Battle of Britain Spits and Hurris no camo?

[Allan]

many spies in the UK were turned by the intelligence authorities and invited to send false info back to Germany, along with real, but harmless, intel...all under pain of execution if they didn't play ball, of course...that's why Allies POWs were so amazed at the intel their interrogators had about their home base, the personal details of their comrades and the conditions prevailing at the base, such as the old fav about the clock in the officers' mess being a few minutes slow or fast...propaganda broadcasts from Germany directed at the Allies fondly believed that the info they included in the broadcasts eminated from spies in the UK, which it was in the sense that the info was sent from turned spies, but it was deliberately false and included snippets of true info to make the Germans believe that it was all gold dust product...fascinating......

[zenrat]

Thanks for the info folks.

[NARSES2]

I don't think there was a problem with the number of available Spitfires and Hurricanes during the BoB, it was more the lack of suitably experienced pilots that was the largest availability problem.

Very much so and as the Battle progressed the mental and physical condition of the pilots became a huge concern. They were worn out.

The switch to the night blitz may not have been much fun for the average Londoner but it possibly saved Fighter Command.

[NARSES2]

The turning of German agents in WWII is a fascinating story. Many of them weren't German but from occupied or neutral countries. A lot of these simply used the agent delivery service as a way of getting to the UK, surrendering to the authorities and joining up after they had been thoroughly checked out.

Of the others, most were caught almost straight away, quite often by doing silly things like walking into a pub at 10:00am and asking for two beers, not realising there were such things as licensing laws  The authorities reckoned that it was the silly everyday idiosyncrasies (to a non Brit) of British daily life that caught a lot of them out. That and place name pronunciation, see the Will Hay film where he's sent to a German spy training school 

Nearly all the spies caught were turned, those that weren't were executed. One shot at the Tower (you can still see the chair he was sat in, in the museum) and the others hung, the Scrubs and Pentonville I think.

[Nick]

It is strange that Castle Bromwich shadow factory wasn't attacked more severely given that Adolf Galland (or another) had toured the place in 1938...

There's a good display at Bletchley Park of the various spies that were turned. One of them actually got the Gestapo to send him more funds via his bank in Spain to cover all the informants he'd recruited. In reality it was him and a pair of British chaps making it all up. His entire anti-German operation was completely paid for by German Intelligence!

The pilots were worn out during the Battle of Britain, like this chap http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205209954 http://www.mirror-photos.co.uk/sleeping-raf-pilot-august-1940/print/3666807.html

[NARSES2]

There's a good display at Bletchley Park of the various spies that were turned.

Bletchley is a very good day out and not just for the computer and code breaking stuff. Lots of other things going on, on the site as well. Plus it's right opposite the train station