Operation Braddock
The operation Braddock was a measure of operational information that during the Second World War from the year 1943 by the British Special Operations Executive was planned (SOE) and carried out. The aim was to create confusion, fears, insecurities and demoralization in enemy territory by dropping so-called “attack packages” . The packages dropped should contain special grenades , pocket fuel elements , a small firearm or incendiary devices . Subversive forces equipped with them and active in enemy territory , prisoners of war or forced laborers , should then carry out attacks that become a considerable threat to the enemy.
The British secret service originally came to the conclusion that a mass distribution of " covert " explosive devices or incendiary devices over enemy areas was not useful. On the one hand, there were not enough aircraft to transport the parcels, on the other hand, there were fears that the German side could then take revenge on prisoners of war. In addition, it was believed that playing children could be injured or even killed by explosive devices. The minister responsible for the operation, Lord Selborne , came to the conclusion in the course of 1943 that the war situation had fundamentally changed and that it was now necessary to at least paralyze or hinder communication in the enemy-occupied areas. Unintentional injuries to children could easily be prevented by technical features of the means used.
The SOE then began to work out a deployment scenario . The “Braddock I” plan was to parachute 50,000 “attack packages” over enemy territory. In addition to specially developed grenades, the packages were to contain, among other things, a special firearm called the "Liberator" pistol . This very simply built weapon could only fire a single cartridge , but reserves of 10 more cartridges were included. One million of these guns were each for 2.10 $ in the USA made. The “Braddock I” scenario was finally abandoned and some of the simple weapons were handed over to the French resistance and insurgents in East Asia.
For “Braddock II” it was planned to distribute around 3 million incendiary devices (known as “Braddocks”) over Germany and Italy , which were to be used for sabotage purposes by foreign forced laborers and resistance against the Nazi regime . The SOE argued that if only one percent of the incendiary devices were used successfully, there would be around 30,000 fires throughout Germany.
The incendiary package consisted of a small, transparent celluloid housing that was filled with a flammable gel . This was ignited by destroying the housing with an integrated "firing pin". Half an hour later the flames broke out and then burned for about four minutes at a temperature of 2000 degrees Celsius . Later, incendiary packages were also equipped with different time fuses. There were some with delays of 15 or 30 minutes, as well as three, eight and 34 hours. On the outside of the package there was an instruction manual in eleven different languages.
After several months of discussions, it was finally decided in May 1944 to carry out Operation "Braddock II" as soon as possible after the so-called D-Day . Finally, on September 25, 1944, the first 200,000 incendiary parcels were dropped by the US Air Force over the Frankfurt and Mainz region . On this day the propaganda broadcaster "Voice of SHAEF " broadcast an open appeal to foreign forced laborers in Germany. "The hour for action has come," announced the radio and declared that in some parts of Germany organized cells are being provided by foreigners with funds for active resistance. Anyone who found a package was told to read the instructions provided and to hide the so-called "braddocks" in a safe place until they had a plan for optimal sabotage use.
After the fire parcels were dropped in Frankfurt, an SS unit occupied the Dutch forced labor dormitory in the “Kristallpalast” on Grosse Gallusstrasse. The responsible police authority announced that 20 to 25,000 items have been collected since the parcels were dropped. It is feared that many thousands more have already been found by foreign workers or other unreliable "elements" and that they are ready to use them to carry out acts of sabotage. It was noticed that an unusually high percentage of foreign workers did not come to work.
It was not until February 1945 that further "Braddocks" were dropped in various parts of Germany, with the last such deployment taking place on April 5, 1945 over the city of Fürth . After that, further deployments of "Braddocks" were no longer sensible. On the one hand, Germany's defeat was imminent; on the other hand, there were still fears that German security forces might begin large-scale retaliatory measures against prisoners of war or forced laborers. The remainder of the fire parcels were destroyed on May 3, 1945 with the comment: "You would create a nice bonfire for VE day ".
The success of "Operation Braddock" is difficult to assess retrospectively. In view of the large number of fires that already broke out in attacked cities by bombs, the percentage of successful sabotage operations using incendiary packages cannot be determined.