What is happening ?
We are Commemorating Operation Manna and Chowhound in WW2. This is a really good chance for Children to get involved and have a go on amateur radio, speaking to other Children in many Operation Manna / Chowhound connected places. As well as take part in some fun activities at home or at one of our locations while learning a little about the operation.
At the end of the War 80 Years ago. Lots of people in Holland did not have enough food to eat and were having to eat lots of horrible things because they were so hungry.
Lots of people had died because they did not have enough food to eat.
This is because the Nazi Soldiers who were controlling Holland would not allow trains to deliver food or coal to them and the bitter cold winter made it worse.
In Holland it is called the Hunger Winter.
If the rest of the people who were very sick did not get food and medicine very quickly they would have died also. So the aeroplanes that normally dropped Bombs were used to drop food for the people. This was called operation Manna and operation Chowhound.
Operation Manna was the Bomber Command operation, Chowhound was the American operation.
The food was put into sacks and loaded into the big space under the Bombers where the Bombs normally went.
The Bombers flew from England to Holland where they opened the doors under the plane and the food dropped out. These doors are the Bomb doors.
They had to fly very low so the food did not get badly damaged when it fell to the floor.
Before the food was dropped they had to make radio broadcasts and drop bits of paper to tell the Dutch people what was happening. The food was very heavy and could have hurt people if it fell on them. Some people were hurt anyway.
Perhaps you could draw a sign that could have been used to warn the people of the danger from the falling food ? Or can you draw a picture of what you think a B-17 or Lancaster would look like dropping its food ?
The places they took off from are called “Airfields” and the places where they opened the doors under the plane and dropped the food “Drop Zones.”
Often the men in the Bombers “the crews” would take along their own donations like Chocolate bars and drop them by tiny parachutes they had made. Children could find these and taste Chocolate for the first time.
Lots of the Dutch people were saved and it was very good for the men who flew in the Bombers to be doing such a nice thing to help the starving people that were our friends. The Dutch people all waved to the Bombers made flags and nice signs to spell out messages of thanks.
Maybe you could try making a sign using some small stones, small pieces of torn paper or LEGO bricks like the Dutch people did.
Because it is important to remember all the people that died and the work to save them. Some people have gone to Holland where the food was dropped out of the Bombers ( Drop Zone ) with radios. Other people are where planes took off from ( Airfields ) and more people are at important places to do with operation Manna and Chowhound with radios. You can speak to these places from where you are today. There will be other Children in those places for you to talk with.
It will be fun to talk to these places from your house or your grand parents house on the radio, or you can come to one of the places if they are near your house and use a radio there.
When you talk on the radio after you have said your name and where you are from you may like to say:
What you think it would be like to be cold and hungry every day ?
What food you would have missed the most ?
What you think it would it be like to have food dropped to you ?
What you think it would it be like to find a bar of Chocolate dropped by parachute when you have never tasted Chocolate before ?
When you talk on the radio your voice travels on things called radio waves. Like the waves you will see if you splash in the bath or look at the sea they have a top and a bottom and are one after the other but invisible.
The light from our Sun travels in waves to get to us also, very very tiny waves smaller than the smallest thing you can imagine, the light from bulbs in your house travels in those same tiny waves too.
We can work out a wavelength for radio waves. Some tiny and some bigger than your house.
Some radio waves of quite a long wavelength can go up into the sky and bounce of a thing called the ionosphere. These are very useful as they let the radio signal travel around our round world. As radio waves can only travel in straight lines.
Radio signals that have a smaller wavelength can still be used to talk long distances but need another thing to help them like satellites or the internet.
Lots of people like the radio waves that bounce down from the Sky as the same radio wave energy from your voice is heard by the radio in the other place making a real connection between the two places.
The crews who flew in the Bombers knew how terrible it had been for the people in Holland so often made tiny parachutes and Dropped bars of Chocolate or other treats that they had purchased for Children to find as they flew over their homes. Maybe you could try making a tiny parachute to drop a small bar of Chocolate or some sweets. You do not need to have tissue paper as in the video you can use a square cut by an adult from a carrier bag, a bin bag or even a napkin works well. Try different shape’s and sizes.
Why do you think the chocolate is slowed down by the parachute ?
What would happen if you dropped a piece of paper, then you screwed the same piece of paper into a little ball and dropped it . Would it fall faster or slower when screwed up ?
Why do you think that happens ?
The Bomber aircraft in WW2 used Morse code for Communication rather than the type of radios with microphones used today. This is because Morse code worked better with the type of radios in use in those days. They bounced the radio waves off the Ionosphere as we learned above so that the signals went around the curved Earth and back to the U.K and from the U.K. to the Bombers. Morse code is tones or flashes of light of two different lengths representing letters and numbers. A is Dot a short tone or flash of light, a Dash a longer one.
In those days they had separate transmitters and receivers the transmitter is on top the receiver underneath.
The large button on the bathtub key was pressed to send the Morse code. A very short press for a dot, a press of three times longer for a dash.
The Dots and Dashes represent the letters and numbers as shown in the chart below. What is important to remember when first trying Morse code is that all the dots and dashes of a letter must come very quickly together. For example the letter A = \.- \ but it we key \ . gap – \ we get the letters E and T because of the gap being too big between the dot and the dash. As the pause represents the start of a new letter.
With the aid of the chart
See if you can work out this word \– \.- \-. \-. \.-\
How about this one \-.-. \…. \— \.– \….\ — \..- \-. \-..\
Or this one \.-.. \.- \-. \-.-.\ .- \… \- \.\ .-.\
One with some numbers \- … \ . – – – – \ – – . . . \
Try writing some messages of your own out on paper.
This button above will open a page where you can try to send your message using the space bar of your computer. If you are using a tablet or phone there are free apps you can download and use instead.
A dot is a very quick press a dash you need to hold the space bar down for 3 times as long as you did for your dot. It is a really difficult skill to master just to send your name without having to learn the sounds to be able to understand the incoming messages. In WW2 it was a six month training course to become a radio operator. It was very important for the radio operator to listen to his radio all the time they were flying incase of bad weather reports, the operation being cancelled or anything else.
Maybe the people you are with can explain more about Morse code to you ? or they may have real Morse code keys to show you.? Perhaps they can find some Morse code on the radio for you to listen too?
Bomber Command in WW2 did not only use Morse code by radio. Morse code could also be sent by flashes of light this was used greatly as the signals could not be picked up by the enemy. The Bomber crews would speak to another Bomber in the stream not by radio but by a flashed Aldis lamp and Morse code. On the ground prior to a mission radio silence was practised and Aldis lamps used to communicate with the aircraft by using simple colour codes green go or by Morse code.
The Aldis lamp was like a very powerful torch but with a trigger to make sending the dots and dashes easier.
target and the trigger for flashing the lamp.
Maybe you could try sending some Morse code to someone by flashing a torch and they could try to write down the dots and dashes and decode your message ?