Did the US drop booby-trapped toys in WWII?

[Caldric]

This thread started with a comment in a post by asgatalopt:

My father as a child was strafed at lest twice by american fighter planes, and he was in the company of a farm's wagon attached to a longhorn ...

Ah, he remembers also toy bombs, spread in a tilled field by american bombing planes, just like the ones the evil soviets planted in Afghanistan (when the mujaeddin were still glorious fighters, a little bit before they could start tinkering with american planes, see how peoples turn from heroical to heinous).

-- by the moderator -- DT

Toy bombs are completely new to me. Although such stories are normal when people are trying to demonize their enemy. Sounds more like a urban legend than fact.

Much like Japanese rumors that US military was mostly hardened criminals let out of prison and sometimes the rumors carried that they were cannibals also.

[Omega-Force]

..

[Eden Zhang]

Toy bombs are completely new to me. Although such stories are normal when people are trying to demonize their enemy. Sounds more like a urban legend than fact.

Much like Japanese rumors that US military was mostly hardened criminals let out of prison and sometimes the rumors carried that they were cannibals also.

In terms of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Soviets would drop bombs or mines that were shaped like small rockets, complete with fins for aerodynamic reasons. They would also be painted bright green for some reason.

This is what made kids think that unexploded munitions were toys.

[David Thompson]

If anyone has information on US aerial munitions like this which were manufactured by the US during WWII, or which the US used on Germany in WWII, please let the readers know.

[Caldric]

Toy bombs are completely new to me. Although such stories are normal when people are trying to demonize their enemy. Sounds more like a urban legend than fact.

Much like Japanese rumors that US military was mostly hardened criminals let out of prison and sometimes the rumors carried that they were cannibals also.

In terms of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Soviets would drop bombs or mines that were shaped like small rockets, complete with fins for aerodynamic reasons. They would also be painted bright green for some reason.

This is what made kids think that unexploded munitions were toys.

That could be I am not sure however the use by the USAAF during WWII is as far as I can find nonsense. If however someone can show real proof of this then let them. Regardless of typical opinions the USAAF truly was fighting a war to destroy Axis industrial operations, not to kill kids for no strategic value what so ever. Would be a waste of time, energy, equipment and men. Not to mention criminal.

[voorst]

1. Toy bombs were a fact in the Rome Area, not simple propaganda.
2. J. Baque is not an idiot (please don't use insults), he's trying to put the focus on the Western Allied war crimes, not communist ones. He doesn't denial gulag anyway.
3. Stalin didn't killed 50 millions of russians. Anyway please post your reference. I can't remember the name just now, but one the most popular russian historian said 21.500.000 people died in gulags.

[Michael Miller]

Toy bombs were a fact in the Rome Area, not simple propaganda.

OK, but without any outside source for the claim it remains only that- a claim. Do you have a book or an article to which your could refer us, perhaps even a sample of one of these "toy" explosives with "Made in Chicago" (or words to that effect) stamped upon it?

~ Mike

[voorst]

There are articles on italian newspapers for sure, if u consider newspapers as valid sources.
Don't know about books.

[Caldric]

There are articles on italian newspapers for sure, if u consider newspapers as valid sources.
Don't know about books.

Wartime newspapers no and not most modern papers. Sorry but maybe some will believe it but I will not. I think it is absurd. Newspapers during wartime are almost always censored and besides that journalist like to make stories sell.

[Rob - wssob2]

he remembers also toy bombs, spread in a tilled field by american bombing planes...

aasgatalopt, spare us the fascist fantasies... your "father's memories" happen to be one of the frequent theme's of Il Duce's propaganda campaigns:



(this image taken from the Time-Life WWII series "Italy at War" p146 - from Foto Piccini; poster in the collection fo the Museo Civico "L. Bailo" in Treviso, Italy.)

In addition, during Operation "Iraqi Freedom" in 2003, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf claimed made the same claim about US/British forces dropping booby-trapped pens and pencils:

The authority of the civil defense ... issued a warning to the civilian population not to pick up any of those pencils because they are booby traps," he said, adding that the British and American forces were "immoral mercenaries" and "war criminals" for such behavior.
"I am not talking about the American people and the British people," he said. "I am talking about those mercenaries. ... They have started throwing those pencils, but they are not pencils, they are booby traps to kill the children."

see http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/

Mr. Mohammed's out of a job, Il Duce got "terminated" from his, but apparently fascist propaganda never changes and never dies, - the same old lies just get recycled by the despot du jour.

Please spare us any more of this BS. You're wasting our time.

[voorst]

Wartime newspapers no and not most modern papers. Sorry but maybe some will believe it but I will not. I think it is absurd. Newspapers during wartime are almost always censored and besides that journalist are like to make stories sell.

Off course, post war time. I know very well war time newspapers (from al sides) were fullfilled with propaganda.

[DrG]

I've heard of explosive pens more than once, old people told us, when we were boys, not to touch pens found in the countryside, since the Allies dropped many of them during WW2.
This is a WW2 photo of one of them:

[xcalibur]

Source of the photo?

[DrG]

Source of the photo?

The newspaper "L'Illustrazione Italiana", 22 May 1943.
Of course it can be easily dismissed as Fascist propaganda, but the thing that surprised me was, reading this thread, how the things told me when I was younger are known also elsewhere in Italy. Certainly, if it was only propaganda, it was the longest lasting one of the 20 years of Fascism.

[David Thompson]

Dr. G -- Thanks for the very interesting photo.

Here is a photograph of a pen gun, rather than a pen bomb, which may have been airdropped (along with other material) by the allies to resistance groups. It is somewhat similar to that shown in the wartime Italian newspaper photo. The photo was scanned from Melton, H. Keith, Ultimate Spy, Dorling Kindersley Ltd., London: 2002, p. 181: