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Flying airmen logo (c)1990, Lee Richards

An archive of wartime aerial propaganda leaflets and research site for the history and techniques of psychological warfare, PSYOPs and military information support.

WWI: Balloon distribution of propaganda leaflets.

Men of the Hampshire Regiment checking wind direction before releasing balloons to drop propaganda leaflets over the German frontline.

Iraq: Leaflet drop from helicopter.

U.S. Army Soldiers from 350th Tactical Psychological Operations, 10th Mountain Division, conduct a leaflet drop in several villages surrounding Hawijah, to reinforce the need for self government in Kirkuk Province.

Afghanistan: Static line box drop of PSYOP leaflets.

A C-130 Hercules loadmaster drops a box of 10,000 warning leaflets over the southeastern mountains of Afghanistan. The leaflets were used to communicate with Taliban extremists, warning them not to interfere with coalition activities.

Iraq: British soldiers handing out information leaflets.

British soldiers from the Civil and Military Liason group of The Black Watch Regiment hand out leaflets to locals explaining why the soldiers are in the area and where they come from.

Iraq: boxes of PSYOP leaflets ready for dropping.

A U.S. Air Force MC-130E Combat Talon loadmaster discusses with the crew the aircraft's cargo of boxes containing 120,000 leaflets that will be dropped over Basra, Iraq, sending a message to Iraqis that they should not get in the way of coalition forces.

WWII: Interrogation of enemy prisoners.

U.S. 5th Army in Italy. Interrogation of prisoners of war to ascertain level of morale in the German Army. By securing such vital information, propaganda pamphlets are composed to bring better results.

Iraq: Posters cover insurgent graffiti.

A Sergeant of the 9th Psychological Operations (PSYOP) Battalion places anti terrorist flyers over graffiti in Mosul. PSYOPS is patrolling this area of Mosul to battle false propaganda put out by Anti-Iraqi forces.

Monroe leaflet bomb.

Captain James Monroe, U.S.A.A.F. adjusts the fuse on a bomb he designed so that it will release psychological warfare leaflets at the desired height above the ground.

WWII: Reinvention of the propaganda artillery shell.

British soldiers fill artillery shells with propaganda leaflets for firing over the frontlines. The idea to use artillery shells to disseminate leaflets was first experimented with by the French and British in the First World War. The technique was re-invented in North Africa in the Second.

Commando Solo: Airborne broadcasting platform.

The EC-130E Commando Solo aircraft of the 193rd Special Operations Wing, Pennsylvania Air National Guard, can broadcast both radio and television transmissions.

WWII: T3 Leaflet Bomb.

Adapted from the M.26 flare container, the T-3 leaflet bomb was utilised by fighter-bombers to drop propaganda leaflets over enemy-controlled territory.

Afghanistan leaflet dropping.

Combined/Joint Task Force 76 (CJTF76) prepares to drop leaflets near Forward Operating Base (FOB) Salerno, Afghanistan.

Rolls of anti-communist propaganda leaflets are loaded into an M.29 cluster bomb for dropping over northern Korea.

Rolls of anti-communist propaganda leaflets are loaded into an M.29 cluster bomb for dropping over northern Korea.

British PSYOPS soldier using a loudspeaker to communicate with the Taliban.

British PSYOPS soldier using a loudspeaker to communicate with the Taliban.

Young Iraqi boys hold a voting flyer.

Young Iraqi boys hold a voting flyer. 350th PSYOP Company is responsible for getting the word out to the surrounding communities of the upcoming January 30th, 2005 Iraqi elections.

Operation Enduring Freedom: U.S. Army Sergeant sits atop his Humvee equipped with a loudspeaker system.

U.S. Army Sergeant, of the 345th Tactical Psychological Operations Company, sits atop his Humvee equipped with a loudspeaker system. He enjoys the shade of a olive tree with local Afghani residents from the village of Old Orgun, located in the in Paktia Province of Afghanistan. Residents are gathering to celebrate the opening of the first school building to be built in the Province in over 700-years.

Malayan Emergency: Leaflets over the jungle.

Royal Army Service Corps Air Despatchers throw out surrender appeal leaflets to Chinese Communists hiding in the Malay jungle, 1958.

Sky-shouting: Loudspeaker 'Voice' aircraft.

The C-47 "Speaker" voice aircraft in Indochina being used by the French army in December 1952.

Libya 2011: Libyan civilians show off a leaflet that was released from NATO assets.

Two Libyan civilians show off a leaflet that was released from NATO assets during Operation Unified Protector.

Leaflet Archive

Random PSYOP leaflet - Iraqi soldiers DON'T DIE NEEDLESSLY

Recent Forum Posts

Information Operations Global 2013

7 June 2013 at 4:30 pm

Re: Wanted: V1 Leaflets

18 May 2013 at 7:29 pm

French Translator wanting to help

2 April 2013 at 5:53 am

Re: Saying Hello as a new member!!!!

10 March 2013 at 10:58 am

Saying Hello as a new member!!!!

10 March 2013 at 1:24 am

The Voice

9 January 2013 at 11:40 pm

French C-47 over Vietnam called "The Voice"

9 January 2013 at 6:35 pm

Reproduction Leaflets on eBay

6 January 2013 at 6:32 pm

German leaflets in British Army War Diaries

5 January 2013 at 12:15 pm

Re: United States leaflet denouncing German euthanasia

23 December 2012 at 10:18 am

Psychological Warfare, PSYOPS and Military Information Support

20 June 2013
News, Comment and Updates
Information Operations Global, 24 - 26 June, 2013

Posted on 06 June 2013 at 19:07 pm

Information Operations Global 2013 

Delivering Effects through Influence Activity

PsyWar.Org is again privileged to be partnering with this year's Information Operations Global event. Building on the strength of previous events, IO Global 2013 will provide a holistic analysis of the contemporary challenges facing IO professionals worldwide, ranging from per-emptive engagement to developing effective IO campaign assessments. With four individual themes structured to provide briefings on strategic, tactical and non-military approaches to communication and influence campaigns, Information Operations Global will once again deliver an unrivalled opportunity to enhance your communication efforts by taking on board best-practise from our expert panel.

24 - 26 June, 2013
Grand Connaught Rooms, London, United Kingdom
 

MAJOR UPDATE: Gustav Siegfried Eins Daily Monitoring Transcripts

Posted on 19 May 2013 at 19:07 pm

Translated monitoring reports of broadcasts made by the British clandestine radio station known as Gustav Siegfried Eins (GS1).

GS1 pretended to be the mouthpiece of a group of disaffected German soldiers. The main announcer is referred to as "der Chef", the Chief, who revels in the use of foul language to attack the murderous British enemy and to complain about the clique of Nazi bosses (the Party Kommune) who are mismanaging the war while profiteering and living a comfortable life at the expense of the German people. The station was on the air from May 1941 until November 1943.

Broadcasts of this radio station were monitored by the U.S. Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service, the transcripts of which make up this collection. The originals are held by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 262.
A cryptological challenge

Posted on 17 May 2013 at 09:09 am

Any cryptologists want to try to crack this radio message code?

GSI coded message 

The British black radio station Gustav Siegfried Eins would include short coded messages in its broadcasts like this. 

The text will be in German and suspect either it will be quite easy to break or totally meaningless!

Sefton Delmer explained the code's purpose thusly:

"There followed a message in a number code. It was not a high grade cypher and when broken and decoded by the monitors of the Reich Central Security Office, as it was bound to be, I reckoned it would produce quite an acceptable flurry in the Gestapo's dove-cotes all over Germany. For the message said: "Willy meet Jochen Friday row five parquest stalls second performance Union Theatre". There were hundreds of Union Theatre cinemas all over Germany, and I fondly imagined leather-coated Gestapo thugs attending every one of them on the look-out for 'Willy' and 'Jochen'. The Gestapo with their radio detection instruments would be quick to fix our signal as coming from Britain. They could not ignore the possibility that Willy and Jochen were British agents, and that the message to them was genuine."

DAMBUSTERS 70: Allied Psychological Warfare to Capitalise on the Dambusters Raid

Posted on 16 May 2013 at 06:06 am

On this night seventy years ago, 19 specially modified Lancaster bombers of 617 Squadron took off from RAF Scampton. The now famous Operation Chastise had begun. Commanded by 24-year-old Wing Commander Guy Gibson, their mission was to attack the major dams of the Ruhr and Weser valleys in Germany's industrial heartland. As well as striking a severe physical blow to the war making capabilities of the Third Reich, the morale effect of the raid was also of prime importance. Not just the depressing of enemy morale but also bolstering the people of Occupied Europe and on the home fronts, to show to the world that the British Commonwealth was fighting back and had the means and will to defeat the Axis.
 
Dambusters crew Y for York
George Lowther Steer (22 November 1909 – 25 December 1944)

Posted on 13 May 2013 at 08:08 am

George Steer was a journalist for The Times and later the Daily Telegraph. He famously reported on the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935 and the Spanish Civil war, particularly the bombing of Guernica on 26 April 1937.

During the Second World War Steer organised forward propaganda in Ethiopia and then worked for the Special Operations Executive in the Middle East. In 1943 he was transferred to India and working with Alec Peterson set up the Indian Forward Broadcasting Units (IFBU).

He and three others were killed in a vehicle accident on Christmas day 1944.

The following letter written by Alec Peterson puts on record his valuable contribution to the forming of the Indian Field Broadcasting Units.

Monitoring Transcript of Gustav Siegfried Eins, 13 March 1943

Posted on 05 May 2013 at 19:07 pm

This is a translated monitoring report of a broadcast made by the British clandestine radio station known as Gustav Siegfried Eins (GSI).
GSI pretended to be the mouthpiece of a group of disaffected German officers. The main announcer is referred to as der Chef, the Chief, who revels in the use of foul language to attack the murderous British enemy and to complain about the clique of Nazi bosses (the Party Kommune) who are mismanaging the war while profiteering and living a comfortable life at the expense of the German people.
History of SOE Political Warfare Section, Force 136

Posted on 04 May 2013 at 17:05 pm

This document is taken from the Special Operations Executive historical records of Force 136. It documents the role of S.O.E. political warfare in South East Asia, including the setting up of a rumour-mongering network in India and the organisation of the Indian Field Broadcasting Units for the production of frontline propaganda.
OWI/OSS Berne Black Propaganda Catalogue, 1943-1945

Posted on 17 January 2013 at 21:09 pm

Originally published in The Falling Leaf in October 2008, here is Lee Richards' detailed and illustrated catalogue of black propaganda material produced by Gerald M Mayer and Allen Dulles at the OWI/OSS Berne, Switzerland, outstation in World War II.

OWI/OSS Black Propaganda Sticker   OWI/OSS Black Propaganda Sticker   OWI/OSS Black Propaganda Sticker
The RAF Bombs Paris with Banknotes

Posted on 02 January 2013 at 18:06 pm

On the night of 25/26 April 1942, the Royal Air Force on a mission to Occupied France, dropped not just bombs but a rather more unusual package over Paris. The package contained 600 French Francs and the following message. Its intention was to publicise the radio propaganda broadcasts of Colonel Britton and his 'V' army.

 

French Francs
 

 

 

The Sefton Delmer Archive

Posted on 08 September 2012 at 20:08 pm

Psywar.org is pleased and proud to announce a major new addition to the website: The Sefton Delmer Archive. Working with Delmer's family we reprint online all his books, Trail Sinister, Black Boomerang, Counterfeit Spy and Weimar Germany and many unpublished articles and documents including the first three chapters of the third instalment of his autobiography Tail of a Tale.

Trail Sinister  Black Boomerang  Tail of a Tale  The Counterfeit Spy

As foreign correspondent for the Daily Express in pre-war Germany, Delmer was on personal terms with Hitler and the Nazi major players. One of the highlights of the Archive is a previously unseen home movie shot personally by Delmer on board Hitler's 1932 electioneering aircraft tour. Here we see Hitler with cotton wool stuffed in his ears, Goebbels munching a hardboiled egg and Hitler's black uniformed SS bodyguards sharing private photographs.

Adolf Hitler on 1932 electioneering tour. Still from unseen footage shot by Daily Express foreign correspondent Sefton Delmer

During World War II Delmer was appointed Director of Special Operations to Enemy and Satellite countries for Britain's secret propaganda department, the Political Warfare Executive. Under his leadership and inspiration, his team produced the renowned clandestine radio stations Gustav Siegfried Eins, Soldatensender Calais and others, the daily newspaper for German troops Nachrichten für die Truppe, and over a thousand covert black propaganda leaflets.

Over the coming months www.psywar.org will expand the archive with much more material from Delmer’s pre-war, wartime and post-war career.

 

 

 
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