There were a few very decisive battles in World War Two that permanently changed the outcome of the war and changed the future. Such battles as the Battle of Dunkirk and D-day otherwise known as the Normandy landings, completely changed the future of France and Europe, and the lives of everyone in the world. Some of these battles had a factor of propaganda used in them to destroy morale in the troops.
A common military weapon was the use of propaganda. Propaganda can be described as the communication of false or possibly true information in dramatic ways to further a cause and raise questions in the average citizen. A large amount of propaganda was used in World War Two in key places and battles such as Dunkirk. As the English and French ran for their lives across France to the beaches to be taken to safety across the english channel the Germans flew overhead dropping fliers. The flier was a map of Dunkirk with arrows pointing to the beach, indicating that the fleeing allies were surrounded and that if they were to give up now, they had the chance of survival. These words were written in French and English, so as to make sure everyone could read the fliers. The veterans that made it off of the beaches during those days say that the fliers made very good toilet paper.
Another use of propaganda was operation cornflakes, so called because the mail trains in Germany always ran in the morning. On February fifth, 1945, P-38 fighters flew over a German mail train, destroying the engine and a few carts. Minutes later, another wave of fighters dropped large bags of mail into the wreckage. The plan was the Germans would collect the mail from these trains to make sure they made it to their destination, and unknowingly picked up the Americans forged mail. To make all of this happen, America took anyone POW that had worked in the mail systems in Austria and Germany, and gathered all the information they could. America and Britain then spent a great deal of energy forging German stamps in different denominations to go on these fake letters full of propaganda. While Britain spent their efforts making very accurate stamps, since they had the proper ink and paper, America spent their efforts making another version of the German stamp. Every year for Hitler’s birthday, he would have a couple versions of a stamp come out with his face depicted on it. On the bottom of all these stamps, read out “DEUTSCHES REICH”, meaning German empire in English. Americans took this stamp and changed the words to “FUTSCHES REICH”, translating to lost or failed empires. The Americans had also changed Hitler’s face to have him depicted as death itself, his jaw falling apart, his skin being eaten alive, his eyes shallow in his skull. It is not known how well this operation worked, seeing as the letters were meant to go to the households of the common German, but Americans had bombed many of the German cities, and they had fled from their homes, though it is known this was at least partially successful.
In 1945 before the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, America dropped leaflets all across japan multiple times. The first set of leaflets are called the LeMay leaflets. In a short summary the leaflets said that the Americans would be bombing if not all then at least some of the cities listed on the back side of the leaflet and that the public should leave the cities instantly. These leaflets said that the bombs did not have eyes and could not see who they would kill, they said that they were attacking the military installations in japan and fighting to free the japanese people so that they could pick their own leader and end the war. The japanese people were also urged to push their leader into surrendering so that the Americans would not blow up the cities.
The second leaflets known as the Hiroshima leaflets said that the Americans had massive explosives equal to the amount that 2,000 of their huge b-29s. This message also asked the public to petition to have their leader surrender to the American forces.
These were some of the incredible ways that the people on both sides of the war tried to trick, brainwash, manipulate or scare their enemies into submission. The war was a brutal place where anything was fair.
