Clever Radio Tricks

When Britain was bombing German cities, German radio stations would close down. This was done because the Germans were afraid the British would home in on their frequencies and use them as beacons.

Harold Robin managed to produce a very clever electronic machine. This machine enabled him to tune in the huge Aspidistra transmitter to the same wavelength as German radio stations. The really clever thing about this device was that it was able to switch British propaganda shows onto the German Station with only a 200th of a second gap. The gap in transmission was so small that the German people listening did not even realise there had been a switch, especially as he initially replaced the show with a continuation of the same show which was running in another part of Germany. This is a bit like having Radio 1 running in London but switched off in Birmingham. Then someone records Radio 1 in London and instantaneously transmits it to Birmingham.

One night the studio at Milton Bryan was warned that British bombers were heading for the German city of Cologne. This meant they were able to start broadcasting the British propaganda programmes immediately the German station came off the air. This was done so well that Sefton Delmer complained to Harold Robin that the German broadcast was taking forever to come off the air. Harold Robin told Sefton Delmer that he was already listening to his own broadcasters coming from Milton Bryan.

If you were a German family in Cologne at the time you would have heard the warning of the bombers coming. You would then hear the broadcast continue, issuing instructions from the German authorities who were in reality British propaganda personnel. The German people would hear the planes and bombs passing over head and therefore believed the announcements had to be genuine - after all how would the British know the exact moment the bombers were over their town? The announcements told the people to pack their bags and leave the town. It told them that the banks had already moved the contents of their vaults to safer areas. Sometimes German refugees were told to head for seven neutral Red Cross bomb free sites across Germany.

British bombers attacking Cologne

Getting German families to leave their houses taking their belongings with them, created chaos and traffic jams (a bit like the Bank Holiday on the M1). This was exactly what the British generals wanted and really angered the German authorities.