Air Borne Cigar

Air Borne Cigar

Lancaster, B-SR, dropping a cloud of incendiaries, and showing the ABC aerials on the fuselage. Hand written caption pointing to the masts 'The A.B.C. masts a third one was under the nose'.

Newspaper cutting

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PThompsonKG15010046, PThompsonKG15010047

Jamming equipment known as Airborne Cigar was first used on the night of October 7 - 8th 1943. Each aircraft carried a German speaking operator as an additional crew member, whose duty it was to find and jam enemy frequencies. Then it was decided to use a "ghost voice". The target was Kassell, and before the end of the raid a furious German ground controller warning his aircraft to be "aware of another voice" and "not to be led astray by the enemy". But the "voice" could mimic perfectly the voices of his opposite numbers. after a particularly violent outburst by the German controller the "voice" said - "the Englishman is swearing now" the Germans reply was "it is not the Englishman who is swearing but me."