Coded Message Discovered in WW2 Cartridge. Awesome.

This one has it all: A coded message, a clever stash location and a funny story about Italian grenades and stupid Nazis!

From Sploid:

August, 13, 1944. The British 8th Army occupies Florence. The Allies finally break out of Normandy. Meanwhile, somewhere in the south of Tuscany, a soldier writes this encrypted message and hides it inside a bullet. In 2015, someone found it and deciphered it. It was the end of a hilariously absurd story.

When it was dug up from the ground, the cartridge was found with the bullet flipped around and pointed down into the casing as a stopper. Hidden inside the cartridge was a note — but not just any note — an encoded message! The Italian metal.. ermmm.. detectorist(?) posted about his find last week on an Italian language Internet forum for metal detector enthusiasts. The post contained several pictures including the one above and this one of the message itself:



Another poster in the forum thread claimed to be in possession of WW2 code books and offered the following translation of the text:

QM is code for the officer that was tasked with coordinating forces for a particular engagement. This is an engagement status letter that is addressed to that officer.

The (6) 5 letter codes read as follows, from left to right, top to bottom:

THEY - THROW - GRENADES - WE - PULL - PINS - AND - THROW - BACK

The final code at the bottom is a phrase:

NOTIFY REINFORCEMENTS STAND DOWN - NOT NEEDED

Assuming the message has been deciphered correctly, the first part sounds a lot like the punchline from a war era joke — but what could it mean? The article from Sploid offers an interesting hypothesis. It seems that after the Italians surrendered in 1943, lots of their arms and munitions wound up with the Germans and among these items were Italian L Type grenades. These hypothetical German soldiers would presumably have been unfamiliar with the design of these Italian grenades which had not one, but two pins!

edit on 2015-1-31 by theantediluvian because: (no reason given)

Haha. Love it, love it. Absolutely delicious! What a great post-war find. I never heard of 2 pin grenades until now. A fifteen inch grenade would be kind of big and bulky to carry around though, I would imagine.

a reply to: aboutface

Fifteen inches would be kind of big and bulky to carry around though, I would imagine.

It is trust me, oh you were talking about the grenades....

Awesome story toldby the front lines.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
This one has it all: A coded message, a clever stash location and a funny story about Italian grenades and stupid Nazis!

From Sploid:

August, 13, 1944. The British 8th Army occupies Florence. The Allies finally break out of Normandy. Meanwhile, somewhere in the south of Tuscany, a soldier writes this encrypted message and hides it inside a bullet. In 2015, someone found it and deciphered it. It was the end of a hilariously absurd story.

When it was dug up from the ground, the cartridge was found with the bullet flipped around and pointed down into the casing as a stopper. Hidden inside the cartridge was a note — but not just any note — an encoded message! The Italian metal.. ermmm.. detectorist(?) posted about his find last week on an Italian language Internet forum for metal detector enthusiasts. The post contained several pictures including the one above and this one of the message itself:

Another poster in the forum thread claimed to be in possession of WW2 code books and offered the following translation of the text:

QM is code for the officer that was tasked with coordinating forces for a particular engagement. This is an engagement status letter that is addressed to that officer.

The (6) 5 letter codes read as follows, from left to right, top to bottom:

THEY - THROW - GRENADES - WE - PULL - PINS - AND - THROW - BACK

The final code at the bottom is a phrase:

NOTIFY REINFORCEMENTS STAND DOWN - NOT NEEDED

Assuming the message has been deciphered correctly, the first part sounds a lot like the punchline from a war era joke — but what could it mean? The article from Sploid offers an interesting hypothesis. It seems that after the Italians surrendered in 1943, lots of their arms and munitions wound up with the Germans and among these items were Italian L Type grenades. These hypothetical German soldiers would presumably have been unfamiliar with the design of these Italian grenades which had not one, but two pins!

Kilroy was in Italy?

LOL, funny message..they throw grenades and we pull pins and throw back. Hilarious and it probably helped ease their battle fatigue a little bit.

a reply to: WarminIndy

Kilroy was in Italy?

That's probably going to require a little explanation for some people!

source - kilroywashere.org

Wikipedia - Kilroy Was Here