The night before D-Day in World War II, British forces dropped dozens of 'paradummies' to deceive the German military about the size and location of the invading forces. These paradummies were three feet tall and stuffed with sand, wood shavings or straw - plus a few internal explosives.
The paradummies were released from planes in vast numbers, so they looked like a huge invading force. The explosives were designed to ignite on impact with the ground, so that their burlap exteriors would burn up and leave little evidence of their existance.
With the delightful humour of the British, these paradummies were nicknamed 'Ruperts'. However, it was dangerous to get too fond of them: very few of the paradummies survived their landing once the internal explosives went off. But...somehow...several Ruperts managed to outlast the war.
French locals and farmers gathered some of them that didn't detonate and hid them from German troops in barns, so that the Germans would be distracted searching for them (or rather, the soldiers they seemed to be) and miss the actual landing of Allied troops. In the 1980s, a whole crate of unused Ruperts was found in an airfield warehouse, still pristine and ready to blow - ahem, go.
Most delightful was the story of the Rupert discovered in a loft in Merseyside in 2017. That Rupert may actually have made it back from its deployment in France, for it was found hidden in the home of a soldier who had been there. It is now enjoying a well-earned retirement after its years of hiding, in the House on the Hill Museum.
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