CoodaShooda (#9042),
...T'was not only the local natives that the Coastwatchers had to be concerned with...,our esteemed Australian Broadcasting Commission's radio news reported on a Japanese raid being successfully intercepted following information received from "a coastwatcher on Bougainville" ....Sadly, the censors did not pick it up before broadcast and the next (and last) transmission from the poor chap was that the Japs were hunting him with dogs...
There was a similar incident in the First Gulf War: [Wiki] sets the stage:
...Iraq; this was the first of two attacks by 1 Battalion 5th Cavalry of the 1st Cavalry Division. It was a feint attack, designed to make the Iraqis think that a Coalition invasion would take place from the south. The Iraqis fiercely resisted, and the Americans eventually withdrew as planned back into the Wadi Al-Batin................ This attack led the way for the XVIII Airborne Corps to sweep around behind the 1st Cav and attack Iraqi forces to the west...
One of the US Radio networks inanely went on air with sufficient detail of the US build-up in the West to alert any half-witted Intelligence Officer. Luckily they did not pick it up, and the rest you know.
The loquacity of the newsdesks (for the newsreaders are mere talking heads) is only matched by their naivety. Two (?) years ago, BBC "Look North", found a human-interest item in the shape of an old Bomber Command "veteran", a three-toured Wing Commander no less, aged 86. Reporters are usually accurate about ages. Simple arithmetic shows the "veteran" to be 18 when the war ended in 1945.
This did not strike the BBC as anything odd; they (I do hope it was not "Project Propeller") bought him a ride (currently £95) from the Teesside Flying Club. It was his demeanour in the aircraft which struck me as as suspect. He would not touch the (dual) controls, but kept his hands primly folded in his lap. Invited by the nice young Instructor to "have a go", he murmered "Better not". Well, I ask you ?
I subsequently exchanged PMs with a member who has access to the 1945 Air Force List. No trace.
Of course this willingness to take things at face value can be exploited. I still chuckle over a succesful hoax planted on the local radio station at San Franciso (or was it Los Angeles ?) some years ago. A Chinese cargo jet had overshot the runway at the airport, no casualties, not much damage. A minute or two before the evening news was due to go out, the newsdesk got a call from a member of the public: would they like the names of the crew ? News was scarce, yes they would. They copied it down without realising, flagged "breaking news", I suppose, and passed it through. It read:
Pilot 1: Sum Ting Wong
Pilot 2: Wee Tu Hi
Pilot 3: Ho Lee Kow
Pilot 4: Bang Dong Ow
The luckless girl on the mike read it out in all innocence.
(San Fran/LA was convulsed for hours, the station had to issue a retraction).
Danny.