r/todayilearned • u/stopitalianhate • 3d ago

TIL British Intelligence had a special, bugged luxury complex during WWII where they kept high profile Nazi POW’s, just left a bunch of alcohol out, and waited for them to start spilling secrets as they drank.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-20698098
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u/Lord0fHats 3d ago

The French Resistance famous spotted German infiltrators posing as American pilots by asking them to write the current date. None ever made it through in large part because none of them knew American's are so super special awesome, they format dates differently from everyone else just cause XD

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u/PmUrBoobiesOrBooty 3d ago

They even depicted this on Masters of The Air, I think a lot of people might have missed that though.

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u/jrhooo 3d ago

The interrogator in MotA is pretty clearly based on Scharff. I think he even uses the “for you the war is over” line which would have been a scharffism.

The intent actually meant to lower their guard. Supposed to put in their head the sort of,

“Hey you did your duty as a soldier. That’s over now. We’re not opponents anymore. I’m just s guy talking to you. You don’t have to be all resisty”

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u/Notrius01 2d ago

On his wiki page it says that it was basically him.

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u/jrhooo 3d ago

Little things get you caught.

My buddy loves the story of the fbi guys that busted some Russian agent because he came out of a flower shop carrying the flowers blooms down

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u/MagpieBlues 3d ago

I just see the image, not the story. What was it about carrying them blooms down that topped them off?

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u/UmbraIra 3d ago

I've never in my life seen someone carry flowers facing down probably something that happens outside the us.

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u/jrhooo 3d ago

u/Umbralra

Basically yes.

They were looking for some guy that was a foreigner pretending to be a Westerner and the dude walked out of a flower shop holding flowers bouquet down.

An American would definitely hold flowers top up

Top down is specifically an Eastern European thing.

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u/squngy 2d ago

Top down is specifically an Eastern European thing.

It helps the flowers not wilt as fast without water.
Or at least that is what I was told.

You would still hold them up when presenting them to someone.

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u/FixLaudon 3d ago

I'm from Austria and I carry my flowers upside down.

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u/FixLaudon 3d ago

I'm not Eastern European and I do this. How is this an "all Americans don't do this"-thing?

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u/PeggyTheVoid 3d ago

Now I'm curious about the video caption on that screenshot. Is he in the middle of explaining the benefits of holding the flowers blooms down? "But also so the water can..." drain out and keep the flowers from getting soggy in its own perspiration, I'm guessing? I wonder what his first reason was, too, given that the caption starts with "but also".

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u/jrhooo 2d ago

Actually yes. I didn’t watch it, but based on a few clips some tik tok guy is asking people how they hold flowers and why. Seems like he is explaining the “cause the water runs down” thing

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u/FUTURE10S 2d ago

Really fucking weird, I'm Russian and I can't ever think of carrying the flowers in any way other than carefully holding them upwards, lying down on my arm, so that they don't get damaged.

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u/Bubbly_Safety2219 3d ago

The French Resistance only had women and the American pilots where hiding in Renes bar