ROI

Now entering my 41st, and last, year in business, my entire career has involved the consideration of Return on Investment in some way, shape or form. I realize that I often apply that thinking to various aspects of WW2.

There are a number of ways to consider that equation. What brought about the greatest benefit to the Allied cause, or harm to the enemy, for the least possible investment in time, energy, manpower, capital, training, equipment and effort? That could be seen strategically and/or tactically.

From a strategic standpoint, several things come to mind: The DH Mosquito, creation of the SAS, formation of the Commandos, radar, sonar, Hobart's funnies, Mulberries or Barnes-Wallis bombs.

Tactically, the impacts and outcomes of certain small actions were often very significant given the resources allocated. The Telemark Raid, St. Nazaire, The Dams Raid, strafing of Rommel and the Cockleshells at Bordeaux all come to mind. Some intelligence operations might also merit consideration.

My own vote would go to the efforts 2 POW's at Yokohama who, while ostensibly out of the fight, managed on their own initiative to sabotage that ship yard to great effect.

Arson at Yokohama Shipyard

Any other candidates?

 

The POW who under initial interrogation convinced the Germans that U Boats were being detected through radiation leaking from the boxes intended to detect air borne RADAR. In reality these boxes were useless because the RAF had switched to centimetric RADAR which was the real cause for the increased detection rate but Germany spent months trying to shield the boxes during which more and more U boats were sunk

 

Two People helped the morale of Londoners and the rest of the country in dark times by staying at Buckingham Palace.

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth
The King and Queen stayed at Buckingham Palace during World War Two, leaving the Palace during the evenings to spend them with their daughters, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, who had been moved to Windsor Castle for safety. In September 1940 part of the East Front was damaged after bombing raids, and the Victorian private chapel in the south-west pavilion was destroyed.
Who lived at Buckingham Palace?

At the other end of the scale
A big one for me with huge investment and zero margin, a loss leader and winner.

War Production

“Powerful enemies must be out-fought and out-produced,” President Franklin Roosevelt told Congress and his countrymen less than a month after Pearl Harbor. “It is not enough to turn out just a few more planes, a few more tanks, a few more guns, a few more ships than can be turned out by our enemies,” he said. “We must out-produce them overwhelmingly, so that there can be no question of our ability to provide a crushing superiority of equipment in any theatre of the world war.”
THE WAR . At Home . War Production | PBS

 

There is also the opposite - expenditure of resources to meet a threat that didn't exist. A good example is the German precautions against magnetic AT mines.Huge effort was expended onto developing zimmermit paste, applying it to tanks etc and maintaining it and yet the only countries deploying magnetic AT mines were Germany and Japan.

 

An example of a cheap hit from the Axis side is the concept of the fifth columnist. The concept comes from a speech during the Spanish Civil War and Goebbels promulgated the idea prewar through a German diplomat Otto Abetz in Paris and later in radio broadcasts from the black radio stations of the Drahtloser Dienstin in 1940. This resulted in all sorts of alarms and rumours in France etc and later considerable efforts were made in in Britain and even the USA and as far afield as Australia and New Zealand to counter the threat. Yet Dutch government minister Louis de Jong's post war investigation with access to Abwehr files and personnel failed to find any significant evidence of a serious fifth column - it was all smoke and mirrors - Louis de Jong, The German Fifth Column in the Second World War, University of Chicago Press, Illinois, 1954.

 

Operation Jaywick - Commando attack on Japanese shipping in Singapore harbour. Little cost big return.
Operation Jaywick - Wikipedia

Tim