Braintree pensioner finds rare 'paradummy' from D-Day

Robert Bowley, 80, from Braintree, was clearing out his late brother's home when he came across the dummy.

His brother Michael had been fond of collectors’ items from France and got it while on a trip to Normandy in the 1950s or 1960s.

Robert said he had initially mistaken it for a scarecrow before he passed it to a museum.

Old - the paradummy found by Robert Bowley (Image: SWNS)

Robert, a retired watchmaker and antique collector, said: "My brother Michael used to go to France a lot in the '50s and '60s and brought all sorts of stuff back.

"After he passed, I found it in his house.

"It looked like a scarecrow, or a ragdoll, or a set of child's overalls.”

Robert then discovered it was a rare surviving D-Day artefact worth thousands.

The dummy was one of several hundred from Operation Bodyguard, part of the Operation Overlord D-Day landings, on June 6, 1944.

So-called 'paradummies', made of hessian cloth, straw and sawdust, were dropped by plane to trick the Germans into thinking Allied paratroopers were invading and to divert enemy attention from the Normandy landing beaches.

Most of the dummies had a self-destruct mechanism to destroy the evidence - making this surviving dummy both rare and valuable.

It is one of fewer than 30 still in existence and is thought to be worth about £10,000.

Artefact - the paradummy st is thought to be worth about £10,000 and is one of less than 30 still in existence (Image: SWNS)

It is now on permanent display in the D-Day exhibition at the House on the Hill Toy Museum at Stansted Mountfitchet.

"When I found out what it was, I thought it was really interesting,” said Robert.

"As a younger boy, I found it fascinating when Michael came back and told me tales of the war debris.

"He said he saw tanks in ditches on the side of the road and barns full of war stuff which he loved - he was a collector."

Codenamed Titanic, the creation of fake invasions was executed by the RAF and SAS.

It saw four squadrons drop about 450 fake Paradummies on to three fake invasion drop zones.

Historic - hundreds of fake Paradummies were dropped on D-Day (Image: SWNS)

The drops also included a small number of SAS men, equipped with recordings of the sounds of battle and mortar fire, to make it sound like a larger force and cause further confusion.

The SAS had orders to let some of the enemy escape so they would report back that a serious force had been encountered inland.