Strange and Facinating Facts of WWII

[keif149]

Greetings!
Thought I'd post a few every now and then from the book;
"4139 Strange and Facinating Facts of WWII" by McCombs and Worth.
Published by Wings Books CR1983

(pg.45) Harold William Bauer (1908-1942)
U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. Bauer commanded VMF 212 at Guadalcanal. On October 16, 1942, while approaching Henderson Field and nearly out of gas, he attacked a flight of Japanese dive bombers who were attacking a ship and shot down four of the aircraft. He barely made it to the field and was awarded the Congressional Medal Of Honor for his feat. However, he was shot down and lost at sea before he could receive the medal.

(pg.166) El Agheila
Site of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's corps first victory over the British in North Africa on March 23,1941. Oddly enough,Rommel was in Berlin at the time.

(pg.567) Sundays
September 3, 1939 Britain declared war on Germany.
December 7, 1941 Japanese attack Pearl Harbor.
June 22, 1941 Germany invades Russia.
November 9, 1942 North African invasion by the Allies.
April 18, 1943 Admiral Yamanmoto shot down.
September 17, 1944 Operation Market-Garden offensive.
April 1, 1945 Invasion of Okinawa.
July 1, 1945 Invasion of Balikpapan, Borneo.

Just a few to start, have fun, and feel free to comment, correct or add!
Keif.

[keif149]

(pg.250) Heimdal
Name of the personal yacht of King Haakon of Norway. It brought him back to Norway on June 7, 1945, after he spent the war years in exile in England.

(pg.441) Operation Thunderbolt
German breakout of the battle cruisers Scharnhorst, Gneisennau, and Prinz Eugen from Brest on February 12, 1942.

(pg.487) Raider J
British designator for the Stier, a German armed commerce raider.

[Gasbag]

Thought I'd add this one:

U-boat Sunk by a Toilet...

On 14 April 1945, U-1206, a late war VII C boat outfitted with one of the new deep water high pressure toilets designed to work at deeper depths, was cruising at about 200 feet 8-10 miles off the the British coast. The commander was "caught short" & decided to use the new device without the help of a trained specialist (the new toilets were rather complicated to use). Something went wrong & when the specialist came to help he must have misunderstood something and opened the wrong valve end. As a result of this mistake, seawater came rushing in & managed to get in contact with the batteries. This resulted in a large amount of chlorine gas forming. The commander had no choice but to surface immediately in order to air out the boat. They managed to surface & give the boat a good airing but as they were about to dive an enemy aircraft appeared & attacked them. This did extensive damage to the U-boat, leaving it unable to dive, & the commander was left with no choice but scuttle U-1206 after destroying his code books, etc. The crew then disembarked & were later captured.

Source: U-Boat.net Myths

Strange but true...

[Havoc]

They say it's a bad sign when your crap doesn't float...

[keif149]

(pg.290) Robert S. Johnson (1920-1998)
U.S.Army Airforce fighter pilot. He was the top-scoring ace of the European Theater, with twenty-eight victories. Johnson had failed to pass gunnery school and so theoretically never qualified as a fighter pilot.

(pg.319) Fritz Kuhn (1896-1951)
American Nazi and head of the German American Bund prior to World War II. He was imprisioned during the war and deported to Germany afterwards.

(pg.159) 11
Number of Japanese delegates present on the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, at the Japanese surrender that ended World War II.

[keif149]

(pg. 288) Jester, Maurice D.
U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant. He was the first Coast Guard officer to receive the Navy Cross in World War II for sinking a German submarine off of the Carolina coast on June 4, 1942.

(pg. 654) York, Alvin C. (1887-1964)
U.S. Army sergeant and Medal of Honor winner from World War I. He attempted to enlist in the U.S. Army for World War II but was too old. He did, however, serve as a member of the local draft board throughout the war. Before he allowed the 1941 film about his life, “Sergeant York”, to be produced, he stipulated that Gary cooper had to portray him and also the film had to be accurate.


(pg. 649) X-Process
German method of night bombing using high-frequency beams to guide bombers over a target and to signal when to release the bombs. It was used at Coventry and was not effectively jammed by the British until 1941. The British then developed a method of bending the beams so that the bombs fell harmlessly on unpopulated areas.

[keif149]

Greetings!

(pg.462) Henri Petain (1856-1951)
French marshall and head of the Vichy government during World War II. He had been the French ambassador to General Francisco Franco in Spain prior to the war. Petain was put on trial for collaborating with the Germans and was sentenced to death after World War II, but this was commuted to life imprisonment by General Charles de Gaulle because they had served in the same unit in World War I.

(pg.528) Paul Schmidt (1899-1970)
Chief of the German Foreign Office press relations. He joined the Nazi party in 1943 and was the official interpreter for Hitler and Joachim von Ribbentrop. Schmidt was captured in Salzburg by the Americans, only to be released.


(pg.72) Al Bowlly (1898-1941)
Popular singer of the 1930’s. He recorded with a number of bands, including Ray Noble. On April 17, 1941, he was killed by a German bomb while in London.

[Copper]

Thought I'd add this one:

U-boat Sunk by a Toilet...

On 14 April 1945, U-1206, a late war VII C boat outfitted with one of the new deep water high pressure toilets designed to work at deeper depths, was cruising at about 200 feet 8-10 miles off the the British coast. The commander was "caught short" & decided to use the new device without the help of a trained specialist (the new toilets were rather complicated to use). Something went wrong & when the specialist came to help he must have misunderstood something and opened the wrong valve end. As a result of this mistake, seawater came rushing in & managed to get in contact with the batteries. This resulted in a large amount of chlorine gas forming. The commander had no choice but to surface immediately in order to air out the boat. They managed to surface & give the boat a good airing but as they were about to dive an enemy aircraft appeared & attacked them. This did extensive damage to the U-boat, leaving it unable to dive, & the commander was left with no choice but scuttle U-1206 after destroying his code books, etc. The crew then disembarked & were later captured.

Source: U-Boat.net Myths

Strange but true...

great story!

Theres another wierd Uboat one i read somewhere on the net.

Suposidly, one was sunk by a truck!
The boat had just attacked a cargo ship on its way to the UK, which was carrying trucks on the deck ... as the ship went boom it sent one of them hurdling through the air and it landed on the Uboat and sunk it!

:happy:

[Copper]

FM von Rundstedt said after one of his best infantry divisions in France was transferred to the Channel Islands and were never brought. So long was the formation there, that there was rumours going around that the formation was going to be inssued with armbands inscribed "Kings Own German Grenadiers"