involving the term 'Corona' me, I still drink that brand of beer though!!
Today, our blog entry deals with Operation Corona, a 1943 Royal Air Force operation designed to confuse German nightfighters whilst Allied bombing raids were ongoing.    The operation made use of both native speakers and people who could speak German to a standard where they could be taken for a native speaker who went on to impersonate German Air Defence officers. They initiated communications via radio with German nightfighter pilots and countermanded previously given orders, thus reducing the efficiency of German air defence response.

The operation was launched during a bombing raid on the German industrial centre of Kassel on the night of 22 October to 23 October 1943.

Operation Corona was made possible because before the war many people, mostly  Jewish, fled Nazi Germany to England giving a supply of natively accented  Axis officer imitators capable of countermanding the orders given by Air Defence Headquarters staff.

Those dastardly German Nazis were confounded for a while but after a brainstorming session fuelled by takeout orders for Bratwurst they hit upon the idea of using only female Air Defence officers.  Not to be outdone, the RAF changed the operation slightly to mirror this by using German speaking Women's Auxilliary Air Force (WAAF) personnel

History books record  the valiant attempts by the WAAFs as the following photo shows. As you can see they had their work cut out directing German nightfighters using only AR88 and R1155 receivers!!!!!

 

 

 

 

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