Cunning Plans of a Military Sort 17 May

May 17 is a day for cunning plans of a military sort. In 1899, for example, Colonel Baden-Powell was sent (with no troops or supplies of any sort) to resist the expected Boer invasion of the Natal Colony (now KwaZulu-Natal Province) and draw the Boers away from the coasts so that British troops could be landed. Baden-Powell decided that the best way of tying down Boer troops would be to invite attack by defending something. He chose the town of Mafeking. He recruited local forces of 2000 men in shorts and funny hats, part of which was a cadet corps of boys aged 12 to 15, (the inspiration for the Scouting movement). 8,000 Boer troops attacked Mafeking, but, by means of cunning plans, including fake landmines and searchlights made out of biscuit tins, Baden-Powells’ chaps withstood the siege for 217 days. As a ruse to tie down Boer forces it was a raging success and the siege was lifted on May 17, 1900, when British forces relieved the town after fighting their way in. Leaping from land into air, Operation Chastise was the official name for the attacks on German dams on May 17, 1943 in World War II using a specially developed "bouncing bomb" designed by Barnes Wallis. His cunning plan was for a bomb that could be exploded directly against the dam wall below the surface of the water. The major German dams were protected by heavy torpedo netting to prevent such an attack, and Wallis’s breakthrough was a drum-shaped bomb, spinning rapidly backwards that skipped over all the defences and detonated against the dam. The attack was carried out by the unfeasibly brave boys of Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron, subsequently known as the Dam Busters. Mines were flooded and houses, factories, roads, railways and bridges destroyed as the flood waters spread for around 50 miles (80 km) from the source. The Nazis were kept busy nailing it all back together for several months. Good show chaps.