This is the third in what I believe will be four short articles on the more
exotic forms of propaganda leaflet dissemination. They are the Propaganda Float, the
Propaganda Balloon, the Propaganda Rocket and the Propaganda Artillery Shell.
The Congreve Rocket
The Chinese invented the rocket around 1100 AD. These rockets used solid
propellants and were mainly used as a form of entertainment as fireworks. It was quickly
discovered that it made an excellent and terrifying weapon. Much later, it was found to be
a way to deliver messages to the enemy, quickly flying over the battle lines and releasing
its leaflets at a set time. North Americans probably first saw the rocket as a weapon when
the British fired the Cosgreve rocket at Ft. McHenry during the War of 1812; see The
National Anthem: “And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in
air…”
The Katyusha Rocket
During World War Two, Americans watching newsreels in darkened theaters saw the Russian Katyusha rockets screaming as they
shrieked through the air against the German forces. They were a nightmare of flaming light
and blaring noise.
The war rocket is a big heavy clumsy thing and not too accurate. The propaganda
rocket is a much smaller item and might be made of paper or cardboard and only has to fly
a short distance and deliver its propaganda cargo. In this article we will mention some of
the places these rockets were used.
The Spanish Civil War
General Franco
During the Spanish Civil War both sides used small rockets to distribute propaganda
leaflets over the enemy. The leaflets were in a compartment at the front of the rocket, an
explosive charge close behind, followed by the gunpowder fuel. The newspaper Milicia
Popular (Popular Militia) stated in September 1936:
For distances up to 800 meters the leaflets can be sent by means of rockets which
on exploding release the leaflets in the air like a shower.
GERONA BARCELONA
Long live Spanish Catalonia! Franco! Long live Spain!
LERIDA TARRAGONA
A Franco Fascist leaflet dropped after the fall of Gerona.
In an article in The Aero Field (No. 6, 1957), Dr. Max Kronstein writes:
The introducing of the rocket as a propaganda tool in the Spanish campaign was
reported in British newspapers during the war. The Daily Telegraph of London reported on
12 February, 1938 that both sides used a rocket with a range of a mile and a half, which
scattered 1,000 pamphlets at a time.
The Swiss Illustrated Journal of 20 April 1938 reported that the leaflets were
printed in a ruined house near the actual front with hurriedly instructed soldiers acting
as printers. The same magazine showed a photo of one of the rockets which carried 400 of
these front-printed leaflets across no-man's land and exploded above the trenches
scattering the leaflets over the surrounding area...the Swiss journal reported there were
as many as 20 to 50 propaganda rockets crossed the line on certain days.
Republican Cigarette Paper used as a leaflet
Spain for the Spaniards. Your mother and my mother cry to see that brothers and
sisters take part in an unjust war for the benefit of strangers
Of course, the Republican left-wing forces struck back. One document says in part:
The 5th Regiment ...Will send propaganda to enemy soldiers instructing them to
desert from the Fascists...Up to now the system of small
packages makes the Fascist Army Chiefs vigilance easy and impedes the soldiers’
collecting our leaflets. The solution lies in distributing our propaganda material in such
a way that will make it easier for soldiers of the enemy to collect it.
The system is to launch it by means of rockets, which on bursting disperse the
leaflets, provoking a real show of these and putting them in reach of soldiers who can
then read them without their leaders being able to avoid it, and then follow the
instructions given in the leaflets.
A Spanish Civil War Leaflet Rocket
The daily paper Milicia Popular said in September 1936:
To launch proclamations over enemy lines these leaflets should be printed on very
fine paper of different colors to catch the attention of the soldiers of the enemy lines
and spread well.
On 27 January 1939, New York City newspapers mentioned Franco’s propaganda
rockets:
On the central Madrid-Valencia front, loudspeakers told the Loyalist soldiers of
the fall of Barcelona. The rebels also carried out a spectacular system of firing 11,000
rockets over the lines into Loyalist territory on the Madrid front carrying leaflets which
proclaimed the capture of Barcelona.
Rocket expert and Scientist Willy Ley mentioned this action in Missiles, Moon
probes, and Mega-parsecs.
Photographs of the rockets showed that they were black-powder rockets of simple
construction but of a fairly large size. In all probability, Franco’s men had come
across a store of Spanish signal rockets and adapted them for the purpose…Quite a few
years after I learned about the use of propaganda rockets in the Spanish Civil War, I
found out that the idea had not been new, even then. On 6 July 1897, the U.S. Patent
Office granted patent number 585,805 to Otto Wilhelmi of Dusseldorf, Germany. The title of
the patent is simply ROCKET, but the description tells its purpose.
“This invention relates to a rocket provided with a charge of circulars or
other advertising matter, which is released when the rocket is exploded and which in
descending is thus distributed over a large area.”
German WWII Leaflet Rockets
The Germans had a number of rockets that were designed to carry leaflets over enemy
lines. Toward the end of the war they also used the V-1 rockets to carry leaflets on
several occasions.
German General Walter Dornberger stated that his department of the Board of
Ordnance, Rocket Development (WaPruef II) designed and developed small solid-fuel rockets
that could carry propaganda leaflets about 6-7 miles. The rockets had a container tightly
packed with propaganda leaflets that were fired against front-line Allied troops in Italy.
General Walter Dornberger, head of the V2 program (center)
with Dr. Todt (right), Hitler's armament minister, at Peenemünde in 1941.
The United States War Department Handbook on German Military Forces of March
1945 says that the 73mmPropaganda rocket launcher (Propagandawerfer) consists of a
simple cage hinged to a framework base of tubular steel and supported at the front by an
adjustable arm. The weapon is intended for close range delivery of paper propaganda. The
rocket weighs 7.1 pounds and instead of a bursting charge or chemical filling contains 8
ounces of propaganda leaflets.
Dr. Max Kronstein, writing in The Falling Leaf of June 1962 (The Journal of
the Psywar Society), adds, “These small rockets were called Flugblattgeschoose.”
In the Diary of a German Soldier, Wilhelm Pruller says:
We got a new gun today with a barrel made of cardboard. And it shoots too, as far
as two kilometers. The bullets are propaganda bombs which comprise more than 100 leaflets.
German propaganda rockets being fired at the Allies
A 1941 report on the German Propaganda Werfer 41 (Propaganda launcher 41)
says:
The propaganda shell 41 is fired from the propaganda launcher 41. It is propelled
by a rocket motor and travels at a speed of 250 meters per second. The propaganda shell
contains 200 leaflets. The range of this shell is 3,400 meters. The exploding point is
100-150 meters above the ground.
A German Propaganda Rocket Unit in Italy
A German Propaganda Officer inspects a leaflet aimed at Allied troops before having
it inserted in a rocket at the Anzio-Nettuno landing site in winter 1944.
A Typical Anzio-Nettuno leaflet
Onward Christian Soldiers
The Germans fired a lot of brochures and booklets to Allied troops
in Italy in 1944 and 1945. This is a 20-page booklet of poetry. It was
produced by the German propaganda unit “Kurt Eggers” and coded *1302-1-45.
It is a small booklet at just 11 x 15 centimeters. On the inside page the
Germans explain:
A collection of poems by British soldiers for British soldiers.
Selected, illustrated, and printed by “Comrades of the other side.”
Some of the titles of the poems are “Metamorphosis, Recompense,
Whitehall hymn. Military cemetery, Colonel help,” and “For King and
Country.” The poems are mostly defeatist with the writers talking about
useless death in a winless war. One that depicts a "Tommy" on the toilet and
uses anti-Semitism for its trick ending is “For King and Country.”
Don’t waste your time when you take a crap,
the time you lose will help a Jap.
Don’t fart around when you have to piss
Hitler will love the hours you miss.
So, crap in your pants and piss in your shoes,
and we’ll win the war for the lousy Jews.
The rocket above is the German WWII P.Rg.41 propaganda rocket. It had a plastic nose
cap and the leaflets were placed inside the top portion with a spring that would throw the
leaflets in opposite directions once the ejector charge separated the top from the bottom
(propellant) part of the rocket.
The Pr Gs 41 Internal and External
Klaus Kirchner – Flugblatt-propaganda im 2. Weltkrieg
Internal numbers: 1 - Bakelite or wooden nose cap; 2 - Spring to spread leaflets
after ejection; 3 – leaflet roll; 4 – Rocket propellant; 5 – Percussion
cap.
A German soldier prepares a Pr Gs 41 rocket launcher
The German author Klaus Kirchner says that the rocket had an advantage over
propaganda artillery shells because it could be loaded with the latest news right at the
front. It was also light and mobile enough to be fired from just about everywhere
regardless of the terrain and did not require the use of an Army artillery unit. The
disadvantage was that it left a trail of smoke that pointed to where the rocket was fired
from. That meant that the people firing the rockets had approximately two minutes to pack
up and leave the site before the Allies counter-battery fire would be encountered. The
German used this propaganda rocket from 1941 until the end of the war. Kirchner continues:
After World War II it was occasionally possible to find the “Pr Gs 41”
leaflet rockets which had misfired and buried themselves in the ground. The rockets
consist of the following parts: Rocket body; Bakelite nose cap; Tube with split case to
accommodate leaflet roll and keep it from crinkling; Baffle plate to push the leaflet roll
out of the rocket tube and Spreading spring to open the roll of leaflets after ejection.
The rocket body is about 16 inches in length, with a maximum external diameter of
2.9 inches and a weight of less than 7 lbs. The interesting parts are the base venting
venturis, half of which are inclined to rotate and stabilized the rocket in flight.
The German Pr Gs 41 rocket launcher
The rocket is launched when the rocket is dropped down the tube of the mobile
launcher and the percussion cap strikes the firing pin. Four rockets were packed in a
metal air-tight box with Pr Gs 41 painted on the lid.
Max Kronstein says in an article entitled “Small rocket leaflets at the Italian
Front of WWII. He said in part:
In 1943, the Germans reorganized their Psychologische Kampffuhrungs Einheiten or
“PK” units. The headquarters of this campaign on the Italian front was Castel
Bevilaqua where groups of Italian girls loaded the leaflets in the rockets. The rockets
were shot from small portable stands. They could carry leaflets over 3000 yards. About 58
different small English-language leaflets were printed for use against the Americans.
A Luxembourg Museum Exhibit.
The battle of the Bulge mostly took place in Belgium and the loss of life
and destruction was terrible. The people believed the war was almost over,
so the sudden appearance of German tanks took everyone, including the Allied
armies by surprise. In the Musee National D'histoire Militaire in
Diekirch, Luxembourg, close to the Belgian border, there is a Battle of the
Bulge display featuring military items of WWII. This exhibit depicts a
German rocket and artillery shell and some German leaflets.
Indeed, and amusing war – for the Americans.
Both the German Army Propaganda units and later the SS units printed this same
“divide and conquer” leaflet that depicts an American soldier with a British
girl and the text:
Indeed, and amusing war – for the Americans.
Each of the German leaflets is printed in two sizes. They are 15 x 21cm. and 9 x
15cm. The larger size was disseminated by aircraft or artillery and the smaller size was
for the German propaganda rocket Propaganda Geschoss 41. The theme implies that
while the British are at the front, the Americans are back in Great Britain with their
wives and girlfriends.
For them the War is over
I was not going to add this leaflet but the message is so ironic. According to the
German leaflet specialist Klaus Kirchner, this leaflet was prepared to give the Americans
confidence in the German SS. Klaus says:
The SS Organization “Skorpion West” produced and disseminated this
leaflet with the help of rockets at the time of the “Battle of the Bulge.” It
was the intention of this leaflet to create trust and credibility among American soldiers
in the SS which was feared and hated.
The leaflet depicts German SS troops feeding captured American soldiers. Is the
picture real? Are those actually Americans? Notice that the third from the left has two
bullet holes in his helmet. Could it be that the Germans dressed some of their own in the
uniforms of dead Americans? We will never know. There were three such leaflets prepared,
all with happy Americans being fed. The text on the back says on all three:
For them the war is over.
According to your propaganda there must be dynamite in the soup. But you too will
find that spoons are better than guns.
Dead men tell no tales but P.W.s do!
I said that this leaflet was ironic. While the Germans try to show the
trustworthiness and honor of their SS troops, on 17 December 1944 near Malmedy, 84
American POWs were machine-gunned in an open field by other SS troops. I have always
believed that this massacre by the SS won the battle for the Allies. Once it became know
that Germans were killing those that surrendered, the American troops became determined to
hold the lines until reinforcements arrived. The SS action stiffened the back of the
Americans, filled them with fury, and caused them to fight to the death, ultimately
halting what appeared to be an overwhelming and unstoppable German advance
Another German Propaganda Geschoss 41 leaflet Rocket
This rocket was dug up after WWII and was offered for sale along with four
propaganda leaflets used against the allied Americans during Christmas 1944 when they were
fighting “the Battle of the Bulge” near Bastogne, Belgium.
The German leaflet depicted above makes use of Christmas symbols. The front of the
leaflet depicts a small blond-haired girl holding a sprig of mistletoe with a candle to
her right. Behind her is the visage of her father, apparently killed in action with a
bullet hole in his helmet, although his eyes are partially open. The text is:
Daddy, I’m so afraid!
On the back of the leaflet there are a number of Christmas symbols surrounding the
text. Among them are angels, the Star of Bethlehem, Christmas candles and pine sprigs,
etc. The text is terribly written and full of grammatical errors. It is:
HARK…the HERALD ANGELS sing!
Well soldier, here you are in “no-Mans land,” just before Christmas far
away from home and your loved ones. Your sweetheart or wife, your little girl, or perhaps
even your little boy, don’t you feel them worrying about you, praying for you? Yes
old boy, praying and hoping you’ll come home again, soon. Will you come back, are you
sure to see those loved ones again?
This is Christmas time, Yule-time . . . The Yule-log, the Mistletoe, the
Christmas tree, whatever it is, it’s home and all that you think fine to celebrate
the day of our Savior.
Man, have you thought about it. What if you don’t come back . . . what of
those dear ones?
Well soldier, “PEACE ON EARTH GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN” . . . for where
there’s a will there’s a way . . . only 300 yards ahead and
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
An American wartime report on the rocket says:
The projectile consists of two steel tubes screwed into a central joint. The
lower tube contains the rocket motor and the upper serves as a container for the leaflets.
The projectile is spin-stabilized and is fired from a propagandawerfer.
The British “Projectile Development Establishment” prepared a November
1943 report on the rocket entitled “Foreign Ammunition – German 7.3 cm
Propaganda Rocket.” It consisted of a complete breakdown of the size and weight of
every rocket component. Some of the statistics are:
The weight of the complete round is 7 pounds 2 ounces; the overall length of
round 16.1 inches.
Two Ways of Spending the War
Klaus Kirchner wrote in Flugblatt-Propaganda in 2.Weltkrieg
(edited for brevity):
In April 1940, the German Werhmachtpropaganda found a way to
disseminate pornographic images, hide their authorship and avoid
compromising their moral integrity. The soldier looking at the leaflet would
find nothing unusual at first. When held to the light, the pornographic
image became apparent…These leaflets were found in a Bavarian Lake inside
the rocket Pr. Gs. 41.
I wrote about these pornographic leaflets in three magazine
articles between 1967 and 1983. I later wrote about them in a
Psywarrior.com article entitled Sex and Psychological Operations.
In that article I said in part:
The Germans produced see-through pornographic leaflets to be
disseminated by rocket for use against the Americans advancing near the
“Siegfried Line” about December 1944. The front of the 10 x 14cm leaflet
depicts a dead American corporal in the foreground and a second soldier
draped over the barbed wire in the background. The text at the top of the
leaflet is “Two ways of spending the war” and at the bottom, “Fighting.” The
back of the leaflet is blank except for text at the lower left which reads
“and?” and the series number, for instance; “No. 1 Series: Rich man’s war,
poor man’s fight.” Only four numbers have surfaced in the past 50 years. We
know that number 1, 3, 4 and 9 exist. There may be others that have never
been found, or the Germans may have just used some random numbers hoping to
confuse the Americans and make them search for leaflets that were never
printed.
The use of the propaganda slogan “Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight”
by the Germans is very interesting because it was first used by the
Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. At that time,
any southerner with 20 slaves or more was allowed to return to the
plantation while those with less than twenty or none had to stay and fight.
The poor southerners who were forced to remain on the front lines were the
first to say, “Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight.”
What about Calling up Sam Levy
This German leaflet has an antisemetic theme and shows a beautiful woman and has a double-entendre
title. She is reaching for a phone to call a Jewish draft dodger for a date while her man
is at the front; but “calling up” was also a term for the draft and we are led
to believe she is wondering why no Jews have been called for military service. The
leaflets were fired by rocket at American forces in January 1945 during the battle of the
bulge and later used in numerous other locations. You can see the scorch marks and
crinkling from where the rocket exploded and blew the leaflet into the air. I could place
a pristine mint leaflet here, but I think it is better to show the result of the rocket
dispersal. This leaflet has no code but we know from other records that its internal code
was 980 245/88. The vast majority of these leaflets have no overprint, but a few have been
stamped on the front: “To the poor Devils of the 29th!” The 29th Infantry
Division was assigned to XIII Corps from 8 December 1944 to 23 February 1945.
German V1 Rocket
In June 1944, Germany distributed leaflets over the Allies in Great Britain,
Belgium, and Holland using their vaunted “Vengeance weapon,” the V1 rocket. It
actually had a pulse-jet engine but it was close to a rocket and led directly to
today’s Tomahawk cruise missile. The leaflets were placed in a small canister, which
ejected automatically from a hole near the wing as soon as the engine turned off. The V1
was equipped with a revolution counter, which shut down the engine after a pre-arranged
number of turns. The bomb then went into a steep vertical dive and impact was almost
instantaneous.
V.1 P.O.W. POST
This is one of the more iconic leaflets actually carried to England in a V1 rocket.
There are at least three variations of this leaflet and each has a number of genuine
letters from British prisoners of war to their families at home. The British were using
every means of deception to make the German rockets miss London, having their
“turned” German agents radioing Berlin that the rockets needed to travel a bit
longer and a bit further to the north, etc. When these letters were found, the British
suspected that the Germans were hoping the finders would notify the newspaper and that
they would thus know exactly where the rocket landed. Of course, there is no proof of
this. However, the British confiscated all the leaflets immediately just to be safe. But,
someone will always beat the police to the scene of an accident so many of these leaflets
were taken by on-lookers as souvenirs and thus they were saved for posterity.
Carl Berger mentions the German V1 in An
introduction to Wartime Leaflets, Special Operation Research Office, The American
University, Washington D.C., 1959:
The exact method for scattering the leaflets from rockets was discovered on 31
January 1945, when anti-aircraft fire caused a low order detonation on the warhead of a
V-1. The bomb was recovered almost intact and was investigated by the 77th Ordnance Bomb
Disposal Squad, U.S. Ninth Air Force. A normal V-1 had been fitted with a container and
ingenious ejector mechanism for propaganda leaflets.
As the bomb is launched, wrote the Bomb Disposal officer, the friction igniter is
functioned, initiating the safety fuse, which burns at the rate of three (3) inches per
minute. The fuse continues to burn during flight, and when burned through (about 20
minutes in this case) ignites the black powder charge. This charge then blows the
propaganda pamphlets out the rear end of the tube. This particular V-1 hold copies of a
German propaganda magazine, called Signal.
AI-081-7-44
A number of the German leaflets simply showed the phrase "V1" on the
front. Apparently the Germans believed that the very sight of such a phrase was enough to
terrify the Allies. One such leaflet is coded AI-081-7-44. The "V1" is in red.
The title on the back of the leaflet is "FACTS CONCERNING V NUMBER 1." There is
a long 5-paragraph propaganda text below the title. The first two paragraphs are:
1. No AA barrage and no fighter planes can prevent the gigantic "Doodle
Bugs," as the Londoners call them, from coming over. The "Doodle Bugs"
travel at a tremendous speed making them invulnerable to attacks.
2. "V Number 1" does not depend on weather, time season, or visibility.
It is an "all weather" and "round the clock" weapon of deadly
nerve-wrecking regularity. It is robbing Britishers of their sleep, keeping them down in
the shelters and away from their work benches and desks.
The Other Side # 1
The Other Side is the title of a pamphlet scattered over southeast England by the
V1. The pamphlet was four pages long and only six issues are known to exist. Number one
depicts a V1 on the front and the heading V1 - Those ‘last few shots.’ It
also depicts a British Lancaster bomber with the caption:
This is a Lancaster bomber, one of the machines used by the R.A.F. in terror
raids on Germany. Thousands have been shot down.
The V1 did not live up to its potential. Once Prime Minister Churchill moved his
anti-aircraft guns to the coast, a great number were shot down. The Royal Air Force also
discovered that by stripping down their Spitfire and Hawker Tempest fighters they could
catch the V1. At night, British Mosquitoes joined the fight. There was no need for radar
because the flames from the V1 engine could be seen from 10 miles away. The pilots would
sometimes fire on the flying bombs; other times use their wing to tip it over, causing the
V1 to crash into unpopulated woods and meadows. Between June and mid-August 1944, the
handful of Tempests shot down 638 flying bombs. By August 1944, the threat of the V1 was
mostly eliminated by the sudden arrival of two electronic aids for anti-aircraft guns,
both developed in the USA. The use of radar to aim the anti-aircraft guns, and the
proximity fuse. Of the 30,000 V1s manufactured, about 10,000 were fired at England. Of
these, about 7000 were "hits" in that they landed somewhere in England. About
half, 3876, landed in the Greater London area. An almost equal number were shot down or
crashed into tethered barrage balloons.
The United States has experimented with leaflet rockets. In 1950 The Chief of the
Ordnance Corps directed Redstone Arsenal scientists to determine the feasibility of a
white phosphorus smoke rocket. The study resulted in a plan for two rockets, but Ordnance
suspended the program in early 1952 because the Army Field Forces had no immediate need
for such weapons. In March 1952, however, Ordnance instructed Redstone to adapt the rocket
for propaganda leaflet dissemination. The arsenal delivered T229 rockets to the
Psychological Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in June 1954.
Berger mentions this American rocket:
The only other known recent development in the "leaflet rocket" field,
undertaken by the U.S Army is a standard dissemination unit for close support of tactical
operations. This rocket, designated the T-229 115-mm, is equipped with its own launcher,
has a range of 1,000 to 2,500 yards, and can carry approximately 700 leaflets per round.
The Cold War – East Germany to West Germany
The use of rockets to disseminate political propaganda leaflets in Germany and even
Berlin itself during the Cold War is well documented. Some examples from 1954:
On 23 February 1954 Communist agitators fired leaflet rockets over the West Berlin
Fair Grounds. The leaflets contained anti-Adenauer messages.
On 22 December 1954 rockets were fired from the Tiergarten towards Friedrich Street.
Leaflets were found in front of the Soviet Embassy.
In May 1956, East German rockets were fired over the Central Stadium in Berlin that
was supposed to release Free German Youth banners. They failed to release the banners.
A March, 1964 report states that 85 different leaflets were fired over lower Saxony
from the DDR attacking the militaristic German Federal Government and their armed forces.
A May, 1971 report said that tourists walking in the Harz mountain were mistakenly
asked by loudspeaker to defect to the East and were suddenly blanketed by leaflets fired
from the DDR. The leaflets had a map of the Harz Mountain area and a back page of text.
They were carried by three types of leaflets: one a typical looking “sky rocket”
that carried about 150 leaflets; another was a round ball raised by a rocket with a timer
that exploded the ball and released the leaflets; the third is pipe-shaped with a timer to
release the leaflets. German authorities said that the three types of rockets had been
used since 1968.
There are literally hundreds of such cases where rockets were fired from both sides
of the Iron Curtain.
Thank you Stalin...
During the Cold War the two Germanys sent propaganda to each other through rockets,
balloons, the mail and even by tossing leaflets off high buildings into the wind. You can
seldom tell if a propaganda leaflet was actually sent by rocket, but in this case we know
that the above leaflet was sent to the West by rocket in May 1955 because the Communist
East Germans have been kind enough to print a small rocket at the lower right. The text
is:
The German Democratic Republic thanks Stalin for his confidence!
5 Good Points for Security and Peace in Europe
Another leaflet rocketed into West Germany by the German Democratic Republic says on
the front:
5 Good Points for Security and Peace in Europe
The back is all text:
Security and peace in Europe– the DDR has a clear plan for
it.
1. The DDR is effectively calling for a convening of a European security
conference as soon as possible without preconditions.
2. The DDR is ready to become a member of the UN and its specialized agencies.
3. The DDR has expressed their willingness to establish normal diplomatic
relations with all states.
4. The DDR is in favor of the establishment of diplomatic relations in accordance
with the rules of international law and the Federal Republic of Germany).
5. The DDR is prepared to contribute to the normalization of relations with
respect to West Berlin, and thus contribute to the relaxation of the center of Europe.
This is how the DDR thinks ahead for Europe's future, its tomorrow! And where is
the good will and constructive attitude of the Federal Republic of Germany?
Stop the American Beetles!
The Russians blockaded Berlin from 1948 to 1949. American and British aircraft flew
in food and other supplies and eventually defeated the blockade. During that time East
Germany was hit with a potato beetle infestation and decided that it was an American plot.
This leaflet claims that the airlift is just a pretext for ruining East German farming by
dropping “imperialist weapons,” the potato-devouring Colorado beetles.
The United Press International reported on a problem that occurred when the
East Germans used Leaflet rockets against West Germany.
A capricious west wind thwarted a Communist leaflet propaganda barrage
across the West German border. The East Germans launched miniature rockets carrying large
number of leaflets calculated to saturate the Walkenreid-Harz Mountain border area. But a
stiff west wind came up suddenly and blew the majority of them back to East German
territory.
The Cold War - West Germany to East Germany
General Walter Bedell "Beetle" Smith was Eisenhower's chief of staff at
the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) during WWII. After World War
II, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, then in 1950, the head of the
Central Intelligence Agency. He mentioned in his log of 27 December 1951:
A propaganda supply team in Germany has prepared over half a million items of
propaganda to celebrate Stalin’s 72nd birthday. Among them are 50, 000 posters with a
picture of aged Stalin saying, “The Stalins come and go,” a play on the remark
Stalin once made, “The Hitlers come and go.” Another 400,000 small stickers
showing an almost empty hour glass and either a death head of Stalin’s profile are
also being put up in the Soviet Zone of Germany. And finally, 100, 000 leaflets will be
sent into East Germany by rocket, wishing a “Merry Christmas to all and an unhappy
birthday to Stalin.”
The CIA Searches for a Rocket it can call its Own!
In June 1953, the CIA sent an agent to witness a test firing of fifty 4.5-inch
rockets at Ft. Bragg, NC. The rocket was apparently made at the Redstone Arsenal. The
tests proved that the leaflet tetral booster engine was too powerful and was burning up
the leaflets. A test was to be made back at the Redstone Arsenal with 10 grams of black
powder to blow the leaflets from the rocket.
In December 1953, the CIA sent a request that a better leaflet rocket be developed.
The text says in part:
This division has an interest in some method for distributing leaflets at
distances of 1000 to 3000 yards from the launching point…It is desirable that the
payload be comparable to that of a leaflet bomb. The rockets should be relatively cheap,
easy to operate and preferably constructed completely of paper or cardboard.
It appears the rocket development might have started by February 1954. A heavily
redacted CIA document to Research and Development states in part:
This division is very definitely interested in the proposed TSS Project MD-91
leaflet rocket. At present it is difficult to approximate the possible scope of future
rocket operations. Indications are, however, that small leaflet rocket operations will be
possible in the near future…The quoted range of 2000 yards is adequate for most
division operations. The quoted cost of $10 to $20 per rocket is within the scope of
present budget limitations.
By October 1955, a four-inch non-metallic leaflet rocket was being developed by the
CIA. Several designs had been tested at 600, 1200, 1800 and 2400 yards, but the different
designs were found to be complicated. A rocket with a range of 1200 and 2400 yards was
more efficient and easier to design. This rocket would be cheaper, could be produced much
more quickly, and would have less moving parts.
A 9 November 1955 letter says that the rockets will have two ranges, 1000 and 3000
meters. The propellant is smokeless and will burn out in two seconds. The rocket will
travel by momentum and there will be no trail left behind it.
In May 1956, there is a request that 200 rockets be purchased. Where the rockets are
going has been redacted.
In September of 1956, phase two of the rocket design was finished and phase three
was begun. Unfortunately, the letter does not explain what was accomplished and what still
needs to be accomplished.
An October 1956 document points out that the CIA leaflet rocket will be
fin-stabilized frangible plastic missile carrying 28 ounces on leaflets. The ranges are
now 1000 or 3000 meters. The rocket will be 27 inches long and 4 inches wide.
One of the better research books on psychological warfare and
operations is the 1959 Introduction to Wartime Leaflets by Carl
Berger, Special Operations Research Office, The American University,
Operating under Contract with The Department of the Army. Berger looked at
all the phases of PSYOP, leaflets, loudspeakers, artillery shells, leaflet
rockets and artillery, and gives the reader a good general view of their
military use. He said about rockets:
The only known recent development in the leaflet rocket field,
undertaken by the U.S. Army is a standard dissemination unit for close
support of tactical operations. This rocket, designated the T-229 115mm, is
equipped with its own launcher, has a range of 1,000-2,500 yards, and can
carry approximately 700 leaflets per round.
The Army Joins the Search
The T-133 and T-127 being tested at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina.
Notice the “General Ridgway” caps on the two soldiers. A sure sign of the
1950s.
The Charlotte News
of 21 February 1955 told of U.S. Army experiments to produce a portable
multi-barreled leaflet launcher at Ft. Bragg. Their first attempt, the T-133
(Golf Bag) was a fiber glass disposable barrel that fired a single rocket.
The T-133 was simple to fire and came with a carry strap and a sheet with
instructions.
The second attempt, the T-127 was made
of aluminum and reusable. The original model had three battery-fired barrels
but could be produced with as many as 20 barrels. The barrels could be fired
singly, or in a rapid-fire pattern. Each rocket can hold up to 600 leaflets
and accurately reach 2,000 yards. The concept was to have a “rocket squad”
with its own vehicle that could move close to the front and fire the rockets
at the enemy.
One problem with using the new PSYWAR
weapon was that with just 600 leaflets per rocket, it would take about 800
rockets to saturate a large front. One aircraft can do that in seconds.
Vietnam War – Hanoi Propaganda
As far as we know. The United States did not use propaganda rockets during the
Vietnam War. We have never heard of the North Vietnamese or Viet Cong using rockets, but
according to a recent newspaper they did so. The Vietnamese People’s Army
Newspaper of 1 May 2017 mentioned the use of leaflet rockets and leaflet mortar rounds
in an article entitled: Unique and Effective Attack Spearhead. The story indicates
that the North Vietnamese ability to print propaganda leaflets was much greater than we
believed. We know that the Viet Cong in the bush had small portable printers. However, the
Enemy Proselyting Department in Hanoi was printing a higher grade leaflet and they had
plenty of printing capacity to do that. They could print 100,000 at a time and that is the
sign of a modern operation. The authors say in part:
During the resistance war against the Americans to save the nation (1954-1975)
the Enemy Proselyting Department was both a responsible agency of the General Political
Department and an action agency of the Military Proselyting Bureau of the Central
Unification Committee. The Enemy Proselyting Department paid special attention to
providing guidance for and arranging the introduction of many different methods of
conducting propaganda operations through the use of documents, leaflets, and various types
of printed materials and propaganda equipment.
A Communist Hanoi-Printed 1969 Calendar
The department constantly encouraged the writing and production of military-enemy
proselyting leaflets, drawings [cartoons], posters, and calendars along with dozens of
different publications to support our military-enemy proselyting propaganda operations.
During the first six months of 1968 alone the department printed a total of almost there
million copies of ten different leaflets and calendars and coordinated the design and
production of ten thousand leaflet artillery rounds (each round containing approximately
500-600 small leaflets), primarily targeted against American troops along with a small
number targeted against Lao puppet army troops.
During the Route 9-Tri Thien campaign, the Front printed three different types of
leaflets for use in separate, individual situations (attack, fighting the enemy after he
had fallen back to regroup, and fighting off enemy counterattacks). When the campaign
began the department printed 100,000 additional leaflets of three different types, and in
the middle of the campaign it printed 100,000 more leaflets of two different types. The
department provided staff advice for the General Political Department’s effort to
produce and ship hundreds of thousands of leaflets, consisting of 16 different types of
leaflets targeted on puppet army troops and four different types of leaflets targeted
against American troops and to ship to the front lines 560 leaflet rockets, 7,200
leaflet mortar rounds, 238 megaphones, and 19 loudspeakers.
In addition to preparing and issuing this equipment and studying
the installation of military proselyting loudspeakers in vehicles, officers
of the Enemy Proselyting Department also provided training to infantry,
sapper, artillery, and armored units in how to fire leaflet rockets
and leaflet mortar rounds.
During the long years of the resistance war against the Americans
to save the nation, one of the most outstanding achievements of the Enemy
Proselyting Department was its direct involvement in writing scripts and
coordinating with the Voice of Vietnam, Liberation Radio, etc. for Puppet
Proselyting, American Proselyting (in English) and Korean Proselyting (in
Korean) broadcasts over the radio. The department directly participated in directing and running
Liberation Radio Station A; organized the establishment of Radio Station
T14 to broadcast and to relay broadcasts of military-enemy proselyting
programs; designed and made various types of equipment such as
high-powered loudspeakers, hand megaphones, etc.; wrote propaganda contact
and provided guidance to units in how to carry out various types of
military-enemy proselyting, such as distributing leaflets, letters,
stamps, books, newspapers, posters, and films and firing leaflet artillery
rounds and leaflet rockets.
North Vietnamese Propaganda Leaflet Rocket
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has a North Vietnamese propaganda
rocket on display in the Rockets and Missiles exhibition at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy
Center in Chantilly, VA. It was a modified standard artillery type solid fuel rocket. Most
likely, the rocket had a very short range of a mile or less but was sufficient to scatter
small sheets of propaganda messages urging U.S. troops and allied South Vietnamese troops
to surrender, written in both English and Vietnamese.
The North Vietnamese Leaflet Rocket 520D
I found an American Intelligence translation of a North Vietnamese
document about a leaflet rocket. The instructions are confusing, and we do
not know how accurate the translation is. I have not copied the entire 5
pages of instructions. Some of the data is:
Weight of the rocket: 13 kilograms
Weight of the leaflets: 1 kilogram.
Maximum range: 4,600 meters as a firing angle of 45 degrees.
Bursting point for dropping of leaflets: I,300 meters above the
ground.
Maximum velocity: 330 meters per second.
Duration of flight before dropping leaflets: A maximum of 30
seconds at 45 degrees, a minimum of 4.3 seconds at 27 degrees.
The rocket must be contained in an aluminum tube with a booklet on
instructions on the use of the rocket. Preparations for assembling leaflets.
Take the rocket out of the box. (Do not tear the tail fins). Separate the
front rocket from the chamber containing leaflets. (It is not necessary to
remove the cartridge fuse). Remove the upper piston and cardboard covers
from the rocket. Remove the propellant charge bag. Roll up the leaflets for
insertion into the chamber. The leaflets should not be crumpled or longer
than the leaflet chamber. Insert the roll of leaflets into the leaflet
chamber. Leaflets must be dry and rolled in cylindrical form. The diameter
of the roll of leaflets is almost equivalent to the diameter of the rocket
chamber containing the leaflets. The roll of leaflets must be the same as
the length of the chamber. The leaflets are Wrapped with two sheets of
wrapping paper and one or two coats of cardboard paper. To keep
leaflets from being torn when firing, the portion of cardboard paper is on
the end of the roll of leaflets, near the warhead (wrapping paper and
cardboard paper are in the box containing the rockets).
Control the electrical source and the wiring system on the
launching stand. Connect the two additional wires onto the cam (situated at
the left leg of the launching mount). Turn the crank of the firing device.
Connect the two ends of the additional wires and press the button (on the
firing device). The sparks produced on the two additional wire ends show
that the electric tension is strong enough for operation. (The voltage must
be nine to 12 volts if dry-cell batteries or accumulators are
used.).
The rocket must be placed on the mount with the two edges of the
mount flanking it. The two fins of the rocket must be fitted in the grooves
of the mount. The propellant must be dry). During assembly, the front
portion of the rocket must be turned to the last groove. Before launching
the rocket, do not remove the safety pin or fuse cover. Once the safety pin
and fuse cover are removed, do not drop the rocket.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM
INDEPENDENCE – LIBERTY - HAPPINESS
15 December 70
RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE
In February 2021, thousands of Russian military personnel amassed
near the Russo-Ukrainian border, while President Vladimir Putin explained
that this was just maneuvers that had been planned much earlier. In
September 2021, the Russian troops started to build up once more, with about
100,000 troops surrounding Ukraine on three sides. The United States watched
carefully from satellites and said over and over that an invasion was
imminent. Most people believed it was political rhetoric because who in this
age would want to start a war that could easily escalate? Meanwhile, some
NATO countries began to send military weapons to Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the independence of the
two republics in the Donbas region of Ukraine that he had invented and
already occupied called the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk
People's Republic. Russian troops and tanks moved into the region to
allegedly keep the peace and “De-Nazify” Ukraine. His argument was like
Hitler’s in 1939 when the Germans claimed that the Poles were murdering
Germans in the street and needed to be protected. The only thing Putin did
not do was dress some convicts in Ukraine uniforms and attack a Russian
radio station as a premise to war.
On 24 February 2022, the Russians officially invaded all the
Ukraine with somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 troops, these troops were
not well-trained, believed they were playing war games and certainly were
not ready for war. Putin not only lied to the world press, but he also lied
to his own troops. Many were shocked to find themselves in battle. The
Ukraine captured many and allowed them to call home to their parents to tell
them they had found themselves in an unexpected war but were being treated
well. The common belief was that the war would be over in two or three days
as the massive Russian forces easily overran the Ukraine forces. Instead,
the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensy decided to stand and fight and
basically allowed women and children to leave while the men were ordered to
stay and fight. Against great odds, Ukraine fought the Russians for months.
Most Russian propaganda was dropped by aircraft or fired by
artillery. At one point they made a short film showing them printing
leaflets, packing them in rockets and shooting them at the Ukraine forces.
These pictures were all “grabbed” from that film.
Russian Rocket delivery of Leaflets
The Leaflets to be rocketed at the Ukrainian lines
This short Russian film depicts the leaflets being printed, cut, and rolled
by Russian technicians.
The actual Rockets being Unloaded from their Crates
Here we see the Longer Rocket Payload Capsule being Removed from the Rocket
Body for Loading
The leaflets being rocketed at the Ukrainians
Here the Multiple Rocket Launcher unleashes a barrage of Rockets toward the
Ukraine Lines
This has been a very short look at the use of rockets to disperse propaganda
leaflets. There have not been many nations that thought the use of rockets was worth the
trouble since aircraft can drop so many more leaflets and cover such a larger area. Some
propaganda drops from the air can number 10 to 12 million leaflets on a single mission.
The author encourages readers with questions or comments to write to him at sgmbert@hotmail.com.
