The Chocolate Cake Incident Syndrome.

[Five_Inch_Heels]

In the 1965 film, The Battle Of The Bulge, Robert Vaughn's character Col. Hessler is presented with a chocolate cake taken from an American POW. He laments that the German High Command can't even get them fuel and ammunition while the Americans have the resources to ship a chocolate cake to the front, leading him to conclude the the war is lost.

It became fairly widely believed despite there being no solid evidence it ever happened. There may have been some folklore among veterans at best. There is a similar refence to nail clippers during the Korean War.

What other incidents popularized in movies or books became believed to be true in a similar manner with no evidence of truth?

 

[XerXesXu]

In the 1965 film, The Battle Of The Bulge, Robert Vaughn's character Col. Hessler is presented with a chocolate cake taken from an American POW. He laments that the German High Command can't even get them fuel and ammunition while the Americans have the resources to ship a chocolate cake to the front, leading him to conclude the the war is lost.

It became fairly widely believed despite there being no solid evidence it ever happened. There may have been some folklore among veterans at best. There is a similar refence to nail clippers during the Korean War.

What other incidents popularized in movies or books became believed to be true in a similar manner with no evidence of truth?

Everything else originating in Hollywood. Strange question.

 

[Bramblethorn]

What other incidents popularized in movies or books became believed to be true in a similar manner with no evidence of truth?

Our Guys were fighting a war in some [jungle/desert] overseas, allied with Those Other Guys (you know the ones, we're friends but they're not as good as us).

Those Other Guys found out we were getting bulk shipments of condoms and had concerns about how much Our Guys must be fucking to need that many condoms.

But actually! Our Guys were using condoms over the barrels of their guns to stop crud getting in from the [jungle/desert]. Because we're competent and Other Guys are incompetent.

IDK where this originated but I've seen a few incarnations of it. My understanding is that Other Guys are in fact well aware of the condom trick and it goes back a long long way.

 

[SyleusSnow]

What other incidents popularized in movies or books became believed to be true in a similar manner with no evidence of truth?

The Nazis never found the Arc of the Covenant

There are so many wartime tall tales people believe, but I really hate the pervasive myths of the Lone Genius and the Lone Warrior shown so often in books and movies.

Alan Turing was a genius, but he didn't crack Enigma alone as depicted in The Imitation Game. It was very much a team effort. In fact, there were many Enigma variations... Polish mathematicians broke the earliest ones much earlier, work that Turing built upon. Turing also wasn't nearly the abrasive misfit as depicted in the movie.

Likewise, Joseph Rochefort didn't single-handedly predict the invasion of Midway. It was a team effort. And Alan Turing and the team at Bletchley Park helped in breaking Japan's crypto.

The Lone Warrior myth is shown as truth in American Sniper, Lone Survivor, Sgt. York, the accounts of Audie Murphy and on and on, re-enforced and amplified in everything from Rambo to Forest Gump (and my current favorite Sisu... it's totally believable

 

[iwatchus]

Likewise, Joseph Rochefort didn't single-handedly predict the invasion of Midway. It was a team effort. And Alan Turing and the team at Bletchley Park helped in breaking Japan's crypto.

My understanding is that purple, the japanese crypto, was primarily cracked by the American team, led by William Friedman.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

The Nazis never found the Arc of the Covenant

There are so many wartime tall tales people believe, but I really hate the pervasive myths of the Lone Genius and the Lone Warrior shown so often in books and movies.

Alan Turing was a genius, but he didn't crack Enigma alone as depicted in The Imitation Game. It was very much a team effort. In fact, there were many Enigma variations... Polish mathematicians broke the earliest ones much earlier, work that Turing built upon. Turing also wasn't nearly the abrasive misfit as depicted in the movie.

Likewise, Joseph Rochefort didn't single-handedly predict the invasion of Midway. It was a team effort. And Alan Turing and the team at Bletchley Park helped in breaking Japan's crypto.

The Lone Warrior myth is shown as truth in American Sniper, Lone Survivor, Sgt. York, the accounts of Audie Murphy and on and on, re-enforced and amplified in everything from Rambo to Forest Gump (and my current favorite Sisu... it's totally believable

The whole "Hedy Lamarr invented a torpedo guidance system" myth.
She had a great idea, but never turned it into a working prototype.
Giving her credit for it is like giving Isaac Asimov credit for inventing the space walk because he was the first person to ever write about it.

https://www.americanscientist.org/article/random-paths-to-frequency-hopping

 

[SyleusSnow]

My understanding is that purple, the japanese crypto, was primarily cracked by the American team, led by William Friedman.

True. Purple was used by the Japanese army and Foreign Office. Rochefort et al. worked on JN-25, the crypto used by the Navy.

 

[SyleusSnow]

The whole "Hedy Lamarr invented a torpedo guidance system" myth.
She had a great idea, but never turned it into a working prototype.

To be fair, Lamarr and her husband developed their frequency-hopping idea far enough to get it patented, so it was a bit more than just an idea. The Navy rejected it, though, so there wasn't any prototype built.

https://www.inventionandtech.com/content/hedy-lamarr-radio-controlled-torpedo

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Another more fun example:

Great song, amazing scene.

PT Barnum didn't drink and actually gave speeches in support of temperance.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

To be fair, Lamarr and her husband developed their frequency-hopping idea far enough to get it patented, so it was a bit more than just an idea. The Navy rejected it, though, so there wasn't any prototype built.

https://www.inventionandtech.com/content/hedy-lamarr-radio-controlled-torpedo

Take a look at the article I linked, there were previous patents encompassing the idea.
She (and her partner) had an idea for something other people were already working on in various forms.

 

[SyleusSnow]

Take a look at the article I linked, there were previous patents encompassing the idea.
She (and her partner) had an idea for something other people were already working on in various forms.

Fun. So lots of prior art on the general concept of frequency hopping (for secrecy purposes). Seems like the Lamarr patent was to counteract jamming of signals specifically for control of a weapon.

So claiming she invented the entire idea is not true, but I think she gets credit for a specific application of the idea.

 

[XerXesXu]

My understanding is that purple, the japanese crypto, was primarily cracked by the American team, led by William Friedman.

Yes, the Americans were working on the Japanese 'Purple' code before their entry into the war. The Italians were working on the US 'Black' code at the same time. They didn't crack it, as such, merely copied it. The US embassy had employed an Italian intelligence agent as their nightwatchman. 'The Desert Fox' acquired his reputation as tank commander because he received daily situation reports of the British Order of battle and battleplans from the US Military attaché in Cairo.
Turing did significant work on the Enigma code, to which many others also contributed. His was pivotal to the cracking of the Lorenz code, the more complex, high-level code used between Hitler and his commanders. He did it with the help of talented Post Office (telephone) switching engineers. They created the first electronic computer, 'The Bombe', which was capable doing the necessary decryption.

 

[StillStunned]

There's a general impression that all the RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain and the rest of WWII were upper class with posh accents. The truth, from what I've read, is that most of them were working class. But a slew of movies featuring classically trained actors has distorted that reality.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

There's a general impression that all the RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain and the rest of WWII were upper class with posh accents. The truth, from what I've read, is that most of them were working class. But a slew of movies featuring classically trained actors has distorted that reality.

And they all had AMAZING mustaches.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

^^ Col. Crittendon (Bernard Fox) comes to mind.

 

[Zootonius]

"Failure is not an option." from Apollo 13. How the line came about is interesting. The writers were interviewing some NASA controllers when one said, in effect, "we just calmly laid out all the options, and failure was not one of them."

It was was such a good line that Gene Kranz used it for the title of his book.

 

[Zootonius]

Minor point, Robert Shaw played Col. Hessler. Robert Vaughn was in The Bridge at Remagen as Major Kreuger.

And like many fictional stories, the chocolate cake story represents something that was true, the Germans couldn't believe the quality of the rations the GIs were receiving when they overran US supply depots.

 

[astuffedshirt_perv]

Those Other Guys found out we were getting bulk shipments of condoms and had concerns about how much Our Guys must be fucking to need that many condoms.

Per The Churchill Factor, the brits were going into Norway and had special covers that looked like condoms for their 2" mortars. Churchill, upon seeing this, demanded they be shipped in packaging labeled "British Size Small".