What do you think it’s the biggest “troll” move America did to an enemy in a war?

21 comments

1. “NUTS!”

2. Kilroy Was Here.

3. The Ice Cream barge has to be up there.

   The Japanese were struggling for food, fuel, steel, and ammunition by the later stages of the war in the Pacific.

   The US built an ice cream factory on an extra barge that was just laying around because they wanted ice cream for the shore garrisons. Every capital ship already had ice cream machines by that point in the war, of course.

4. [Der Fuhrer’s Face](https://youtu.be/g73kKLts95U?si=iKGGB2HW77wbQrwu) by Spike Jones

5. Der Fuhrers Face, a famous cartoon.

   “When Der Fuhrer says, ‘Ve ist de Master Race’ ve says “Heil, heil, vight in der Fuhrer’s face”.

6. The U.S. Navy dropping a [toilet](https://youtu.be/w4B-rp1bqYA?si=LTrz1hT1f4WGw0Go) to mark the 6 millionth pound of ordnance dropped on Vietnam.

   The biggest might have been taking the tune of a [British drinking song](https://youtu.be/4IPLFLH3BHU?si=XuT8Zv5gtk-5TZ5c) and making it our national anthem.

7. There’s the battle of bayonet hill, during the Korean War. The communists apparently told their forces that we were afraid to fix bayonets, basically calling us cowards as a way to cover for their own ammunition shortages. One of our guys, [Lewis Millet](https://youtu.be/-aivkapXU14?si=vw33slPIrmwF0Jyv), heard about it, and decided that wouldn’t stand, and led a bayonet charge to prove that we weren’t cowards. The problem was that the charge was too successful and left no survivors, so he ended up doing it again later just to make sure they got the message.

   Basically, his men successfully used a largely outdated tactic just to prove that we could, twice.

8. When I was in the Navy (08-12) we did a lot of counterpiracy operations. After we’d board them and throw their weapons over the side and sink their speedboats we’d blast Never Gonna Give You Up over the loudspeaker as we left.

9. Burying a pig’s head along with killed Muslim Filipino terrorists during the Philippine Insurrection as a otherworldly punishment for committing murder and terrorist acts.

   During the Vietnam War, the ace of spades was used as a tool of psychological warfare as it was common practice by US soldiers to leave the ace card on the bodies of killed Communists. As the symbolism is such that in Vietnamese tradition it means death and ill-fortune.

10. [Ghost Army](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Army)

11. I was going to say this but it was actually the Brits.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schichlegruber_Doing_the_Lambeth_Walk

12. OP, you think a corny forced parody of Dixie is a big win move!?

    LMAO

13. I don’t know if other countries did this, but our guys tend to be sarcastic SOBs when captured.

    -For obvious reasons, the Fascist Italian state was obsessed with Rome imagery, which included (for propaganda purposes) marching their captured enemies through Rome proper. When they did that with American PoWs, the soldiers smiled and waved like it was a parade in their honor, totally undercutting the effect it was supposed to have.

    -Some Korean War POWS, when they had their pictures taken by their captors (again for propaganda) , gave a “Hawaiian Good Luck Gesture”… that involved an extended middle finger. The most elaborate of these trolling jobs was a “Confession Statement” broadcast on the radio where the American prisoner’s text made great use of the English word “paean” (praise or pay tribute, pronounced “peeon”). “We paean the North Korean people, we paean their Great Leader…”.

    -When the Italians switched sides, Bill Mauldin reported seeing an incident where the newly allied Italian army broke in combat, leading to some German wiseass shouting “what do you think of your new friends?”, in English. To which some GI shouted back that they could have ’em back if they wanted.

14. WMDs in Iraq. lol jk

15. Montgomery Miegs turning Robert E. Lee’s back garden into the national graveyard is quite simply one of the greatest owns in history, not just American history.

    You can’t fake that kind of spite

16. When the American garrison at Midway sent a fake message “in the clear” (on open channels) regarding broken water evaporator units on the island. Almost immediately afterward, American listening posts intercepted Japanese transmissions mentioning the water shortage and the need to bring along extra water to support the operation. The identity of the Japanese objective was conclusively determined as Midway.

17. Inflatable tanks…. The ghost army of artists and designers that terrified the Germans.

    “Its artillery couldn’t fire, its tanks couldn’t move and its members were more adept at wielding paintbrushes than guns. Yet, a top-secret unit of 1,100 American artists, designers and sound engineers unofficially known as the “Ghost Army” helped to win World War II by staging elaborate ruses that fooled the forces of Nazi Germany about the location and size of Allied forces.

    Employing inflatable decoys, fake radio chatter and loudspeakers that blared sound effects, the Ghost Army could simulate a force 30 times its size as it operated as close as a quarter mile from the front lines. “Rarely, if ever, has there been a group of such a few men which had so great an influence on the outcome of a major military campaign,” declared a U.S. Army report.”

    https://www.history.com/news/ghost-army-world-war-ii

18. Convinced an entire generation that carrots help improve vision.

    It’s actually a piece of deceitful propaganda. The allies developed new radar technology which enabled them to pinpoint german airplanes more accurately. To mislead the Germans as to how they were accurately finding their planes, the allies invented a bullshit explanation that sounded believable and worked hard to convince thei public of it so that the Germans would focus on the wrong thing.

19. Union Dixie is such a banger even today it’s still recognized more than the traitor anthem. A W and disrespect that’s so legendary shit has lasted over a century.

    Another good one is Wagner mercs approach some sort of oil well US forces were guarding in Syria. Went something like this. Washington calls Moscow, tells them they should probably pull back their goons or they won’t like what happens next.

    Moscow says “there are no Russians in Syria.” A whooping so bad the Russians gave metals to the survivors happens, no casualties on the US but a wipe of the Russian mercs.

    Washington calls back, and says “there are no Russians in Syria – anymore.”

20. It was planned, but never came about. The CIA planned to distribute condoms in Eastern Bloc countries during the Cold War. However, these condoms weren’t exactly going to help the population.

    These condoms were apparently going to be abnormally large – much longer and thicker than normal condoms. The plan was to label them “medium” hoping to undermine Soviet morale rather than provide contraception.

21. Want to know the only Type IX-C German U-Boat left in existence? America’s.

    We stole a WWII German Submarine and stuck it Chicago(as far as I know it’s still there). We sent a boarding party of nine people to steal it, after nearly sinking it. Imagine being a German officer and seeing nine Americans board your submarine, stop it from sinking(after you and the other forty-nine officers on board abandoned ship and set scuttling charges to ensure it sinks). Before the War in Europe ended, we disguised it as an American submarine and called it the USS Nemo. After the War in Europe ended, we took it on tour to raise funds to continue the War in the Pacific.

    [The Fat Electrician does a better job explaining everything than I could.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s-ZY0lnGeI)