![]() Naval officers gathering for invasion briefing at a southern port approached the sentry at the door and furtively whispered into his ear the password of admission: "Mickey Mouse." Mickey Mouse played a part in the invasion of northern France, it was revealed today. Here's the UP item as it appeared in the Charleston (West Virginia) Daily Mail: The exact wording in the three papers differs, thanks presumably to editing, but the substance in each is the same. I haven't yet checked the Postmicrofilm for the "news item" that Braggiotti mentions, but a quick online check of other newspapers turned up three that published a very brief United Press item, datelined London, on June 8, 1944. "Supporting documentation" has finally turned up, but what it supports is another matter. There is speculation that 'Mickey Mouse' may possibly have been used at the lower unit level as a codeword, but even then there is no supporting documentation." The Pentagon and the Eisenhower Presidential Library were also consulted and the results at both institutions were also negative. David Lesjak, proprietor of the Toons at War blog, who almost certainly knows more about the Disney studio's history in World War II than anyone else, stated some time ago: "Disney staff did a search of the Archives and of all internal Disney Company computer databases and found no reference anywhere to Mickey Mouse being the codeword for the D-Day Normandy landings. For instance, Neal Gabler writes in Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination that "at Allied headquarters the code name for the operation was 'Mickey Mouse.'" Gabler cites no source for that statement, and although many other books and Web sites say essentially the same thing, all of them are obviously peddling secondhand information. The notion has long been widespread that "Mickey Mouse" was the code name for the D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. But it's still pretty creepy.Common Password Mickey Mouse was a common password in World War 2. The Walt Disney Archives, Burbank, California, has a facepiece without ears, lenses, or a canister, and a mask owned by the founder of the Sun Rubber Company was on display at the Summit County (Ohio) Historical Society’s "Toys Made in Summit County" exhibit in 1982. The 45th Infantry Division Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has a production specimen on permanent display with other gas masks in the combat support area of the museum. The US Army Chemical Museum at Fort McClellan, Alabama, has a hand-made prototype. Very few of the Mickey Mouse gas masks survived. ![]() ![]() In fact, production had to be curtailed early due to the vast quantity produced. Overall, production of the Noncombatant Gas Masks (and in fact, all gas masks) was one of the most successful production programs of the war. The Sun Rubber Company produced approximately 1,000 Mickey Mouse gas masks and earned an Army-Navy ‘E’ for excellence in wartime production in 1944. The Mickey Mouse Gas Mask was produced as part of the war production program. This would reduce the fear associated with wearing a gas mask and hopefully, improve their wear time and, hence, survivability. Walk, a former Weapons of Mass Destruction Individual and Instructor Training Officer at the US Army Reserve Command: The mask was designed so children would carry it and wear it as part of a game. ![]() ![]() Originally released just one month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, to encourage children to protect themselves from chemical attacks and to do it in god damn style. ![]()
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