How Hitler was had

Fooling Hitler told of the Second World War hoax involving the unlikely combination of the men from the Air Ministry and special effects technicians from the British film industry.

The idea was hatched as German aircraft bombarded British cities. Hull was among those badly hit, subjected to 82 heavy raids that "bombed the heart out of the place".

Archaeologists Mark Horton and Dave MacLeod recalled the scheme aimed at fooling enemy pilots relying on aerial reconnaissance photographs to pinpoint targets.

What they didn't realise what that their snaps were fakes. The special effects team had built dummy aircraft, tanks and cars. Bomb craters were painted on runways, and strategic targets "relocated" through trickery.

The Time Flyers viewed the remains of the fake Hull Docks. Lights and bonfires were used to create decoy docks well away from the real thing. Electrician George Ashby recalled how, as a 17-year-old, he wired up the decoy lights.

The programme brought Luftwaffe pilot Hugo Hermann, who flew over the Humber estuary as a pilot 60 years ago, to Hull to tell him how he'd been fooled and ask how he felt at the time. "It was a feeling we had to do our job," replied the German.

The presenters flew over York, which was a target for bombers using German tourist guide books. Part of the defences involved creating a fake burning city.

Fires were lit in the middle of fields and boiling oil fires mimicked exploding buildings, so the second wave of bombers thought they were seeing the city in flames and didn't drop their loads on the real York.

These fire decoys attracted more than 350 bombing raids. "The simplest ideas are always the best," Horton contended, after the Time Flyers recruited the Territorial Army to recreate a decoy city in flames. "That was fun for us, but in wartime, the game was played out in deadly earnest and saved thousands of lives," he reminded us.

Published: 15/10/2003