Simple Sabotage Field ManualUnited States. Office of Strategic Services
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Simple Sabotage Field Manual
United States. Office of Strategic Services
Sabotage
This type of activity, sometimes referred to as the “human element,” is
frequently responsible for accidents, delays, and general obstruction
even under normal conditions. The potential saboteur should discover
what types of faulty decisions and the operations are _normally_ found
in this kind of work and should then devise his sabotage so as to
enlarge that “margin for error.”
2. POSSIBLE EFFECTS
Acts of simple sabotage are occurring throughout Europe. An effort
should be made to add to their efficiency, lessen their detectability,
and increase their number. Acts of simple sabotage, multiplied by
thousands of citizen-saboteurs, can be an effective weapon against the
enemy. Slashing tires, draining fuel tanks, starting fires, starting
arguments, acting stupidly, short-circuiting electric systems, abrading
machine parts will waste materials, manpower, and time. Occurring on a
wide scale, simple sabotage will be a constant and tangible drag on the
war effort of the enemy.
Simple sabotage may also have secondary results of more or less value.
Widespread practice of simple sabotage will harass and demoralize enemy
administrators and police. Further, success may embolden the
citizen-saboteur eventually to find colleagues who can assist him in
sabotage of greater dimensions. Finally, the very practice of simple
sabotage by natives in enemy or occupied territory may make these
individuals identify themselves actively with the United Nations war
effort, and encourage them to assist openly in periods of Allied
invasion and occupation.
3. MOTIVATING THE SABOTEUR
To incite the citizen to the active practice of simple sabotage and to
keep him practicing that sabotage over sustained periods is a special
problem.
Simple sabotage is often an act which the citizen performs according to
his own initiative and inclination. Acts of destruction do not bring
him any personal gain and may be completely foreign to his habitually
conservationist attitude toward materials and tools. Purposeful
stupidity is contrary to human nature. He frequently needs pressure,
stimulation or assurance, and information and suggestions regarding
feasible methods of simple sabotage.
(1) _Personal Motives_
(a) The ordinary citizen very probably has no immediate personal motive
for committing simple sabotage. Instead, he must be made to anticipate
indirect personal gain, such as might come with enemy evacuation or
destruction of the ruling government group. Gains should be stated as
specifically as possible for the area addressed: simple sabotage will
hasten the day when Commissioner X and his deputies Y and Z will be
thrown out, when particularly obnoxious decrees and restrictions will
be abolished, when food will arrive, and so on. Abstract verbalizations
about personal liberty, freedom of the press, and so on, will not be
convincing in most parts of the world. In many areas they will not even
be comprehensible.
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