soc.history.war.world-war-ii

"Michael Kuettner" wrote in message
news:fstnvo$mqm$1@registered.motzarella.org...
> "Rich Rostrom" schrieb :
>> Louis C wrote:
>>
>>>The wild card is will the deception plan hold on.
>>
>> The Germans _never_ saw through it, even long after
>> the invasion.
>
>> But the arrest was only a month before D-Day
>> and afterward the Gestapo was busy with other
>> things, and Jebsen was largely ignored.
>
> The Brits plugged even the supernatural leaks ;-).
> Helen Duncan was tried and convicted for witchcraft shortly before D-Day.
> The authorities were afraid that she would reveal the top-secret plans for
> the landing.
>
>
>

Nope.

Duncan was convicted after she revealed the sinking of HMS Barham in a
séance in 1941, after the authorities tried to conceal it. The relatives of
the dead had been informed and it is reasonable to assume, as she was
operating in Portsmouth, that she'd heard something. The conviction wasn't
for witchcraft, but for being a fraud, when she was giving the right
answers, which seems more than a little odd.

The authorities revealed the sinking in January 1942.

She wasn't arrested until early 1944, but the authorities in Portsmouth did
have other things on their minds in 1942...

Jane York was also convicted under the Witchcraft Act in 1944, July 1944,
a bit late for D-Day...

I do have to add that the 1735 Witchcraft Act assumes that all magic and
witchcraft is the work of charlatans and that all witches and magicians are,
by definition, frauds.

--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.