AMON GOETH THE DEATHBRINGER OF KRAKOW

ARC Main Page Plaszow

Amon Göth
Last Update 14 July 2005







Amon Göth
Amon Göth was born on 11 December 1908 in Vienna. He worked as an author and was divorced with two children. Göth joined the NSDAP in 1932 (NSDAP number 510764). In 1940 he became an SS-man (SS number 43673). His final rank was SS-Hauptsturmführer.

Following the outbreak of WW2 Göth served in Cieszyn, Kattowice and Lublin. He was assigned to the SS- und Polizeiführer Lublin, as part of Aktion Reinhard. During 1942 he directed brutal clearances of small ghettos in the Lublin district, for example during the deportations from the Belzyce ghetto 700 Jews were deported to the Belzec death camp. He organised the selections in this ghetto and around 500 people who bribed him, were selected for work in the Budzyn labour camp, near Krasnik. Göth was responsible for the construction works in Budzyn. Because of his corruption, he was in a personal conflict with SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle, the chief staff officer of Aktion Reinhard. So Göth was ordered from Lublin to Krakow in February 1943 where he was nominated by SS- und Polizeiführer Scherner to command the Krakow-Plaszow forced labour camp. There he was promoted to SS-Oberscharführer in July 1943.

Mieczyslaw Pemper, who worked in the Plaszow camp office, testified during Göth’s trial that he had managed to look at Göth’s personal files and had found a letter from SS-Gruppenführer Globocnik, commander of the Lublin region, addressed to the commanders of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka. The letter authorised Göth to have access to all areas of those extermination camps, for administration or possibly construction inspections. Under the direction of SS-Sturmbannführer Willi Haase, Göth conducted the final liquidation of the Krakow ghetto, which began on 13 March 1943. SS officers Kunde and Neumann also assisted with the ghetto clearance, during which mass murders were committed. On the orders of Haase, 75 persons were killed in one place.

Göth’s reign of terror at Plaszow lasted from February 1943 to September 1944, when he was arrested by the SS for misappropriation of funds. Göth governed the camp in a calculatedly brutal manner. For the slightest offence he fired at prisoners or ordered others to do, and public hangings were frequent. Göth had two dogs called Ralf and Rolf, both trained to attack and savage prisoners. Many people lost their lives after being attacked by these dogs.
When children were being removed from Plaszow, Göth ordered the camp orchestra to play nursery songs such as "Mami kauf mir ein Pferdchen" (Mum, buy me a little horse), while their mothers were forced to stand on the parade ground and witness their children being transported to their deaths.


Göth, Camp in the Background

Göth's House *
Former prisoner Henryk Bloch testified at Göth’s trial in 1946:
"Göth ordered his deputy to start beating us. He went away to have his lunch. We were then taken to the back, next to the house he lived in. Two tables were brought, also buckets of water, and they started beating us directly on naked flesh. Göth ordered that everyone should receive 100 times each, but everyone received more than 200 and even 300. Every prisoner had to count every strike loudly, if a mistake was made in the count by him, the beating started afresh from number one. We were not beaten by one person, they were taking turns, as one man would tire very quickly, having to hit someone 100 times

Living Room, in 2004
with full strength. The whip would be passed to another SS man there. It was impossible, being hit so many times, to count properly, people were making mistakes, and the beatings were starting afresh. And so the beatings went on and on, the tables were covered in blood, as every hit meant a fresh cut in someone’s flesh. As anyone went off the table, he was virtually one bloody mass of cut flesh.
Everyone getting off the table was ordered to report standing to attention, I report humbly that I have received my sentence. In the course of all this, one man screamed terribly. Göth shouted at him to calm down, to count. The man did not calm down... Göth approached him, picked up half a brick off the ground, went to the table on which the man was being beaten, and from a very close distance struck him on the head with the brick, splitting his head. The beating of that man continued uninterrupted, then pouring of water and beating again. Covered in blood, with a split head, he went off the table, approaching Göth, he reported he had received his penalty. He was ordered to go away, and as the man turned, he pulled out his revolver, firing into the back of the man’s head."
This man’s name was Mr Meitlis (testimony from Henryk Mandel).
"When all were beaten, which took from 12 until 3 p.m., we were all taken to the police station, and there Göth ordered doctors from the camp hospital to come to us. He did not allow anyone to be taken to the hospital. Practically all of this group died in Plaszow, the wounds would not heal, the flesh was continually infected, it was rotting on us whilst we were still alive."

Following two actions in Tarnow, 6,000 Jews were deported to Belzec death camp in June 1942. In September 1942 a second resettlement action took place. During the first days of September 1943, Goeth was in charge of the final liquidation of the ghetto, with a force of 200 SS-men. He personally killed dozens of people, with shots from his revolver.

Leon Leser, a mechanic, testified at Göth’s trial:

Göth, at his House

Ruth Irene Kalder, "Majola"
"There was "Ghetto A" for those working, and "Ghetto B" for those that were unemployed. Göth ordered everyone employed from "Ghetto A" to go to "Ghetto B", and assemble there in groups, according to their employer. Every group had a board indicating the name of the employer. Then Göth selected a group of 300 persons as a Säuberungskolonne (clearing column). The Jews assembled once again separately. At that point a fiancée of one of the Jewish men approached Göth, her name was Batista, begging him to allow her to stay with her fiancée, who was remaining. He refused, she begged him once again, he ordered her to turn around and fired into her head. She fell dead, and after that he separated all the people again, he took out those that should go to Plaszow, and those that were left behind remained on the Magdeburger Square."

The total number killed during the clearance was 4,000, including many women and children. Around 10,000 people were taken to Plaszow. During the Aktion Göth completely liquidated "Ghetto B". For a whole day after the Aktion lorries collected the remains of those killed in the streets and buildings and took them to Plaszow for burial in a mass grave.

From September 1943 to February 1944 Göth conducted the progressive liquidation of the forced labour camp in Szebnie near Jaslo. The liquidation began on 21 September 1943 with the killing of 700 Jewish prisoners who were driven in lorries to a forest in Tarnowiec, 3 km from the camp, where they were shot. This "action" was carried out by SS-Haupscharführer Grzymek and supervised by the commander Kellermann, acting on orders from Göth.


Göth on his Way
to the Courthouse *
During these ghetto liquidations Göth took every opportunity to enrich himself with furniture, furs, clothing, jewellery, tobacco and alcohol. The Gestapo found the stored goods in Brünnlitz (Czechoslovakia), together with Göth's mistress Ruth Irene Kalder ("Majola").
Göth was accused of larceny of Jewish property (which of course was regarded as property of the German Reich), and arrested on 13 September 1944. That was the end of his career.

After the war he was extradited to Poland at the request of the Polish authorities and tried before the Polish Supreme Court on charges of committing mass murder during the liquidations of the ghettos at Tarnow and Krakow, the camp at Szebnie and the Plaszow camp. He was sentenced to death in Krakow on 5 September 1946 and hung there on 13 September 1946, defiantly saluting to Hitler. Göth's body was cremated and his ashes scattered into the river.

THE WARSAW GHETTO

ARC Main Page Ghettos

Warsaw Ghetto
Last Update 14 September 2006















Ghettos

Warszaw Ghetto Map
Warsaw became the capital of Poland in 1596, the city flanks both side of the Vistula River, two thirds of the city’s area lying on the west bank and one third on the east. Jews lived in Warsaw from the 15th century, in the 19th century Warsaw’s Jewish population grew rapidly, becoming the largest Jewish community in Europe, and by the 20th century the second largest in the World, behind New York. Jews were to be found in every part of the city, but predominantly in the Northern part, with many apartment houses and certain streets inhabited exclusively by Jews. In 1935 the city limits covered an area of 54 square miles with a population of 1.3 million people.

On the eve of WW2 the Jewish population in Warsaw numbered 337,000, about 29% of the total population of the city, this figure rose to 445,000 by March 1941.
Early September 1939 following the German invasion of Poland on 31 August 1939, the German forces reached the southern and western parts of the city on 8 and 9 September 1939. Within a few days they had surrounded the city from all sides, Warsaw bravely stood up to the German siege for 3 weeks, with air attacks and artillery shelling causing heavy damage and significant loss of life.


Warsaw Ghetto People

Boy, selling Armbands
As a result of the constant bombardments from the air and by artillery fire, there was a great exodus from the city. Warsaw’s mayor Stefan Starzynski appointed Adam Czerniakow as Chairman of the Jewish Council on 23 September 1939.
From the first days of the occupation the Jews were subjected to attacks and discrimination, such as being driven from food lines, seized for forced labour and assaults on religious Jews wearing their traditional garbs. Teachers, craftsman, professionals, members of welfare and cultural institutions lost their positions, without any compensation, with little or no prospect of obtaining similar positions.


Jews, forced to remove
Barricades, in 1939
In November 1939 the first anti-Jewish decree’s were issued, such as the introduction of the white armband with a blue Star of David on it to be worn by all men, women and Jews over 10 years of age, from 1 December 1939, the requirement of signs identifying Jewish shops and enterprises and a ban on train travels. Radios were also confiscated from Jews and Poles.
The harshest measures came with a number of decrees on economic affairs, such as the prohibition of non-Jews buying or leasing Jewish enterprises without obtaining a special permit for this purpose, decreed by District Governor Ludwig Fischer on 17 October 1939.
In November 1939 more decrees followed concerning the handling of money by Jews. Jews were ordered to deposit their money in a blocked bank account. The banks could release no more than 250 zloties per week to the holder of the account.
These orders made it impossible for Jews to carry on economic activity in the open, and particularly outside of Jewish circles. In addition to blocking Jewish accounts and putting a stop to economic activity, the Germans also embarked upon the confiscation of Jewish enterprises, excluding small stores in the Jewish area. Jewish managers and staff were often removed, only being retained, if it suited the new owners.
Even in the early stages of the occupation the assets, accumulated in the past, served the Jews as their main source of subsistence. Jews with savings or goods that they had managed to conceal began trading them for food - a practice that was to continue throughout the war. As time went on the Jews’ property and resources dwindled, and more and more Jews became penniless and faced a slow death, owing to the lack of food and other basic requirements they needed to exist.


Warsaw Ghetto
In place of the many institutions that had existed pre-war, only two frameworks were allowed to function under the occupying power: the Judenrat and Welfare Institutions. The Judenrat was a new body, set up by the Germans, in place of the traditional Jewish Community Council. On 4 October 1939 Adam Czerniakow was taken to the Gestapo and Police Headquarters on Aleja Szucha, where he was told to appoint 24 persons to the Community Council and become its chairman.
The Judenrat headquarters was on Grzybowska Street and amongst the leading men that worked there were: Jaszunski, Sztoclcman, Milejkowski, Lichtenbaum, Zabludowski, Kobryner, Zundelewicz, Rozensztat, Kupczyker, Zygielbojm, Sztokhamer, Dr. Szoszkies, and Gepner. The Judenrat was the sole official body that the German authorities dealt with, thus facilitating the stranglehold the occupying powers had over the Jews. The complete Judenrat staff at its height numbered 6,000 persons.
Before long it became evident that the number of needy cases was growing and that an organisation had to be created and equipped that would be able to meet the requirements of the entire Jewish population. The American Joint Distribution Committee sponsored ZTOS (Jewish Mutual Aid Society) lent assistance to 250,000 Jews during the Passover of 1940. Its most important means of aiding masses of people were its soup kitchens, which doled out a bowl of soup and a piece of bread to all comers. When this operation was at its height, more than one hundred such soup kitchens were in operation in Jewish Warsaw.

In March 1940 a wave of muggings and attacks on Jews was launched by Polish gangs. Individual Jews were robbed in the streets without any interference by bystanders. During the Easter season these attacks turned into a real pogrom, which continued for eight days, and only ended when the German authorities ordered it to stop.

The first attempt to set up a ghetto had been made by the SS in November 1939, but at the time the military governor General Karl Ulrich von Neumann-Neurode, put a stop to the plan. In February 1940, however, Waldemar Schön, the official in charge of evacuation and relocation in the German District Administration, was ordered to up plans for the establishment of a ghetto. Various possibilities were considered, one of them being the removal form the city to the Praga suburbs.
On 12 October 1940, The Day of Atonement, the Jews were informed of the decree establishing a ghetto. A few days later a map was published indicating the streets assigned to the ghetto area. The creation of the ghetto meant that 113,000 Poles had to vacate their homes, and for 138,000 Jews to take their place. Some 30% of the population of Warsaw was packed into 2.4% of the city’s area.
In mid-November 1940 the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw was sealed off by a high wall. Its construction took many months to complete. The work was carried out by the construction firm Schmidt & Münstermann, based on 8/3 Mars Street, which later helped building the Treblinka death camp. The ghetto wall was 3.5 m high, topped by glass and barbed wire.
The Nazis did not use the term ghetto, but referred to the area as Jüdischer Wohnbezirk (Jewish Quarter).


Warsaw Ghetto Market
A Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst ("Jewish Order Service" / Jewish police force) was established and at its height, numbered 2,000 members.
The leader of the Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst was Josef Szerynski, a Polish police colonel who had converted to Christianity. He changed his name from Szenkman and developed an anti-Semitic attitude. After his arrest in May 1942, Jakob Lejkin, his deputy, took over temporary command of the Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst. This organization played a significant role in the "Great Deportation Action" in the summer of 1942.

The daily food rations, allocated to the Warsaw Jews, consisted of 181 calories - about 25% of the rations for non-Jewish Poles, and only 8% of the nutritional value of the food that the Germans received for their official ration coupons.

In November 1940 the ghetto was sealed off. There were already 445 deaths in the ghetto. The death toll thereafter rose rapidly: in January 1941 to 898, in April to 2,061, in June to 4,290 and in August to 5,560. Then the monthly figure fluctuated between 4,000-5,000 for as long as the ghetto existed.
The ghetto’s ties with the outside world were handled by the Transferstelle, a German authority that was in charge of the traffic of goods, both into and out of the ghetto. The first official in charge of this office was Alexander Palfinger, finally succeeded by a certain Bischof.
In May 1941 a Berlin attorney, named Heinz Auerswald, was appointed Kommissar of the Jewish quarter on behalf of the German authorities. Auerswald's appointment over the Jewish quarter was parallel to that of Ludwig Leist, who was the commander of the entire city. Czerniakow similarly became the head of the quarter. Auerswald's office also assumed control of the Transferstelle and managed the Jewish affairs. Of course the police and SS continued to intervene in its work.
In the summer of 1941, some 11,300 were sent to labour camps in Warsaw, Lublin and Krakow, where they were forced to do back-breaking work, suffering from hunger, poor sanitary conditions and harsh discipline.
Another focal point of authority and power in the Warsaw ghetto was an agency known as the "13", which took its name from the address of its headquarters on Leszno Street. The "13" network was closely identified with the name of its founder and moving spirit, Abraham Gancwajch and the group of men of his environment. Gancwajch and most of his senior aides were not even veteran residents of Warsaw but had come to the city as refugees.
The principal division of the "13" network (founded in December 1940) was the "Office to Combat Usury and Profiteering in the Jewish Quarter of Warsaw", and a supervisory unit. The 300-400 men of "13" wore polished boots, caps with a green band (regular police wore blue) and epaulets and stars to denote their ranks. Their rise to power in the ghetto was due to the sanction they received from key figures in the occupation regime, particularly the SD (Sicherheitsdienst / Security Service). They were simply collaborators.

Postcard, sent from the Ghetto
In May 1941 Gancwajch’s agency set up "First Aid", a kind of Red Cross emergency station. Gancwajch also inspired the establishment of a department to supervise weights and measures in the ghetto, an organisation of disabled veterans of the 1939 fighting, and cultural and religious societies.
During a certain period, two refugees from Lodz, Kohn and Heller were counted among Gancwajch’s associates. In time they broke with him and began operating on their own, but they did not give up their German patronage and found protectors among the Gestapo men. Kohn and Heller built up various commercial operations, one being the horse-drawn wooden trolleys that transported passengers in the ghetto. Kohn and Heller maintained their power longer than Gancwajch and his men. In July 1941 Auerswald closed down Gancwajch’s principal bastion of power, the "Office to Combat Usury and Profiteering". It is impossible to pinpoint the exact cause of Gancwajch defeat in his contest with the Judenrat. Gancwajch's fate is not known.


Jewish Street Sweeper
German manufacturers appeared in the ghetto in the summer of 1941, having been granted authorisation to operate in the Warsaw area. First to appear on the scene, in July 1941, was Bernard Hallmann, owner of a carpentry company. In September 1941, the Fritz Schulz Company, a Gdansk-based fur establishment, became active in the ghetto. The most important among these business men was Walther Többens, a manufacturer of textile goods, who began his activities in autumn.
At first the German companies placed orders with existing Jewish workshops, but before long they put up their own workshops in the ghetto.

Several methods were employed to carry out the smuggling operations: through buildings that were connected with buildings on the "Aryan" side, across the wall, through camouflaged openings in the wall and through underground canals. Smuggling on a larger scale also took place at the ghetto gates. Policemen, guards, Germans, Poles and Jews were involved, bribery was the order of the day.
Children and women were also engaged on a smaller scale, risking their lives too. Every day smugglers were caught, paying the ultimate sacrifice. According to Czneriakow the necessary food, smuggled into the ghetto, represented 80% of all the products brought in.
Self-help grew out of necessity to survive because the German ghetto policy regarding the distribution of food aimed at starvation on a massive scale. A Polish source calculated that the daily calorific content of food, officially distributed to national groups in 1941, was as follows: Germans 2,613 calories, Poles 699 calories, Jews only 184 calories. The nutritional value of the official Jewish rations was 15% of the minimum daily requirement for survival.
In December 1941, Czerniakow estimated that there were about 10,000 ghetto inhabitants with capital, 250,000 who could support themselves, and 150,000 who were destitute. Only by selling all goods most of the inhabitants could survive. The critical problem was keeping the impoverished 150,000 Jews from malnutrition.
Therefore soup kitchens were organised that provided a daily midday meal (having 600-800 calories) for free. Of course starvation was still inevitable on such a diet...
Until the entry of the United States into the war in December 1941, the prime source of funding for aid to the ghetto was the "American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee", known familiarly as the "The Joint". Its monetary resource gradually dwindled.
Men such as Yitzhak Gitterman and Emanuel Ringelblum organised and led a variety of self-help agencies. Among these were "ZTOS", the "Jewish Mutual Aid Society", which operated over one hundred soup kitchens in Warsaw; and "Centos", the "National Society for the Care of Orphans", which ran schools and provided food, clothing and shelter. These self-help organisations employed hundreds of people, offering a daily bowl of soup as salary. They operated independently, besides the Judenrat. In January 1942, as the financial support from the "Joint" began to decline, the self-help organisations ceased relying upon voluntary donations and instead were empowered to impose taxes.
Amongst the most important elements of self-help were the "house committees", which functioned in almost every apartment house. They imposed a double monthly payment on the residents, one for the benefit of self-help, the other for the needs of the apartment house itself. They collected food from every family that was able to make a contribution, and distributed the food to starving families. A person, carrying a bucket, went from apartment to apartment, collecting food, goods and clothing from the more fortunate who donated whatever they could spare.
The house committees also assessed everybody’s resources and imposed a monthly payment upon each household. Money and goods were given to the central fund, which supported the soup kitchens. To enforce its effectiveness, the house committees used the only weapon available to them, shaming those who were selfish. Families who were able to make a contribution but refused to do so, found their names displayed at the entrance to their apartment building.
However, despite of all efforts, 5,000 ghetto people died every month in early 1942, most of them by starvation.


Making Jews like a Fool
The Germans tried to ban private and public prayer services, but the Jews continued with daily services in private homes. In spring of 1941, the ban was abolished and the synagogues were permitted to re-open. The Great Synagogue on Tlomacki Street was re-opened in June 1941, in a festive ceremony. Rabbi Kalonymos Kalmisch Shapira, the Hasidic rabbi of Piaseczno, maintained his flock of followers in the ghetto and preached to them on Sabbath.
School instruction was prohibited in the ghetto. From time to time Czerniakow asked the German authorities for permission to re-open the schools. In 1941 permission was granted to open the school year for several elementary-school classes. This regular school year, the only one that was observed in the ghetto, started in October 1941. While regular schools were banned in the ghetto, the Judenrat was permitted to maintain the vocational training schools, sponsored by the "ORT" organization. The first training courses were opened in 1940, but they reached their maximum development after the ghetto was established. In mid-1941 2,454 students were attending such courses.

Cultural life in the ghetto consisted of activities, conducted by the underground organisations. The "Idische Kultur Organizacje" (IKOR), a clandestine organisation for promoting Yiddish culture, in which Emanuel Ringelblum and Menahem Linder were active, sponsored literary evenings and special meetings to mark the anniversaries of noted Jewish writers.
Clandestine libraries circulated officially banned books. An eighty-member symphony orchestra offered a repertoire of famous German composers. Artworks of Jewish composers were not allowed. Well known writers and poets continued to work in the ghetto: Itzhak Katzenelson, Israel Sztern, Jehoszua Perle, Hillel Zeitlin, Peretz Opoczynski, and Kalman Lis.
Theatrical groups gave performances, well-known actors such as Michael Znicz, Zigmunt Turkow or Diana Blumenfeld appeared on stage. The audience mostly consisted of nouveaux riches, who preferred light entertainment to forget the horrors of daily life.


Victims, died by Starvation or Epidemics *
Underground activities by political circles and organisations had already begun when the Germans entered Warsaw. Members of youth movements and parties joined together and began preparing plans of resistance.
At an early stage, the question arose as to whether political organisations could confine themselves to material aid and abandon political activity. At clandestine meetings in the soup kitchens, open discussions and debates were held and the different political positions were probed. The next step was to establish an underground press and to persist in efforts to communicate with political elements outside the country.
At first the Germans displayed a lack of interest in the underground activities. Therefore the underground was enabled, prior to spring of 1942, to engage in a broad range of activities. The underground press achieved the aims of providing the news-hungry ghetto population with reliable informations about international political developments, and on the progress of war. It also raised political and ideological issues that encouraged polemics and discussions. Especially prominent were the "Bund" and the socialist Zionists "Po’alei Zion Z.S.".
A unique and important enterprise, created in the ghetto, was the Ringelblum archive, code-named "ONEG SHABBAT". While it was not directly initiated by the political bodies, the archive depended on the support of public leaders and the underground organisations. The extant material, collected by the Ringelblum archive, consists of tens of thousands of pages: documents, notes, diaries, and a rich collection of underground newspapers. It is the most important source collection for research on the fate of Jews under the Nazi occupation of Warsaw and Poland in general.
Jewish youth movements and their leaders played an important role in the underground, especially in the later stages, following the great deportations.
During the war and in the ghetto the activities of the youth movements and their relarive power underwent a gradual change. They manifested a greater aptitude than other movements for changing circumstances and for taking dynamic action when necessary. The youth leaders Mordecai Anielewicz, Yitzhak Zuckerman, Zivia Lubetkin, Chaim Kaplan, and Israel Geller developed into acknowleged underground leaders because of their political instincts and leadership qualities.

A Mass Grave on the Jewish Cemetery *
The youth movements did not confine their activities to Warsaw. They extended their work to cover the undertakings of the different movement branches and cells in all ghettos and Jewish communities in occupied Poland. These young people under false identities provided the link to isolated ghettos, cut off from the the world.
A drastic change happened in the relationship between the underground and the power structures in the ghetto when first reports came in about massacres at Ponary and other killing sites in eastern Europe. At this point a new concept arose - that the Germans had embarked upon the total destruction of the Jews and that therefore the Jews had no choice other than to stand up and fight, even if this offered no prospect of survival.
In March 1942, at a meeting of the Warsaw Jewish leaders, Yitzhak Zuckerman, on behalf of the youth movements, sought to win agreement for creating an overall defence organisation. His proposal was turned down, regarded as too pessimistic. This failure led to the establishment of the "Antifascist Bloc", sponsored by the Communists and the "Zionist Left". This organization existed during March and April 1942, its military branch had 500 armed members. The plan of escaping to the forests and take up the fight from there, was not realized, expected weapons did not arrive... Just before the target date (in May 1942), the whole structure collapsed. The Communist leaders of the "Bloc" were imprisoned and the organization went out of existence.


337,000 Jews lived in the ghetto

NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS - NUREMBURG TRIALS

HATIKVAH

4 GIRLS WHO LOVE THEIR LAND

LESSER KNOWN FACTS ABOUT WORLD WAR ll PART ONE

F

* Dedicated to all those who took part in World War II *
Lesser-Known Facts of World War II - page 1 of 6.

This 6 page series provides some of these facts and stories:



We all hear about the major battles and campaigns carried out by the British, Germans, Japanese and the Americans during World War II. Historians and authors have argued about their authenticity for years. Most of this material has been done over and over again but what about those smaller events and stories of the war that has never been publicized? This chapter is compiled for virtually everyone with an interest in the wars of 1937-1945 and presented in a concentrated form for students who now have an understandable fascination about WW11, the greatest conflict ever fought by man.

There were men and women involved in these events that were just as important as those that took part in the big campaigns. Here are some of those lesser-known facts that you may be unfamiliar with and are seldom, if at all, mentioned in history books.

1939 to 1940
THE FIRST SHOT

The first shot of World War II in Europe was fired 20 years, 9 months, 19 days and 18 hours after the last shot of World War 1 was fired. It was fired from the 13,000 ton German gunnery training battleship Schleswig Holstein (Captain Gustav Kleikamp) which was on a visit to Poland to honour the sailors lost on the German cruiser Magdeburg sunk in 1914, some of whom were buried in Danzig. It was anchored in Danzig (now Gdansk) harbour at the mouth of the River Vistula. At 4.30 am on September 1, 1939, the ship moved slowly down the Port Canal and took up position opposite the Westerplatte (an area containing Polish troop barracks, munition storage and workshops) and at 4.47 am, at point blank range, the order to 'Fire' was given. World War 11 had begun. Seven days later, on September 7, after a heroic defence by Major Henryk Sucharski and his troops, and a devastating attack by Stuka dive bombers, the 200 man Westerplatte Garrison surrendered.

The Schleswig Holstein berthed at Gdynia (Gotenhafen) till the end of the war. Attacked by the RAF on December 18, 1944, twenty eight crew members were killed. Attacked again in March, 1945, the burning ship was scuttled near the port on March 21.

TRIGGER OF THE WAR

Hitler's revenge for Germany's defeat of 1918 brought about the cataclysm that was Europe between 1939 and 1945. The incident which triggered World War II was the fake simulated attack by the Germans on their own relay radio station for Radio Breslau at Gleiwitz on the Polish border. To make it appear that the attacking force consisted of Poles, SS officer Alfred Naujocks secured some condemned German criminals from a nearby concentration (protective custody) camp and dressed them in Polish uniforms before being shot and their bodies placed in strategic positions around the radio station. A Polish-speaking German then did a broadcast from the station to make it appear that Poland had attacked first. On January 26, 1934, Germany and Poland signed a ten year non-aggression pact but the Gleiwitz incident gave Hitler the excuse he needed to invade Poland, which he did on September 1, 1939, an act which was to develop into a war embracing almost the entire world and causing the deaths of some 55,014,000 persons, military and civilians. About 85 million men and women of all nationalities served as combatants in this, the world's first total war, in which more than twice as many civilians died than did uniformed soldiers.

Three days later in Britain, one and a half million civilians were successfully evacuated from the largest cities into the country. Also on this day, Britain, France, India, Australia and New Zealand, declared war on Germany. On October 19, 1939, Hitler incorporates the western half of Poland into the German Reich. On September 18, German forces joined up with the Soviet Russian forces which had invaded from the east (In spite of a non-aggression treaty signed on November 27, 1932) and quickly formed plans to divide Poland up between them along the Brest-Litovsk line. Germany obtained an area of around 73,000 square miles, and Russia about 78,000 square miles. In its invasion of eastern Poland the Russians lost 737 men. (The campaign in Poland cost the Germans 13,111 killed or missing and 27,278 wounded)

FIRST ALLIED SHOT

The first Allied shot of the war in the Far East was actually fired over the bows of the Australian coaster Woniora (Captain F. N. Smale) from a twin 6-inch gun emplacement at Point Nepean, guarding the entrance to Melbourne's Port Phillip Bay. The 823 ton coaster had entered the bay at 9.15 pm on September 3, 1939, after a trip from Tasmania. Ordered to heave-to for inspection, the coaster gave her identity but continued on without stopping. A 100 lb shell, fired across her bow, soon changed her captain's mind.

By a remarkable coincidence, this was the actual, same guns that had fired the first shot of World War I when, hours after war was declared, it fired on the German Norddeutscher Lloyd 6,500 ton steamer Pfalz while it attempted to leave Australian waters on August 5, 1914. The Pfalz was then returned to Williamstown where the crew was detained. The captured vessel served out the rest of World War I as the Australian troopship HMT Boorara.

The six-inch guns of Port Nepean
GERMAN WORKERS PARTY

In 1919, over forty different political parties existed in and around Munich. The German Workers Party was founded by 35 year old railway locksmith, Anton Drexler. In all, its membership was around fifty but to give the impression that the number was higher, membership cards started at number 500. When Hitler joined the party he was given number 555. This was on September 12, 1919, when he attended a meeting in the Sterneckerbrau Tavern in Munich. (On the Party membership form he signed his name as Hittler) In February 24, 1920, during its first mass meeting in the Hofbräuhaus, the party expanded its name to the Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party. Popular name at the time was 'Nazi Party'. Its membership at this time had risen to 3,000. It was the American socialists who promoted the straight-arm salute inside the USA in 1892 in the original pledge of allegiance to the US flag. This form of salute was copied by all Socialist Party members who never called themselves 'Nazis'. The only thing Hitler ever said concerning the swastika was in 1920, when he decided that the National Socialist German Workers Party needed its own insignia.

NAZI PARTY

In 1930 there were 129,583 members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party or Nazi Party for short, (NAtionalsoZIalstische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - NSDAP) The word 'Nazi' is an acronym formed from the first syllable of NAtional and the second syllable of SoZIalstische. This practice was common in the Third Reich, another example being 'Gestapo' (Geheime Staatspolizei). By 1933 membership of the Nazi Party had jumped to 849,009 and in the early war years this had reached to more than five million. On January 10, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and was sworn in as its president on August 2, 1934. This combined the offices of President and Chancellor after the death of President Paul von Hindenburg, aged 88, on August 2, 1934.

THE ANCIENT SWASTIKA SYMBOL

The Swastika is a very old sacred symbol from near-prehistoric times and referred to in Germany as the Hakenkreuz. There is no evidence that Hitler ever used the word “Swastika”. It was traditionally a sign of good fortune and well-being, its name is derived from the Sanskrit 'su' meaning 'well' and 'asti' meaning 'being'. For thousands of years the Swastika symbol given courage, hope and security to millions. It is well-known in Hindu and Buddhist cultures and used by the Aryan nomads of India in the Second Millennium B.C. Unfortunately, Nazism has turned the Swastika into a hate symbol. Hitler displayed the symbol on a red background 'to win over the worker' and it had an hypnotic effect on all those who supported the Nazi movement. In his book Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote 'In the red we see the social idea of the movement, in the white, the Nationalist idea and in the Hakenkreuz the vision of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man.'

The German flag was abolished on March 12, 1933 and replaced with the flag of the Third Reich. On September 15, 1935, the Swastika was officially incorporated into the Third Reich flag.

(In Ontario, Canada, there is a small mining town named Swastika. In 1911, two brother's discovered gold at a nearby lake and named the mine after a visitors good luck charm, a swastika. When World War 11 broke out, Ontario changed the name to 'Winston' after the British wartime leader. The name change did not please the residents who removed the sign and replaced it with the original and other signs saying 'To hell with Hitler, we came up with our name first'. The name Swastika, stayed. The new sign read: Swastika, Population 545)

WHY THE THIRD REICH?

This was the official name for the Nazi period of government from January 1933 to May 1945.

The First Reich (or 'Empire') was the Holy Roman Empire period of the German Nation begun in A.D. 962 when Otto the Great was crowned in Rome. This Empire, regarded as the union of Germanic States which dominated Europe after the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire. The First Reich did indeed last - more or less intact - for around a thousand years.

The Second Reich was founded by Otto von Bismarck in 1871 after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War. When the Hohenzollern dynasty collapsed in 1918 with the abdication of Emperor William II, the Second Reich came to its end.

The days of glory under Bismarck led to the establishment of the ill-fated Weimar Republic. Unwanted and unloved it was proclaimed by the Social Democrats or Labour Party at the end of 1918 and which lasted until 1933.

In turn, it was followed by Hitler's Third Reich which he regarded as an empire that would also last for a thousand years. On January 30, 1933, President von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany. (Hitler had adopted the term 'Third Reich' in the early 1920s after the German writer Arthur Moeller von der Bruck used it as a title for one of his books.)

Hitler's "Thousand Year Reich" actually ended up lasting only 12 years, 4 months, and 8 days. (2,191 days)

MEIN KAMPF

Regarded as the bible of National Socialism, the original title of Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' was 'My 4 & 1/2 Year Struggle, against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice' The first part was written while he was incarcerated in Landsberg prison after the 1923 Beer-Hall Putsch after which Hitler was arrested and tried for treason. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment but paroled after serving nearly nine months. His publisher, Max Amann, (1891-1957) later changed the title to Mein Kampf (My Struggle). The first volume was published on July 18, 1925, by Eher Verlag the Munich publishing house taken over by Amann in 1922. By 1939, the book had sold over 5 million copies, making Hitler a millionaire. Up to 1945, the book had a total printing of just over 10,000,000 copies. His official salary was 60,000 Marks per annum. In 1934, Hitler declared his income for 1933 as 1,232,355 Marks but the tax on 600,000 of this amount was never paid. Most of this was from royalties from his book. He also received a fraction of a cent for every postage stamp sold bearing his image. This was insisted upon by Martin Bormann and photographer Heinrich Hoffmann, a desicion which brought in enormous wealth. (Heinrich Hoffmann died on December 16, 1957, at age seventy-two). Today, the right to Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' is owned by the Finance Amt Bayern. (Bavarian Finance Office)

BLOOD ORDER

The most prestigious of honorary Nazi decorations was the 'Blutorden' (Blood Order). Awarded to around 1,500 Nazi party members who had taken part in the 1923 Beer-Hall Putsch, it was made of silver and was worn on the right breast. Blood imagery was a technique used by Hitler and among its uses were 'Blut und Boden' (Blood and Soil) to connect city workers with farmers. As a patriotic duty Aryan students were expected to do Labour service on farms. 'Blutschande' (Blood Shame) referring to intermarriage, a violation of nature's law of racial purity. Blutfahne (Blood Banner) the primary flag of the Nazi Party used at most rituals. This flag was supposed to have been drenched in the blood of the martyrs who died during the Beer-Hall Putsch. Party colours were consecrated by Hitler touching them with one hand and grasping the bullet-riddled Blutfahne with the other.

HITLER'S FATHER, ALOIS SCHICKELGRUBER. (1837-1903)

Born in Strones, Austria, he was the illegitimate son of a Johann Georg Hiedler (1792-1857) and his peasant girl friend, Maria Anna Schickelgruber. On May 10, 1842, they became man and wife but Alois continued to use his mother's name. He was brought up by his father's brother, Johann Hiedler who, in 1876, took steps to legitimize Alois who then started to use the name Hitler. A witness at Alois's legitimization was a relative by the name of Johann Hüttler and it is possible that Alois used the name after the parish priest confused the two names Hiedler and Hüttler and wrote 'Hitler' in the registry. By this time Alois was thirty-nine years old. After his mother died his father married for the third time on January 7, 1885, to his second cousin, Klara Poelzl (1860-1908) twenty-three years younger than he. Alois and Klara Hitler became the parents of Adolf Hitler. Klara bore her husband five children, three of whom died young: Gustav (1885-1887), Ida (1886-1888), Adolf (1889-1945) Edmund (1894-1900) and Paula (1896-1960). Their mother died following an operation for breast cancer on December 21, 1907.

FIRST CASUALTIES

One hour and fifty minutes after Britain declared war on Germany, a Bristol Blenheim fighter-bomber, piloted by Pilot Officer John Noel Isaac of 600 Squadron, crashed on Heading Street in Hendon near London at 12.50pm. P/O John Isaac became the first British subject to die in the Second World War. On September 6, 1939, just three days after Britain went to war with Germany, a young Shropshire pilot, John Hulton-Harrop, age 26, became the first operational casualty of Fighter Command when he was shot down in a tragic case of 'Friendly Fire' soon after he took off from North Weald fighter station. The first Prisoner Of War was Sergeant George Booth, an RAF observer with 107 Squadron. He was captured when his Bristol Blenheim was shot down over the German coast on September 4, 1939.

THE AXIS

An alliance of the two countries, Germany and Italy. Benito Mussolini, the dictator of Fascist Italy, first used the term in 1923 when he wrote 'The axis of European history runs through Berlin.' After his meeting with Hitler in October, 1936, at Berchtesgaden, he used the term again in a speech at Milan in November when he said 'This vertical line between Rome and Berlin is not a partition but rather an axis round which all European states animated by the will to collaboration and peace can also collaborate.' (The grave of Mussolini is in the San Cassiano Cemetery in Predappio)

ARYANS

A group of people whose language is derived from a common source. They came from Eastern Europe and Central Asia but their parent tongue is now extinct. Some of these nomadic tribes eventually reached northern India and settled there around 1500 B.C. to enjoy the warmer climate. Others went further west and settled in Europe. However, their language gave rise to Sanskrit, the ancient language of the Hindus, who called themselves Aryans meaning 'Noble'. This form of speech is allied to Persian, Greek, Latin, and the languages spoken by the Germanic, Celtic and Slavonic races who are now called Aryans but they are not a race.

An 'Aryan' race does not exist!

A"BIG BROTHER" SYSTEM AHEAD OF IT'S TIME?

Early in Hitler's career, Germany was divided into 42 districts called 'Gaue'. Each Gau was supervised by a District Leader (Gauleiter) e.g. the Gauleiter for Berlin was Dr Joseph Geobbels. Each Gau was subdivided into circuits (Kreise) led by a Kreisleiter (Circuit Leader). Berlin had 10 Kreise and each Kreise was then divided into Local Groups (Ortsgruppe) headed by an Ortsgruppenleiter of which Berlin had 269. This was further subdivided into Street Cells (Zellen) supervised by the Zellenleiter whose duty was to report on all anti-government activities within the families living in that street. German civilians living abroad were regarded as the 43rd Gau. All Leaders were required to swear unconditional allegiance to their Führer.

HORST WESSEL AND HIS SONG

An early convert to the Nazi party was 19 year old Bielefeld-born Horst Wessel (1907-1930) who gave up his law studies to join the SA (Storm Troopers). Working as a taxi driver and builder's labourer, he soon became a leading orator at SA rallies and leader of Sturmabteilung Unit No. 5. In 1929, he married Erna Jaenicke, an 18 year old prostitute. On the evening of January 14, 1930, a group of communist thugs, led by Jaenicke's former boyfriend and pimp, Albrecht Höhler, called at their lodgings at 62 Grosse Frankfurter Strasse, Berlin, and in a fit of jealous anger Höhler drew a pistol from his pocket and shot Wessel in the mouth. He died five weeks later on February 23. Höhler was arrested and sentenced to a term in prison but when the Nazis came to power in 1933 he was taken from his cell and executed.

Before his murder, Wessel had composed a poem 'Die Fahne Hoch' (Fly the Flag High) which later was changed to 'The Horst Wessel Song' and introduced into Nazi Party ritual. It soon became Nazi Germany's second anthem and played after 'Deutschland Uber Alles' (Germany Before All). In the town of Stralsund, near Stettin, a citizen was sentenced to two weeks in prison for failing to give the Nazi salute and standing with his hands in his pocket while the band was playing the Horst Wessel Song. Wessel was buried in the Nikolaifriedhof cemetery in Berlin but after the war, in common with all other Nazi graves, the headstone was removed in 1955 and his remains were disinterred and cremated. The new occupant of the grave is a Pauline Mertsching who died on November 2, 1956.

NAZIS AWARD PROMINENT AMERICANS

On his 78th birthday, the prestigious German Grand Service Cross of the Golden Eagle was presented to Henry Ford, the famous and fabulously wealthy American car manufacturer, by a German diplomat in the USA on July 30, 1938, on behalf of Adolf Hitler himself. Ford is actually the only American that Hitler even mentions in his book 'Mein Kampf'. In his book, 'Entnazifizierung in Bayern' the German author, Niethammer, suggests that the "failure" of the Americans to destroy the Ford car plant (Ford Werke) outside Cologne, was all a part of a "capitalist plot" of some kind. Many other well-researched authors have since drawn exactly the same conclusion. By 1941, the Ford Werke plant became one of the largest suppliers of military vehicles to the German Army. In April, 1939, Ford Werke presented Hitler with a birthday gift of 35,000 Reichmarks.

In that same year, the senior executive of the General Motors (German branch) also received the Grand Service Cross of the Golden Eagle award for his 'distinguished service to the Reich'. This referred to the synthetic fuel technology provided by G.M. Coincidentally, his firm had also invested very heavily in Germany. In 1929, General Motors had bought up 80% of the German automobile firm of Opel in Russelheim. The same Golden Eagle award was presented by Herman Göring to the wildly popular (and coincidentally, very wealthy, and highly politically 'connected') American aviation hero, Charles Lindbergh, in October, 1938, during his third visit to Germany. (Lindbergh was the first to fly non-stop from New York to Paris, a distance of 3,600 miles in 33 hours and 15 minutes)

POPULAR SUPPORT

Before Hitler was appointed to lead the nation, massive unemployment fuelled the need for social change. Over seven million were without jobs and support for the Communist Party continued to grow. The introduction of conscription on March 16, 1935, reduced the labour market considerably and by the end of 1936 there were reports of labour shortages. Marriage loans were introduced to encourage young couples to marry and have children, the repayments were reduced by one quarter on the birth of every child. When Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of Nations in 1933, he had the support of over 90% of the population.

With the return to full employment, and with drunks, beggars, vagrants and prostitutes cleared off the streets, vast work programs were introduced such as the building of super highways 'Autobahns'. Even the opponents of the Nazi Party were impressed with the accomplishments of the regime. The widely-published news of arrests and protective custody camps did little to dampen the enthusiasm of the populace for the Hitler movement who in 1933 cast 40 million votes for the party. They could hardly do anything else as all other parties were outlawed. Nevertheless, around three and a half million voters cast an invalid vote, presumably to show their opposition.

LEAGUE OF NATIONS

The League Of Nations functioned throughout World War 11 but before or during the war did little to prevent the conflict. The League was kept going in a few rooms in the Palais des Nations in Geneva, under the direction of one-time Irish journalist, Sean Lister, acting as secretary-general with a staff of about 100. With very little funds, even the Swiss stopped their modest contribution, the League's radio station was closed down. The League's successor, The United Nations, came into being at a session in the San Francisco Opera House. Lister and a small delegation from the League attended but were made to feel unwanted and given seats in the back row. Returning to Geneva, a final assembly was held at which the League Of Nations passed into history on April 19, 1946.

EMBARRASSING SWASTIKA TREES

In 1937, a local businessman, an ardent follower of Adolf Hitler, planted a 60 by 60 metre area of Larch trees in a forest near the town of Zernikow, about 110 km north of Berlin. The trees were planted in the shape and format of a Swastika and could only be seen from the air. During Autumn, when the Larch trees changed their colour to orange and yellow they stood out strikingly against a green forest of surrounding pine trees. Discovered many years after the war, this long-forgotten symbol of the Nazi era was finally removed by cutting down 27 of the 57 trees that made up the Swastika design. This was done in 2001 by the Brandenburg State Forest authorities. Local farmer, Joachim Schultz, remarked 'It was quite embarrassing, we were afraid that it would become a pilgrimage site, Displaying the Swastika symbol is forbidden in Germany today. Owning a copy of Hitler's book 'Mein Kampf' a copy of which was presented to all newly married couples, is permitted but with certain reservations, ie, it is illegal to buy or sell it.

The Swastika Trees
POLES ESCAPE

On September 17, 1939, the Soviet Union invaded the eastern part of Poland while Polish forces were fully engaged against the German onslaught in the West. After the fall of Poland, remnants of the Polish Army (over 70,000 men) those not taken prisoner by the Soviets, made their way through Romania and Hungary to France where they regrouped as the Polish 1st Division under General Duch.

When Germany invaded that country, around 24,300 of these Polish soldiers escaped from France and finally to Britain and reformed in Scotland as the 1st Polish Army Corps. It was while in Scotland, in 1941, that Polish signals officer, Lt. Jozef Kozacki, designed the first practical electronic mine-detector called the Mine Detector Polish Mark 1. It was soon mass-produced and 500 were issued to the British Army in time for use prior to the Battle of El Alamein in October, 1942. The all Polish RAF 303 Fighter Squadron began operations in Britain in 1940. At the end of the war the squadron was credited with 126 'kills' the highest score in Fighter Command(Of the 17,000 Polish airmen who served in the RAF, 1,973 gave their lives)

AXIS "GUESTS"

At the outbreak of war, around 70,000 Germans and Austrians were living in Great Britain. Most were refugees from the Nazis and considered 'safe'. Others, about 11,000, were restricted in their movements around the country and ordered to report to their local police daily and to obey an 8pm to 8am curfew. Some 230 persons from the eastern counties of England and Scotland were interned in special camps set up throughout the country. By the end of 1940 around 14,000, classed as 'enemy aliens'were interned on the Isle of Man.

SANCTUARY

At the beginning of the war, many government officials and crowned heads of Europe sought refuge in Britain. By 1941, those that set up residence in the capital included Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Poland's former Prime Minister, Wladyslaw Sikorski, King Haakon of Norway, King Peter of Yugoslavia, King George 11 of Greece, President Benes of Czechoslovakia, Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg, Prime Minister Pierlot of Belgium and Charles de Gaulle of France. Through the services of the BBC they were able to speak and encourage their people at home. Often depressed by the uncomprising attitude of de Gaulle, Churchill is reported has having said 'My heaviest cross is the Cross of Lorraine.'

"NON-BRITISH" IN AUSTRALIA

A total of 52,000 non-British persons were registered in Australia during the war, 22,000 of them regarded as 'Enemies of the State',i.e. Germans and Italians, many of whom were interned for the duration. After Pearl Harbor, Japanese residents were interned solely on the basis of their nationality and many were deported back to Japan at war's end. When Italy capitulated in 1943, most Italians were released including the 17,000 prisoners of war captured in North Africa and shipped to camps in Australia.

AUSTRIAN JEWS

Before the war there were around 206,000 Jews living in Austria. Only 5,500 survived the Nazi occupation. Many who had converted to Judaism through marriage were forced by the Nazis to renounce their faith and be reclassified as non-Jews. Over 24,000, who had renounced Judaism but had Jewish ancestry, were again classified as Jews.

BATTLESHIP BOMBING TRAGEDY

On August 14, 1937, during the Japanese invasion of China, the Japanese battleship Isuma (10,000 tons) was tied up at the dock in Shanghai, off what was called the Shanghai Bund. In an attempt to sink the Isuma, Chinese air force planes bombed the harbour but mistakenly the bombs hit crowded city streets, a department store and other adjacent buildings along the Bund killing nearly 1,200 people and wounding 1,400.

JEWISH BANS

From 1933 onwards, the music of German Jewish composer Mendelssohn was banned. Soon after, all Jews were dismissed from symphony orchestras and from the Opera. Books published by Jewish authors such as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Maxim Gorky, Heinrich Heine and Walter Rathenau were burned in May 1933, in front of the University of Berlin. (On the exact spot where the book-burning took place, visitors today can see a plate glass window placed level with the ground beneath which you can peer into a small empty room lined with empty bookshelves). One of the leading newspapers, the 'Vossische Zeitung' was forced out of business because it was owned by the 'House of Ullstein' a Jewish firm. The same thing happened to the German Jewish newspaper, the 'Judische Rundschau'. The Jewish owned 'Berliner Tageblatt' was forced to close in 1937. The well known and respected Frankfurter Zeitung was allowed to flourish but its Jewish owners were sacked. On April 7, 1933, a Civil Service Law was passed in Germany. This law banned all persons with a Jewish grandparent from public employment, an action which caused great distress in the Jewish community. By the end of the year around 31,000 of Berlin's Jews were living on charity.(Of the 503,000 Jews living in Germany when Hitler came to power around 319,900 had fled the country by 1939. By the war's end only about 23,000 were living in Germany)

FIRST RAF RAID: A NEAR-DISASTER

The first RAF raid of the war ended in near disaster. The day after war was declared, RAF Wellington and Blenheim bombers attacked the German naval ports of Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbuttel. Ten bombers returned to base after failing to find the target. Seven were shot down by German anti-aircraft batteries. Three of the planes prepared to attack British warships in the North Sea until they discovered their mistake, then went home. Eight bombers found the target and attacked the battleships Scheer and Hipper and the cruiser Emden, one of the Blenheim bombers crashing on the ships' deck. By a strange coincidence the pilot's name was Flying Officer H. L. Emden. Seventeen Royal Air Force men were killed in this raid.

FIRST PLANE SHOT DOWN IN BRITAIN

The first enemy plane shot down over the British Isles was a Heinkel 111, built at the Heinkel-Werke in Oranienburg in October, 1938. It crash-landed at Dumbie, near Dalkeith, in south eastern Scotland on October 28, 1939. Two of the crew survived while two others were killed during the attack, which is credited to Spitfires of 602 and 603 Squadrons.

THE 'V FOR VICTORY' SIGN

This was the idea of a Belgian refugee in London, Victor De Laveleye. In a short-wave broadcast from London, he urged his countrymen to chalk the letter 'V' on all public places as a sign of confidence in ultimate victory. This was plugged in all BBC foreign language programs and later supported by the two finger 'V' sign of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.

MARRIAGE LOAN (Ehestanddarlehen)

In Germany, financial aid was given to encourage young couples to marry, set up house and help raise the birth-rate. Between August, 1933, and the end of 1936, a total of 694,367 marriages were financed. From these marriages, 485,285 children were born. Furthermore, a special tax was introduced for childless couples and bachelors

RAF FIGHTER COMMAND'S FIRST KILL

On October 16, 1939, German JU 88s from the island of Sylt, attacked naval ships in the harbour at Rosyth, Scotland. About to enter dry dock for repairs was the battle cruiser HMS Hood, but the pilots had strict orders not to attack. A personal order from Hitler stated "Should the Hood already be in dock, no attack is to be made, I won't have a single civilian killed." After the raid, in which the 9,100 ton cruiser HMS Southampton was damaged, Spitfires from RAF Turnhouse, near Edinburgh, attacked the departing JUs and one was shot down, hitting the sea off Port Seton. This was the first enemy plane to be brought down by RAF Fighter Command.

INVASION WARNING

On November 5, 1939, Colonel Hans Oster, Chief of Staff in the Abwehr (German Military Intelligence) under Admiral Canaris, warns Colonel Jacobus Sas, the Dutch military attaché in Berlin, that Hitler plans to invade Holland and Belgium within the next few days. In fact the attack (Operation Gelb) did not take place until May 10, 1940. Oster and Canaris, both dedicated anti-Nazis, were arrested after the July Plot and hanged on April 9, 1945, at the Flossenbürg concentration camp.

AWFUL RETRIBUTION AGAINST THE POLES

On December 27, 1939, two German Army non-commissioned officers were killed by Poles during a scuffle in a Warsaw bar. The bar owner was immediately hanged and 120 Polish men and boys were selected at random and shot. Thirteen men survived the massacre by feigning death beneath a pile of bodies.

YOUTH ALIYAH

In 1936, the 'Youth Aliyah' (Movement of Children) organization, concerned itself with the emigration of Jewish children from Germany and Austria, to stay with British families who had agreed to care for them. The British Home Office had given permission for them to come to Britain, and many of them lived with families in Kent and in Scotland. They attended the special Youth Aliyah schools which were set up and where they learned about their future lives in Palestine. Founded in Germany in 1933 by Recha Freier, teacher and pianist, wife of a Rabbi, to help Jewish children and young adults emigrate from Nazi Germany to Palestine and other countries. During the war years the Youth Aliyah organization saved the lives of around 22,000 German Jewish children.

WARTIME BRITISH LIFE: TOUGH, FRUGAL & EXPENSIVE

In July, 1939 petrol was rationed to 200 miles per month
Brand names disappeared, only 'Pool' petrol was available at four shillings and two pence a gallon.
In 1940 the manufacture of new cars was stopped.
In 1942 petrol for private use was disallowed.
The average wage in 1939 for men was £3 and nine shillings.
The average wage in 1939 for women was £1 and twelve shillings.
For newly-enlisted servicemen, the pay was two shillings a day.
A bottle of whisky cost 13 shillings and sixpence.
The price of gold was £8 (about 16 dollars) an ounce.
To conserve wood the Government requested all women to wear flat-heeled shoes and light clothes in order to save dye for forces uniforms. Many non-essential factories were closed.
Eggs were rationed to two eggs per person per week. The rich still had an advantage, lobsters were not rationed.
HERMANN'S INFAMOUS QUOTE

On August 9, 1939, Hermann Göring boasted about the strength of the German Luftwaffe. He said "Not a single bomb will fall on the Ruhr. If an enemy plane reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Hermann Göring, you can call me Meier." He even boasted that Berlin would never be subjected to air attack from the enemy. Hitler also proclaimed "Just give me ten years and you will not recognize your cities" For once he spoke the truth!

CZECH BRIBERY

At the time of the Munich crises, Czechoslovakia was paying some senior British politicians and journalists the sum of 2,000 Pounds Sterling per year in return for a promise to topple Neville Chamberlain and his Government.

AMERICAN GUN SALES

Until 1933, the German S.A. (Brownshirts) were equipped with revolvers and machine guns which were proudly embossed 'MADE IN USA'

CHURCHILL'S PRE-WAR INCOME

Churchill's pre-war gross incomes from his writings alone were:

1933 - £13,981
1934 - £6,572
1935 - £13,505
1936 - £16,321
1937 - £12,914
Later, as Prime Minister, he received £10,000 per annum.

A DESPERATE CHURCHILL BAILED OUT

In March of 1938, Churchill was broke, his share account with his stockbrokers was £18,000 in the red. He asked The Times to advertise his home 'Chartwell' for sale, inviting offers of £20,000. A few days before the ad was to appear, Sir Henry Skrakosch, a South African gold mining millionaire, agreed to pay off his debts and Chartwell was withdrawn from the market. Skrakosch was a Jew, born in Czechoslovakia.

OCEAN LINERS' CLOSE CALL

On December 17, 1939, five ocean liners carrying 7,450 men of the First Canadian Division, arrived at Liverpool. Unknown to them, they had narrowly escaped what could have been a major sea disaster. The passenger liner Samaria, showing no lights, had passed right through the convoy unaware of the convoy's position! It struck the wireless masts of the escorting carrier HMS Furious on her port side, struck a glancing blow on the port side of the next ship astern, the liner Aquitania then passed close down the starboard side of the third and fourth ships sailing in line ahead. If the Samaria had collided head on with the Furious, the ships following would have all crashed into her.

During the last three years of war, the Cunard liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth carried a total of 1,243,538 American and Canadian soldiers across the Atlantic.

WHAT! BOMB GERMAN INDUSTRY?!

On hearing of a proposal to fire-bomb the Black Forest, a British cabinet minister, Kingsley-Wood, said in September, 1938, 'Oh, we can't do that, that's private property, next you will be insisting that we bomb the Ruhr!'

FIRST U-BOAT CAPTURE (September 14, 1939)

The first German U-Boat captured was the U-39. The British destroyers HMS Firedrake, Faulkner and the Foxhound, forced the U-39 to the surface with depth charges after the U-boat had fired two torpedoes at the aircraft carrier Ark Royal. The U-39 was damaged and sank after the crew was removed. This was Germany's first naval loss of the war.

HITLER, ON PLANNING FOR THE NEXT WAR

In 1939, Hitler said "Whoever succeeds me must be sure to have an opening for a new war. In future peace treaties, we must therefore always leave open a few questions that will provide a pretext. That's Statesmanship!"

FIRST BOMB DROPPED ON GERMAN SOIL

The first bomb of the war to land on German soil was dropped on December 3, 1939. A Wellington bomber of 115 Squadron, attacking German shipping in the North Sea, suffered a 'hang up' when one of its bombs failed to drop. It fell off on the return trip over the island of Heligoland.

FIRST NIGHT BOMBLOAD WAS HARMLESS

The first night of the war (September 3, 1939) a force of ten Whitley bombers dropped thirteen tons of propaganda leaflets over Hamburg, Bremen and the Ruhr. Later, Berlin and the Baltic ports were showered with these leaflets. Little opposition was met from enemy defence. As no bombs were being dropped, no doubt they were anxious not to give away their gun and searchlight positions. On September 30, leaflet-carrying balloons were launched from France by Britain's No 1 Balloon Unit.

REPORT FROM OSLO

In November, 1939, a mysterious package was discovered in the office of the British Naval Attaché in Oslo, Norway. Contained in the package was highly secret information on the latest weapons being developed within Germany. These documents were passed on to the British Secret Service Office (MI-6) and were deemed authentic. The documents mentioned Peenamunda where the latest V2s were being developed and tested. Details were given about the 'smart' bomb Fritz-X, cruise missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, jet engines and rocket powered planes. This information helped the British to develop measures to combat these missiles from reaching their target i.e. Electronic Beams etc. To this day, the identity of the person who delivered the package to the Naval Attaché in Oslo has never been discovered but assumed that he was a high ranking officer in the Luftwaffe.

Peenemunde was bombed by the RAF on August 17/18, 1943, (Operation Hydra) In its first raid on the island, 560 planes took part, dropping 1,800 tons of bombs. About 180 German technicians and scientists were killed and around 550 foreign workers, mostly Polish, lost their lives. The RAF lost 40 planes. The bombing caused the Germans to move the whole rocket research facility to underground tunnels in the Harz mountains, near Nordhausen. All this took up precious time and by the time full production was attained, the Allies had landed in Normandy, Operation 'Overlord'. Seven days later the first rocket, the V1 'Doodlebug', was fired against London.

On the 27th of August, 1939, the German HE-178 became the world's first jet plane to fly. The first British jet, the Gloster E28/39 was flown successfully on April 7, 1941.

VOLUNTEERS

When the Soviet Union attacked Finland on November 30, 1939, over 8,000 men and women in Britain offered their services to fight the Soviets. Around 228 men of the British section of the International Volunteer Force was on its way to Finland when the armistice was signed on March 12, 1940. They arrived at Lap on March 19 and by June, 1942, the last of the volunteers had left Finland for home. Thirteen men were left behind and became prisoners of war in Germany. Following the British ultimatum to end their conflict with Soviet Union, the governments of Britain, Canada, New Zealand and India declared war on Finland, Hungary and Rumania. In Britain, 150 Finnish nationals were arrested, and in the USA six Finnish ships were seized and placed under protective custody. In their battle with the Soviets in 1939/40 the Finns suffered 24,923 killed, the Soviet forces, around 48,000 killed.

GERMANS IN CUSTODY

In 1939, there were 302,535 Germans in protective custody in Germany for their political views. By the end of the war, over 800,000 Germans had spent time in prison or in concentration camps.

GREED FOR GOLD Just prior to the German invasion of the Netherlands, the National Bank of Belgium transferred part of its gold reserves to the Bank of France in Bordeaux for safe keeping. When France was attacked, Belgium asked the French bank to transfer the gold to London. The gold was transferred, but not to London, instead it was forwarded on to a French bank in Dakar. On October 29, 1940, the French bank promised to return the gold to Belgium but Pierre Laval, Foreign Minister in the Vichy government of Marshal Petain, sent it on to Berlin. There it was melted down, supplied with false seals and documentation and transferred to the National Bank of Switzerland by the Germans. The value of this gold was 378.6 million Swiss francs. Around 218 million francs worth of this treasure was resold by the Swiss to fund its banking operations. In 1945, France restored the gold that was entrusted to her in 1940 but Switzerland claimed that only 160 million francs worth was held in its banks.

FIRST AIR STRIKE

The first air strike of the war from carrier-borne aircraft was from the British carrier HMS Furious. On April 11, 1940, 18 Swordfish from 816 and 818 Squadrons took off from the deck of the carrier to bomb enemy ships in Trondheimsfjord, Norway. All returned safely.

BRITAIN CONTEMPLATES BIOWAR

In 1940, work began in Britain on biological weapons. One idea put forward was for cattle-cake to be impregnated with Anthrax and dropped by RAF planes to infect Germany's livestock. (Tests with a powdered form of Anthrax were carried out on flocks of sheep with devastating results) This idea was adopted and about five million such cakes were made but were never used operationally. During the war, Germany manufactured three kinds of nerve gases, Tabun, Sarin and Soman. At the end of the war the Allies uncovered thousands of tons of such material in Austria.

HAUL OF NAZI NAVAL TECHNICIANS

During a routine inspection of the Japanese merchant vessel Asama Maru on January 21, 1940, in the Indian Ocean, officers of the British cruiser HMS Liverpool discovered twenty-one German civilians on board. All were highly qualified technicians being sent to Japan to service German surface raiders and U-boats soon to be operating in the Pacific area. The technicians were removed and interned as prisoners-of-war but as Britain was not at war with Japan at this time the Asama Maru was allowed to proceed to her destination. Some weeks later, on February 29th, Britain handed back nine of the technicians to Japan after Japan agrees not to send them back to their homeland.

CASUALTY LIST

The first Royal Air Force casualty list of the war was released on January 31, 1940. It listed 758 RAF personnel killed and 210 aircraft lost. A total of 69,605 members of the Royal Air Force lost their lives in World War 11. In Bomber Command alone, 55,888 servicemen and women died.

BLITZKRIEG'S FIRST VICTIM

The Belgian fortress of Eben Emael, south of Maastricht, was the first fortification on the Dutch/Belgian border to suffer the ferocity of Germany's 'Lightning War'. At 5.20am precisely, nine German gliders landed on the large concrete roof of the Fort. The 700 garrison defenders were caught completely by surprise as the 55 man assault team poured from the gliders to place explosives charges against the steel-capped gun cupolas. The defenders held out until 7am the following morning when German ground forces linked up with the assault team.

A BIZARRE UNIFICATION PROPOSAL

In a last desperate attempt to save France from capitulating and to keep her army fighting, Churchill and General De Gaulle proposed that Britain and France become one united nation. In a telephone call from London on June 16, 1940, to the French Premier, Paul Reynaud, the message stated:

"The two Governments of the United Kingdom and the French Republic make the declaration of indissoluble union and unyielding resolution in their common defence of justice and freedom against subjection to a system which reduces mankind to a life of robots and slaves. The two Governments declare that France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations but one Franco-British Union. Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain; every British subject will become a citizen of France. All the armed forces of Great Britain and France will be placed under the direction of a single War Cabinet." The proposal caused an uproar in the French Cabinet of which Churchill wrote "Rarely has so generous a proposal encountered such a hostile reception." Without Cabinet support, Reynaud resigned as premier and a new government was formed under Marshal Pétain at 11.30pm on June 16, 1940. Pétain immediately negotiated an armistice with Germany. The former World War I hero of Verdun was later tried and sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. He died in 1951. To the last, he insisted that he saved his people, at Vichy and at Verdun in 1916.

FIRST RAF BOMBING OF GERMANY

The first of the 4,000 lb bombs dropped on German soil was on the city of Emden on March 31, 1940, when two Wellington bombers raided the city. Each bomb carried a parachute to retard its descent. In 1940, 14,369 tons of bombs were dropped on Germany by the RAF. In 1941, 34,954 tons and in 1944, 579,384 tons were dropped.

THE BOMBING OF LONDON

The first bombs fell on London on August 24, 1940. The Blitz started on September 7 and lasted until May 11, 1941. The worst tragedy of the Blitz was when 430 persons were killed when a bomb hit a school in West Ham being used as an air raid shelter. A direct hit on the Bank underground station killed 58 persons. A bomb hit the water pipe above the Balham Street underground tube station causing the tunnel to be flooded, 68 people died. The last night of the Blitz, on May 10, 1941, a total of 1,436 persons were killed. Just over 20,000 lives were lost during this period. In Britain, as a whole, 51,509 deaths were from bombing. (In November, 1940, there were around 3,000 unexploded bombs waiting to be rendered safe around London)

FIRST BOMBING RAID ON BERLIN

This air-raid occurred on August 25/26, 1940, just two days after the German Luftwaffe had mistakenly bombed London, a forbidden target at that time. Of the 81 RAF bombers taking part, 27 failed to locate the target and five were shot down. A year later, on August 8, 1941, the Russians bombed the city for the first time. The first bombs to fall on Berlin were a handful of incendiaries dropped from a French civilian transport plane, a converted Farman NC 2234 operated by the French Navy, on June 7, 1940. The crew threw the incendiaries out of the passenger entry door. It is not known what damage, if any, was done. (In all, Berlin suffered 363 air raids during the war. The last RAF raid was on march 24, 1944, when, of the 810 aircraft that took part 72 were lost)

AIR RAID CASUALTIES

In the six months from May to November, 1940, the RAF had killed 975 German civilians in air raids over Germany. At the same time, road accidents in Germany had killed 1,845 persons. German air raids on Britain for the same period killed around 15,000 people.

BRITAIN'S VERY FIRST CIVILIAN CASUALTIES

On April 30, 1940, anti-aircraft fire shot down a German Heinkel 111 bomber while on a mine laying sortie off the east coast of England. The bomber crashed onto a house in Upper Victoria Road in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex killing the occupants, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Gill. They became the first civilians, of more than 60,000 killed in England during the war. Frederick and Dorothy Gill were buried in an unmarked grave in the Burrs Road Cemetery. In 1994, the grave site was discovered and a proper Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone was erected and dedicated on the 59th anniversary of their deaths.

The German aircraft was actually on a mine laying operation over the North Sea, but the crew became disorientated due to heavy fog. Flying blindly until just before midnight the Heinkel crossed the coast near the radar station at Bawdsey in Suffolk. Anti-aircraft batteries along the coast at Bawdsey, Felixstowe and Harwich opened fire on the bomber. Ironically, the Heinkel did not receive a direct hit, but it is thought that exploding shells underneath the aircraft caused considerable damage to the aircraft controls. Eyewitnesses have said that it does appear that the pilot tried desperately to find a landing area because he released flares as his plane circled Clacton and Holland-on-Sea before flying out to sea again, then returning at a considerably lower altitude. The German bomber hit the chimneys of a number of houses before crashing in the house occupied by the Gill family. After the bomber crashed, the live mine that it was carrying exploded and this is what caused the unintentional, but spectacular damage.

The Gill Family Home
BRITAIN'S NEXT CASUALTY

The third civilian killed in an air raid on Britain was James Isbister during a German raid on Scapa Flow in the Orkneys on July 24, 1940. A bomb fell near the Bridge of Waith killing 27 year old Isbister. On a previous raid on November 13, 1939, during an attack by a Heinkle bomber on the Shetland Islands, all that resulted was a large bomb crater in the countryside and the only fatality was a rabbit, which gave rise to the famous WWII marching song 'Run Rabbit, Run'.

There is some speculation that the rabbit was actually purchased from a local butcher and placed in the crater for effect ... or a laugh; but either way, this must be the world's most famous dead rabbit!

FIRST AMERICAN CASUALTY

The first American military officer killed in the war was Air Corps Captain, Robert M. Losey. While in Norway in 1940, on a meteorological mission, the country was invaded by Germany. Anxious to observe the front line fighting, Losey was caught in an air-raid on the town of Domras. Sheltering in the mouth of a tunnel, he was killed instantly by shrapnel from a German bomb.

BIGGIN HILL

The most famous of the fighter stations that took part in the Battle of Britain. Situated on a small rise on the North Downs of Kent just south of London it achieved fame on May 15, 1940, when its fighter aircraft shot down its 1,000th victim, a feat not rivalled by any other fighter station. The first of the thousand was a Dornier 17 shot down in November 1939, the last a FW-109. To celebrate the 1,000th, a kill shared by French pilot Rene Mouchotte and Englishman Jack Charles, Vickers, the makers of the Spitfire, threw a fabulous party for all Biggin Hill pilots at Grosvenor House in London. Everyone of importance from the Air Staff down to the chorus girls from the Windmill Theatre were invited. That night, around thirty London taxi drivers volunteered to give the pilots and their guests a free ride home. The station became the home for short periods of time to many famous pilots including Douglas Bader, Stanford Tuck and 'Sailor' Milan. During the course of the war a total of 1,400 enemy aircraft were destroyed by pilots from Biggin Hill. In the specially built Chapel of Remembrance are the names of 453 pilots from fifty-two squadrons from eleven countries, killed in action.

LEGLESS PILOTS

The Famous Douglas Bader was not the only legless pilot to engage the enemy from Biggin Hill and other RAF Airfields. A lesser known pilot, Colin Hodgkson, started his war service in the Royal Navy in 1939 as a trainee pilot in the Fleet Air Arm. On May 12, while flying a Tiger Moth he was involved in a mid-air collision with another Tiger Moth the result of which he lost both legs to amputation. After many months learning to walk again on 'tin legs' he received a letter of support from Douglas Bader. From that moment on Colin was determined to become a Spitfire pilot. Eventually he was allowed back into the Fleet Air Arm as a ground control officer. Finding this rather boring he applied for entry into the Royal Air Force. His application was granted and soon he found himself serving in airfields in South-West England. In February, 1942, he flew a Tiger Moth for the first time since his accident. Then he was upgraded to a Proctor then a Swordfish. In the middle of April he qualified as a pilot. On September 19, 1942, he climbed into a Spitfire for his first solo flight in this type of plane, a fulfilment of his most cherished dream. In an operational sortie over northern France from Hawkinge he suffered oxygen failure and was forced to belly-land his Spit on the nearest green field. Badly injured about the face he woke up in a German hospital near St Omar realizing that he now was a prisoner-of-war. Soon he was nursed back to a reasonable state of health and put on a train for Dulag Luft POW camp near Frankfurt. Eventually he was repatriated to England in exchange for German POWs held there. Back in England again he was put under the watchful eye of the plastic surgeon Archie McIndoe at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead. After the war and after various jobs on 'civvy street' Colin met and married June Hunter a fashion model in July 1949. after she died he married a French woman, Georgina. Flight Lieutenant Colin 'Hoppy' Hodgkinson died aged 76 having achieved 2 kills. He is survived by Georgina.

VICHY AIR ATTACKS ON GIBRALTAR

On September 24-25, 1940 the Vichy-controlled French Air Force attacked British military installations at Gibraltar, dropping 600 tons of bombs on the fortress but caused minimal damage. This was in reprisal for the British naval attack on French warships at Mers-el-Kabir on July 3, 1940 and for the attempted occupation of Dakar on September 23rd. After this attack, a total of 1,400 Gibraltarian women and children were evacuated to England mostly to the Wandsworth area of London. The Vichy Government of Pėtain broke off diplomatic relations with Britain because of the attack on Mers-el-Kabir and urged a declaration of war against Britain. The French World War I air ace, Colonel Rene Fonck, had organized some two hundred Vichy French pilots who were prepared to join Germany in the fight against Britain. Eventually the idea of war with Britain was rejected by Foreign Minister Paul Baudouin who said 'War with Britain would worsen France's already pitiful condition'.

FRENCH "TRAITORS" BRUTALLY PUNISHED

Some 8,000 Frenchmen donned the Wehrmacht uniform and formed the Charlemagne Division of the Waffen SS. They fought so well on the Eastern Front that many were awarded the Iron Cross for their bravery and three were awarded the Knights Cross. After the war, when the survivors of the Charlemagne Division returned to their homeland, they were treated in a most brutal and inhumane fashion when the French Resistance extracted their revenge on all collaborators. During the four years after the war, a total of 118,000 men and women were prosecuted for collaboration with the Germans. Fifty thousand were brought to trial but only 791 were executed. Women collaborators, especially those who had formed romantic attachments to German soldiers were also singled out for punishment. Many suffered the indignation of having their hair cut off (See title picture above, one of the 26,000 known cases of French women being punished for having an affair with German soldiers) and marched through the city streets to display their baldness while carrying their babies, many fathered by enemy soldiers. In Belgium, volunteers from the Belgian Wallonie SS Regiment were locked up for weeks behind bars in the Brussels zoo. There, they were jeered at and spat upon by members of the public.

THE ALTMARK INCIDENT

The Altmark was a 13,580 ton tanker and supply ship serving the German battleship Graf Spee. Survivors from the nine ships sunk by the Graf Spee were now Prisoners of War on the Altmark. On February 16, 1940, after a hectic search by The Royal Navy, the Altmark was located in the Jossing Fjord on the southern tip of Norway where she had taken refuge from the pursuing British destroyers. In violation of international law, the British destroyer HMS Cossack (Captain Philip Vian) entered the Fjord and with an armed party boarded the Altmark. After a brief skirmish, in which seven German sailors were killed as they attempted to lower a boat to escape, the crew was overpowered and 299 British prisoners freed. Some members of the Altmark’s crew were fired upon as they fled across the ice during the boarding. It was this incident that caused Hitler to accelerate his plans for his occupation of Norway, believing that the British would not respect Norwegian neutrality. The Altmark was later converted back to a tanker under the name Uckermark.

On November 30, 1942, while anchored in the harbour at Yokohama, Japan, the Uckermark sank after a huge explosion ripped the vessel apart while the crew were having lunch. The cause of the explosion was thought to be a spark from tools used by a repair gang working near the fuel tanks. Forty-three crewmen from the Uckermark died plus an unknown number of Chinese and Japanese labourers working on the deck. Anchored nearby and also sunk by the explosion was the Australian passenger liner Nankin and the German raider Thor which had captured the Nankin when only five days out from Fremantle en route to Colombo. Thirteen of the crew from the Thor also died.

MY FELLOW AMERICANS ... LET'S GO HOME!

In May, 1940, the US Ambassador to London, Joseph Kennedy, urged the 4,000 or so Americans living in Britain to pack up and go home. Over seventy responded to this plea by joining the British Home Guard instead! Called the 1st American Squadron of the Home Guard, it was led by General Wade H. Heyes. Kennedy, who told Roosevelt he expected Germany to win the war, was hostile to the whole idea, fearing that they would all be shot as 'francs-tireurs' when the Germans occupied London.

BOMBER COMMAND'S UNPLANNED FIRST KILL

In the first British air attack on a mainland German population centre, 36 RAF planes bombed the rail-yards of Monchen Gladbach on May 10, 1940. The raid killed just one person ...an Englishwoman!

A FLIGHT SCHOOL TAUGHT A LESSON (August 16, 1940)

Two German JU 88 bombers dropped their bombs on the RAF airfield at Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, setting fire to 46 fully-fuelled parked Oxford trainers of No. 2 Service Flying Training School. Six others were badly damaged, as were 11 Hurricanes parked nearby.

C.O.R.B. (Established June, 1940)

The Children's Overseas Reception Board successfully organized the evacuation of 1,530 children to Canada, 353 to South Africa, 577 to Australia, 202 to New Zealand and 838 to the USA. Within ten days of its opening, CORB received 211,000 applications. Disaster overtook them on September 17, 1940, when the ship City of Benares was torpedoed while on its way to Canada. Seventy seven children died in the lifeboats from exposure while awaiting rescue. (See Maritime Disasters, 1940) About this time over 1.4 million children and young mothers were evacuated from the larger cities in Britain to safer havens in small country towns and villages. From London a total of 241,000 children were evacuated.

LUFTWAFFE BOMBS ITS OWN COUNTRY

On May 10, 1940, three Luftwaffe planes, HE 111s, bombed the German town of Freiburg by mistake, killing 57 people. In overcast weather the crews thought they were over the French town of Dijon. The fragments of the bombs found later, confirmed the bombs as German, but German propaganda claimed the raid to be a terror attack by the French Air Force, justifying subsequent bombing of French towns. (The first 'terror bombing' of population centres was on January 29, 1932, when Japanese bombers destroyed Chapei, an eight square mile suburb of Shanghai in which over a thousand died. On March 3rd the fighting ended and Japanese military forces moved into the city)

UNIQUE BRITISH SUBMARINE CAPTURE

The only British submarine to be captured at sea was the HMS Seal. On May 5, 1940, she was damaged while laying mines in the Kattegat (between Denmark and Sweden). Attempting to reach Sweden, the badly damaged HMS Seal was spotted by two Arado seaplanes which proceeded to drop bombs around the wallowing submarine. Realizing that the ship would inevitably be sunk, the captain, Lt. Cmdr. Lonsdale, surrendered by waving a white sheet from the conning tower. One of the Arados then landed on the water and took the captain on board. A radio message to a nearby German fishing trawler on submarine patrol, the Franken, soon had the entire crew of HMS Seal on board as POW's.

FIRST MAJOR WARSHIP SINKING OF THE WAR

The first major warship sunk by air attack during wartime was the German light cruiser Konigsberg. Skuas from HMS Ark Royal flew 330 miles on April 9, 1940, from the Naval Air Station at Hatston in the Orkney's to dive-bomb the ship anchored in Bergen harbour after it was damaged by Norwegian shore batteries. TheKonigsberg, unable to defend herself against the Skuas, was sunk by two fatal bomb hits.

OPERATION 'FELIX' ABANDONED

The German code name for the capture of Gibraltar, the Canary Islands and the Cape Verde Islands. Issued on Directive No. 18 by Hitler on November 12, 1940, it was never put into operation, partly because of the refusal of Spain to join the Axis. Spain was in no position to fight another war, the civil war of 1936-39 had left the country a shambles, many of her cities in ruins.

BRITISH AIR RAID CASUALTIES: LATE 1940

During the month of November, 1940, a total of 4,588 British civilians were killed in air raids by the German Luftwaffe. Another 6,202 were injured. This was a decrease of the previous month, October, when 6,334 civilians lost their lives and 8,695 were injured. In December, 1940, this had decreased to 3,793 killed and 5,244 injured. In the last three month period of 1940, 44,717 men, women and children had been killed in Luftwaffe bombing raids.

DANGER! UXB

These ominous signs (Unexploded Bomb) sprouted up on many streets in London during the Blitz. Many enemy bombs failed to explode on impact with the ground and many were of the delayed action type set to detonate hours, even days, later. One of the most dangerous assignments was the disposal of these weapons. Bomb disposal squads from the Army, Navy and Air Force travelled the length and width of Great Britain to find and render safe these unexploded bombs. In the early months of the war the life expectancy of these real-life heroes, who risked their lives every day, was about ten weeks. A large number, believed to be around 100, of unexploded bombs still lie buried deep under the streets of London. As their fuses would have long since corroded, some borough councils decided on a policy of 'Let sleeping dogs lie'. Many awards for bravery were given out to the bomb disposal personnel. The Royal Navy received 22 George Crosses and 127 George Medals. The Royal Engineers were awarded 13 GCs and 114 GMs and the Royal Air Force 6 GCs and 14 GMs.

DUNKIRK (May 26-June 4, 1940)

In the now-legendary ten day evacuation from Dunkirk 'Operation Dynamo' a fleet of 861 ships and small boats set sail from ports around Britain in a desperate attempt to save the Allied troops trapped on the beaches. Within ten days a total of 224,585 British soldiers, exhausted, demoralised and hungry, were picked up and brought home. At the same time, 112,546 French and Belgian troops were also saved. Unfortunately, about 40,000 French soldiers had to be left behind, causing a certain amount of bitterness among the troops. This withdrawal was made possible by the brave stand taken by the French First Army troops in holding the perimeter against the onslaught of the German Wehrmacht. These soldiers all became prisoners of war. A total of 231 rescue boats and six destroyers were sunk during the operation. The RAF Fighter Command lost 106 planes compared to the 258 lost to the Luftwaffe. The Dunkirk evacuation was one of the most dramatic withdrawals in British military history and when it ended on June 4, the army had left behind 63,897 vehicles including 289 tanks, 11,000 machine guns and 1,200 artillery pieces, all the equipment of virtually the entire British Expeditionary Force. When Churchill addressed Parliament on June 4 he said "We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory, wars are not won by evacuations'

During the evacuation from Dunkirk, the big mistake the Germans made was the use of the Stuka dive bomber. If the Luftwaffe had used horizontal bombing instead of dive bombing, the losses to the British Expeditionary Force would have been far greater.

THE STUKA DIVE BOMBER

The Junkers JU-87B Stuka was designed by Hans Pohlmann and first flew in 1935, ironically, powered by a Rolls Royce engine. Future models were powered by a Junkers Jumo 1,200hp engine. The spats over the wheels were fitted with air activated sirens which gave out a terrifying high pitched scream. Attacks were carried out at an 85 degree angle to give pinpoint accuracy on whatever target they aimed at. Top speed of the Stuka was 237 mph (380 kmh) at 13,000 feet.

CHURCHILL ORATION AT ITS BEST ... OR NOT?

After the Dunkirk evacuation, Churchill delivered his memorable 'We shall never surrender' speech to the House of Commons. Later in the day, the speech was broadcast by the BBC to the rest of the world. What the listeners didn't know was that the speech was read by 37 year old actor Norman Shelley of the BBC repertory staff who impersonated Churchill's voice. Winston had said 'I am rather busy, get some actor to do it'

BREECHES BUOY LIFE-SAVING RECORD

Owing to a navigational error, on October 17, 1940, two British destroyers, HMS Fame and HMS Ashanti, ran aground in fog and drizzle at Whilburn on the river Tyne. HMS Fame caught fire as fuel pipes in the engine room ruptured. Thinking that the invasion had started, defence lookout posts on shore raised the alarm and at 5am National Fire Service crews and Volunteer Life Brigade units from South Shields and Sunderland arrived at the scene. In about five hours a total of 272 crewmen from the two ships were brought ashore by Breeches Buoy thus establishing an all-time world life-saving record for a rescue of this type. The two destroyers were eventually refloated, repaired and returned to service.

BARRAGE BALLOONS

A comforting sight to many during the war years. 'A plastic bag filled with hydrogen' was how one news reporter described them. Sixty feet in length and thirty feet high when fully inflated with 20,000 cubic feet of hydrogen, these balloons seemed to hang from the sky around every city in Britain. The risk of a lightning strike was a big worry to the ground operating crews. Just after midnight on July 26, 1940, a total of 28 balloons in the Bristol, Avonmouth and Filton area were struck by lightning and brought crashing to the ground in flames. In late September, 1939, a severe storm tore loose many balloons from their moorings causing around sixty of them to drift as far away as Sweden. Another problem was RAF planes from surrounding training schools striking the balloon cables. This happened on a number of occasions with fatal results for the pilots.

LIFEBOAT SURVIVOR RECORD

POON LIM was a steward aboard the British merchant navy vessel the SS Ben Lomand. Enroute from Port Said via Cape Town to Paramaribo in Dutch Guiana (Surinam) in South America, the ship was torpedoed by the German U-boat U-172 on November 23, 1942, off the coast of Brazil. Swimming in the water, Poon Lim spotted an empty life raft which he reached and climbed in. With no other survivors in sight he soon realized he was alone and drifting with the ocean swell. Keeping alive with fish he caught with a crude fishing line and hook, he eventually was rescued by a Portuguese fishing boat which took him to Belim Para in Brazil , 1,101 kilometres from where his ship sank. There, the British consul arranged for him to return to Britain. Back in Britain he was awarded the British Empire Medal and the Ben Line Shipping Company presented him with a gold watch. Poon Lim was the sole survivor of the forty-seven man crew and now holds the world's record as the longest lifeboat survivor, 133 days.



All text researched and compiled by George Duncan. Website by Columbus.

LESSER KNOWN FACTS ABOUT WORLD WAR ll 1941

* Dedicated to all those who took part in World War II *
Lesser-Known Facts of World War II - page 2 of 6.

This 6 page series provides some of these facts and stories:



1941
ZONDERWATER P.O.W. CAMP

In February, 1941, Italian prisoners-of-war began arriving in South Africa where the Zonderwater Camp had been established in the Transvaal, twenty-three miles from Pretoria. These prisoners were captured during the Somaliland and Ethiopian campaigns. Thousands more were brought in from the campaigns in Egypt, Libya and Tripolitania during the years up till 1943. Around 9,000 of these prisoners were illiterate and among the greatest and most lasting achievements at Zonderwater were that before the camp closed in February, 1947, all had learned to read and write their mother tongue during their six years confinement. Some 5,000 learned a trade before returning home and another 4,000 were allowed to work outside the camp on neighbouring farms. A symphony orchestra of 86 musicians was formed and a brass band of 65 instrumentalists was welded together from the prisoners. Fifteen schools were established teaching a variety of subjects.

At its peak, on December 31, 1941, there were 63,000 prisoners in the camp. A total of 233 prisoners died from illness and 76 lost their lives through accidents. What was done at Zonderwater represents a great achievement in the field of human relations in the treatment of prisoners-of-war. Their efforts were recognized by the post-war Italian Government when the Camp Commandant, Colonel Hendrik Prinsloo and three of his officers were invested with the 'Order of the Star of Italy'. Colonel Prinsloo was further recognized by the award of the 'Order of Good Merit' by His Holiness, the Pope.

INDIAN NATIONAL ARMY

Subhas Chandra Bose, the controversial Indian nationalist leader, arrived in Germany in March, 1941. In Berlin he formed the nucleus of an Indian legion from Indian prisoners of war captured in North Africa and now in German hands. Within months recruits numbered some 3,500 men whose sole aim was the liberation of India from British imperialist rule. After the fall of Singapore on February 15, 1942, Bose and his Indian National Army, as it was now called, declared war on Britain. As the military situation in Europe began to deteriorate, Bose now sought help from the Japanese and in June, 1943, he made his way to Japan by submarine and from a Tokyo radio station he appealed to India for an uprising to oust the British. In doing so was able to enlist thousands more to the cause from British Indian troops held prisoner by Japan. The Japanese Army promised all-out support and together they fought in the disastrous campaign in Burma, the INA casualties being over fifty percent. With the re-occupation of Burma by the British, the surviving members of the INA once again became prisoners of war, this time of the British. As events turned out, Bose’s dream of his victorious march to Delhi at the head of his Indian National Army never materialised. Subhas Chandra Bose was killed in an air crash in Formosa (Taiwan) when the plane carrying him to Tokyo crashed on take-off from the small Taioku airfield at Taipai on August 18, 1945. He was 48 years old.

It is acknowledged today by historians that Bose did more for the liberation of India than did any other national leader, including Gandhi.

MADAGASCAR

The French colony island of Madagascar, (228,000 square miles) off the east African coast, remained loyal to the Vichy regime until 1941. Fears that the Axis forces might use the island as a base from which they could use to cut the Allied supply line to India round the Cape of Good Hope, British and two East African brigades invaded the island on May 5, 1941, (Operation Ironclad). This was its first action against French troops in WW11. British casualties were 109 killed and 284 wounded. French casualties were some 200 killed and 500 wounded. The total number of deaths from malaria has never been published but is estimated to be higher than those who died from battle wounds. After the invasion of the island most of the French troops who had surrendered volunteered to join De Gaulle and fight the Germans. It was the Nazi intention to solve the Jewish question by settling the Jews in Madascar but the plan was never implemented.

THE LAST EXECUTION IN THE TOWER OF LONDON

This historic even occurred on August 14, 1941. German spy, Josef Jakobs, was executed while seated tied to a chair, by an eight man firing squad from the Scots Guards. The white lint target patch placed over the area of his heart bore five bullet holes from the eight shots fired. Jakobs had parachuted into Britain on January 31, 1941, and broke his leg on landing. He lay all night in a field until his cries for help were heard next morning. He is buried in an unmarked grave in St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery at Kensal Green, London. (The chair on which Jacobs sat during his execution is now on display in the Royal Armouries museum in Leeds)

FIRE BRIGADE TRAGEDY

April 20, 1941, was Hitler's birthday and the Luftwaffe celebrated the event by dropping 1,000 tons of bombs on London. Many schools in the city were standing empty, the children already evacuated to the country. The Old Palace School in St. Leonard's Street, Poplar, was now sub-station 24U of the London Auxiliary Fire Service. The playground was ideal for training and the parking of fire appliances.

On the night of April 20, fire service crews were standing by in anticipation of a heavy raid on the Capital. At precisely 1.53am, a land mine, dropped from a Luftwaffe bomber, scored a direct hit on the school. Thirty two firemen and two fire women were killed. The bodies of the two firewomen, mother of three Winifred Peters and twenty one year old Hilda Dupree, on duty in the watch room, were never found. This was the largest loss of Fire Brigade personnel ever suffered in the history of the service in Britain.

SURPRISE! SURPRISE!

Australia's 'invasion' of Portuguese East Timor (now Timor Luru Sae) on December 16, 1941, was the first time in history that Australia violated another country's neutrality. Aussie troops (Sparrow Force) invaded Dutch West Timor and the 2/2nd Independent Company landed on the shore near Dili, the capital of Portuguese East Timor and so pre-empt a Japanese takeover. They proceeded immediately to surround the airport. Well armed, and expecting to do battle with the Portuguese military, they approached the administration building, guns at the ready.

Suddenly the main door opened and out stepped a civilian Portuguese official who tipped his hat and in perfect English said "Good afternoon". Dumbfounded, the troops stared at each other in disbelief. Not a shot had been fired. Unknown to Sparrow Force , the Australian and Portuguese governments had previously agreed to a peaceful 'invasion' of the island to help protect the inhabitants from a possible Japanese invasion which did in fact take place two months later, on February 20, 1942.

ISOLATIONISTS

Members of the 'America First Committee' held a rally on April 28, 1941, in Chicago. In the speeches, mention of Winston Churchill's name drew boos from the 10,000 person audience. A speech by Colonel Charles Lindbergh, the respected US isolationist, was interrupted by applause when he said that England was in a desperate situation, her shipping losses serious, 'her cities devastated by bombs'. Two months later, the city council of Charlotte, North Carolina, changed the name of Lindbergh Drive to Avon Terrace.

NAME CHANGE?

When asked his name again, Master Sergeant P. Hitler of the 101st Military Police Battalion at Fort Dix, New Jersey replied 'Sure, that's my name. Let the other guy change his.'

WAGNER'S SCORES

For his 50th birthday, several leading industrialists presented Hitler with a case containing the original scores of some of Richard Wagner's music. They had paid nearly a million marks for the collection. Towards the end of the war, Frau Winifred Wagner asked Hitler to transfer these manuscripts to Bayreuth. Hitler refused, saying he had placed them in a far safer place. The manuscripts involved included the scores of 'Die Feen', 'Die Liebesverbot', 'Reinzi', 'Das Reingold', and 'Die Valkure' and the orchestral sketch of 'Der Fliegende Hollander'. These lost documents have never been found.

HOLOCAUST FIGURES?

When Frederick William von Hohenzollern (1620-1688) was elected Margrave of Brandenburg, he found no Jewish permanent settlement in his state. In 1650, he invited some Polish Jews to conduct trade in Berlin, and in 1671, he welcomed fifty wealthy Jews from Vienna to settle in the capital. So began the Berlin Jewish community. In 1933, the Jewish population of Germany was 503,000. Of these, 170,000 lived in Berlin, 25% were living on charity. At the war's end, only 23,000 were living in Germany. About 100,000 German Jews perished in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Names and last known addresses of around 128,000 German Jews, victims of the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, are listed in the German Gedenkbuch (Memorial Book) in the Federal Archives in Berlin. (previously the Bundesarchives at Koblenz). Sources differ as to the exact number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. The latest statistics put the number at 5,433,900 (about 41 %) of which just over 1.1 million (including some 200,000 children) died in Auschwitz. However, official estimates are, year by year, gradually being revised downwards as more official details come to hand.

The country that suffered most, was Poland, it had a pre-war Jewish population of around 3.2 million, some 2.9 million of whom were annihilated (88%). Of Europe's Jewish children, alive in 1939, only 11 percent survived the war, an estimated one and a half million being murdered. Of all the Nazi occupied countries in WW II, the percentage of Jews saved in Poland was the smallest. The attitude of the vast majority of the Polish population towards Jews was anti-Semitic, particularly in the eastern areas after the Soviet occupation, surpassed only by their vehemently anti-German hatred. Even some members of the Polish police joined the Nazis in rounding up Jews for deportation to the death camps. It must be said however that around 50,000 Jews were saved by Poles who helped hide them at the risk of their own lives. The 'Council for Aid to Jews' provided false Aryan documents and gave refuge to many of the persecuted Jews. Unfortunately, many of these 'aid workers' along with their entire families, paid with their lives. (In all, Poland suffered 4,900,000 dead in WW II, about 20 percent of its population)

CONCENTRATION CAMPS

The term was first used by the Spanish to describe their camps set up in Cuba during the Spanish-American War of 1895-1898. The first Concentration Camp, for the sole purpose of the physical destruction of prisoners was set up in Holmogor by the Bolsheviks in 1921. The idea in German minds that the British invented concentration camps was fostered by Dr Joseph Goebbels during the 1930s. Propaganda picture postcards in 1938 of genuine Russian camps, were re-labelled for issue as 'Genuine British Concentration Camps in South Africa'. The British camps in South Africa, set up during the two and a half year long Boer War (1899-1902) were for internment purposes only, but the lack of proper supervision, negligence and poor hygiene, gave the camps a bad name and caused the deaths of over 30,000 inmates, mostly from outbreaks of typhoid and measles. Thirty-one such camps were scattered around South Africa during this time.

EXTERMINATION CAMPS

The first camp in which Jews had been gassed was Chelmno in Poland. The first gassings took place in December, 1941. This was the first camp mentioned by name in the West. A train had left Holland on November 20 carrying 726 deportees, on the 24th, another train with 709 Jews departed and on November 30 a total of 826 Jews were deported. All the Dutch people knew was that the trains were heading east for Poland. The word 'Auschwitz' was unheard of in the West until April 18, 1943, when an eye-witness report reached London. However this report was never made public.

In 1942, the Allies knew of the wholesale massacres taking place in camps such as Chelmno, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor and Majdanek but the horror of Auschwitz was still to emerge. Conferences were arranged, telephone calls and telegrams exchanged, discussions took place and notes were passed back and forth but nothing was actually done and all this time the deportations and killings went on and on. Even in December, 1943, when the airfield at Foggia in Southern Italy was captured, thus bringing the camps within range of Allied bombers (a round trip of just under 1,300 miles) the camp at Auschwitz was still not identified as the destination of the deportee transports. On May 31, 1944, the complex at Monovitz was photographed for the second time and Auschwitz itself was photographed but the row upon row of prisoner's huts, which was holding around 52,000 prisoners, failed to register as an extermination camp in the minds of Allied intelligence services.

On April 7, 1944, two Jewish prisoners, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, escaped from the camp and headed for Slovakia where they reached the village of Skalite on Friday, April 21. Next morning they travelled to Zilina where they contacted the Jewish Agency. Their report, together with the report of two other escapees, Peter Mordowicz and Arnost Rosin, eventually reached London and on June 18 brief details were heard on the radio during a broadcast from the BBC. This alerted the outside world to the reality of Auschwitz. The first photographs to reach the west were of corpses scattered around the Majdanek camp. These were taken by the Red Army on January 3, 1945. Auschwitz had still to be liberated.

MASS MURDERER

SS Brigadier Odilo Globocnik established the four extermination camps of Treblinka, Belzec, Maidanek and Sobidor and is responsible for the murder of over one million people, mostly Jews, who died in these camps. He also played a leading role in General Plan Ost (East) which involved the relocation of around eighty million people, Poles, Jews, Russians, Czechs, Ukrainians and Balts, to areas in western Siberia. The plan was to be implemented after the defeat of the Red Army and Communism. These deportees were to be replaced with German settlers in the hope of creating a racially pure Nazi Utopia, a fulfilment of Hitler's racial version of a Thousand Year Reich.

Arrested in Austria by British agents, Odilo Globocnik, the greatest ethnic-cleanser of the Nazi era, committed suicide by biting on a cyanide capsule as soon as his identity was revealed.

I. G. FARBEN

This German company built its own camp next to the main Auschwitz camp. Called I. G. Farben, Auschwitz, it was built to produce synthetic rubber and in 1943, 118,600 tons were produced. At least 50,000 prisoners died during its construction from starvation and exposure to the cold. In its foundations lie the bodies of many prisoners who were buried where they fell, in the wet cement. The gas, Zyklon B, (Hydrocyanic acid) was produced by I.G. Farben's subsidiary company 'Degesch'.

CHUNGKING DISASTER

The worst tragedy to hit this Chinese town was in June, 1941. Situated at the junction of the Kialing and Yangtze rivers, the town of Chungking was repeatedly bombed by the Japanese. To shelter the inhabitants the local authorities built under the city the world's largest dugout shelter (estimated capacity: 30,000).During one air-raid, lasting over four hours, the ventilation system broke down and hundreds of people rushed outside to catch a breath of fresh air between raiding waves. A sudden alarm sent them rushing back clogging the shelter's narrow entrance. Those inside clawed and tore at each other in a mad frenzy as they tried to get out. The guards lost their heads and locked the milling mass inside and then fled. With the air cut off, those inside slowly suffocated. The first official count of the dead was put at 461. A week later the death toll finally amounted to around 4,000.

SAVED

Many Jewish lives were saved by an anti-circumcision operation performed by some caring doctors. Dr. Josef Jaksy, a Czechoslovakian urologist, made a small incision on the patients penis and then issued a certificate that stated that they had recently been circumcised for purely medical reasons. Dr. Feliks Kanabus, a Polish surgeon, with the help of two other doctors, pooled their knowledge and performed around 140 operations by attaching skin from other parts of the body to the penis in order to hide the circumcision.

LEGAL RESIDENTS

By 1942 there were only 9,150 foreign Jews legally resident in Switzerland, 980 more than in 1931. Many of these were the richer Jews who had fled Germany leaving behind their shops, factories and other properties. These were quickly snapped up, dirt cheap, by unscrupulous Swiss businessmen who made their fortunes out of Jewish miseries.

THE CABINET WAR ROOMS

The nerve centre of British planning and conduct of the war was the War Cabinet Rooms. Situated at Storey's Gate in London, close to the houses of Parliament, the Foreign Office and Downing Street, its location was one of the best kept secrets of the war. The War Rooms were once the cellars of the Board of Education building and covered an area of six acres with around 150 rooms including sleeping quarters, canteens and dining rooms. The roof was reinforced with tram lines and a three foot thick layer of cement. Churchill had doubts that it could withstand a direct hit from a 500 lb bomb.

At the height of the war, over 600 people worked in the War Rooms which were abandoned on August 15, 1945, as no longer required. Only six rooms were kept, preserved exactly as they were, as a memorial to those dark days of 1939/45. They are now the responsibly of The Imperial War Museum and were opened to the public in 1984.

ICE CREAM BARGE

Perhaps the war's most unusual ship was commissioned in 1945 at a cost of around one million dollars. It was the US Navy's 'Ice Cream Barge' the world's first floating ice cream parlour. It's sole responsibility was to produce ice cream for US sailors in the Pacific region. The barge crew pumped out around 1,500 gallons every hour! The concrete hulled vessel had no engine of its own but was towed around by tugs and other ships. A second barge, also in the ice cream business, and under the command of a Major Charles Zeigler, was anchored off Naha, Okinawa.

US PILOTS

Seven American volunteer pilots fought alongside the RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain. One, P/O William Fiske, died of wounds on August 17, 1940. (Could P/O Fiske have been the first American casualty of World War II ?) Only one of the other six, Pilot Officer Havilland, survived the war. (During the Battle of Britain, the German Luftwaffe lost 1,882 planes, the RAF lost 1,265 planes. In all, 537 pilots were lost to Fighter Command, 718 pilots to Bomber Command and 280 pilots were lost to Coastal Command)

EAGLE SQUADRONS

Many American pilots served in the Royal Air Force and in order to circumvent the US Neutrality Act they assumed Canadian or South African nationality. They formed the Eagle Squadrons, approved by the British Air Ministry in September, 1940, and operated within the RAF Fighter Command. The first Eagle Squadron was No. 71 Squadron, formed with Hurricanes at RAF Station, Kirton-in-Lindsay, in Lincolnshire. The ultimate total of US pilots thus serving numbered 243 with additional squadrons Nos. 121 and 133 operating from Kirton-in-Lindsay and Coltishall respectively. On September 29, 1942, airmen of the three Eagle Squadrons of the RAF were transferred into the US 8th Air Force the first contingent of which arrived in England on May 12, 1942.

INVASION BUILD-UP

As of September 16, 1940, in spite of RAF bombing, the build-up of invasion barges in the German held Channel ports continued to increase. Reconnaissance photos showed 600 barges at Antwerp, 230 at Boulogne, 266 at Calais, 220 at Dunkirk, 205 at Le Havre and 200 at Ostend. This was in anticipation of a second attempt at an invasion of Great Britain in 1941 after the winter had subsided.

SPITFIRE vs HURRICANE

Contrary to popular belief, it was the Hurricane, not the Spitfire that saved Britain during the dark days of 1940. The turn-around time (re-arm, refuel etc.) for the Spitfire was 26 minutes. That of the Hurricane, only 9 minutes from down to up again. During the Battle of Britain the time spent on the ground was crucial and as one fitter/mechanic of No. 145 Squadron quipped: "If we had nothing but Spits we would have lost the fight in 1940." The Spitfire was an all metal fighter, slightly faster, had a faster rate of climb and had a higher ceiling, while the Hurricane had a fabric covered fuselage, was quicker to repair and withstood more punishment. With the for and against of both fighters they came out about even. The majority of German planes shot down during the four month period were destroyed by Hurricanes. For much of the Battle of Britain, the Spitfires went after the German BF 109s at the higher altitudes, while the Hurricanes attacked the bomber formations flying at lower altitudes. This cost the enemy a total of 551 pilots killed or taken prisoner. During the war a total of 14,231 Hurricanes and 20,334 Spitfires were produced. The famous Rolls-Royce 'Merlin' engine evolved through 88 separate marks and was fitted in around 70,000 Allied aircraft, including the famous Lancaster bomber, during the six years of war.

In the hectic battles in the sky over southern England many pilots returned to base utterly exhausted and routinely fell asleep as they taxied their plane to a stop. Ground crews often had to help the sleeping pilot from the cockpit after he returned from combat.

FEUDING

During theBattle of Britain, a bitter feud developed between 12 Group Commander Leigh-Mallory and the New Zealand Commander of 11 Fighter Group, Keith Park. At the height of the battle, Leigh-Mallory failed to send his forces to the aid of Park. Park never forgave him for this. When Leigh-Mallory was made Commander of Allied Forces after D-Day the American Air Force Commander General Spatz, made it clear that under no circumstances would he serve under him.

SPONSORED FIGHTERS

Many Spitfires used in the Battle of Britain were sponsored by private companies and individuals. Money raised in cities, towns and villages was used to buy a Spitfire at a cost of £5,000 each. They bore names such as Dogfighter bought by a well known Kennel Club, Dorothy was bought by women whose name was Dorothy, Gingerbread by red-haired men and women, Unshackled by donations from POWs and so on.

The largest donation received came from Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands who donated £215,000 to purchase an entire squadron of 43 Spitfires.

FIRST TIME

In an air attack on the German city of Wilhelmshaven IN 1941, the RAF flew the American B-17s for the first time in combat. It proved a near disaster for its RAF crews who experienced high altitude difficulties with the plane. Severe operational losses, due to anti-aircraft flak and Luftwaffe fighters, were caused by the streaming of telltale contrails.

INTO THE FIRE

In February, 1941, men of the Australian 22nd Brigade (8th Division) boarded the liner Queen Mary anchored off Toronga Park Zoo in Sydney. Embarking more troops when the ship called at Fremantle in Western Australia, the ship left harbour and turned north. It was then that the troops were told that their destination was Singapore, not Europe where all the action was. To be used as garrison troops in this outpost of Empire was a bitter disappointment for the 5,750 soldiers on board.

Two weeks later Japanese forces attacked Singapore and the garrison was forced to surrender. In the defence of the city, 1,789 Australian soldiers died. The fighting in Malaya and including Singapore, cost the Australians 2,178 killed and 1,306 wounded. Two days after the surrender 14,792 Australians and some 35,000 British troops found themselves behind the walls of Changi Prison as prisoners of war. (Regrettably some prisoners were beaten up by Indian Sikhs who had gone over to the enemy and were now being used as guards in the prison)

AIR RAID SHELTER TRAGEDY

At 11.12pm on Saturday, May 3, 1941, the air raid sirens sounded in North Shields, a town on England's north-east coast. A lone German bomber dropped four bombs on the town, two exploding harmlessly, the third hitting a private house killing the two occupants. The fourth bomb made a direct hit on the three-storey Wilkinson's Lemonade Factory, the basement of which was used as a communal air raid shelter and on this night was crammed with 192 men, women and children. The top three storeys, filled with heavy factory machinery, collapsed onto the basement trapping the occupants and killing 102 persons including 36 children under the age of 16. Three others died later in hospital bringing the final death toll in the shelter to 105.

PLANE CRASH

The son of Italy's dictator, Benito Mussolini, was killed in an air crash on August 7, 1941. Twenty-three year old Bruno, second son of the Fascist leader, died when the four-engined bomber he was testing, crashed near San Guisto Airport at Pisa. Three of the crew were killed and five injured. Mussolini flew at once to the Santa Chiara Hospital and sat beside his son's body for hours before talking to the five wounded survivors. At 17, Bruno became the youngest pilot in Italy and acquitted himself on bombing missions during Italy's attack on Ethiopia.

LEARN A LANGUAGE

A bookseller in German occupied Copenhagen displayed a book and poster in his shop window saying 'English In 50 Hours, Learn English Before The Tommies Arrive'. He was immediately ordered by the occupation authorities to remove it. Next day a new book was displayed with a poster saying 'German In 50 Hours, Learn German Before Our Friends The German's Depart'

SHELTER TRAGEDIES

On September 8, 1940, a direct hit on an air-raid shelter in the Peabody Housing Estate in Whitechapel, London, killed 78 persons. In Germany, up to March, 1945, over 120 direct hits on shelters were recorded. On July 26, 1943, an underground shelter in Hannover, Germany (Attacked 125 times) was hit, killing 110 persons. On September 23, 1944, another shelter in Hannover received a direct hit killing 172 people. On March 15, 1945, a shelter on Kornerstrasse in Hagen was destroyed by a high explosive bomb. The remains of nearly 400 people were recovered from the ruins.

SHOPPING CENTRE TRAGEDY

During the siege of Leningrad, a German bomb struck the city's largest shopping bazaar, Gostiny Dvor, on the main thoroughfare, Nevsky Prospect. Hundreds of people had ran from the street into the store to shelter from the air-raid on September 19, 1941. A total of 98 persons were killed and another 148 wounded.

THE FIRST AMERICAN MERCHANT SHIP SINKING

The first US merchant ship sunk by the Japanese was the 2,140 ton Army-chartered steam schooner Cynthia Olson on passage from Tacoma to Honolulu. Sunk on December 7, 1941 by shelling from the submarine I-26, 1,827 kilometres north-east of Honolulu. The crew of 33 and two military men were all lost.

PEARL HARBOR

The Japanese attack on the American naval base in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, launched the Pacific War. Casualties were 2,403 Americans killed, 1,178 wounded. Two battleships, the Arizona and the Oklahoma were sunk and five others damaged, 188 planes were destroyed and 162 damaged at the two US Air Force bases. US Admiral Bloch was later to declare 'The Japanese only destroyed a lot of old hardware'. Most of the US Fleet was out at sea, none of the newer ships were in the harbour at the time of the attack. Next day, December 8, at 4:10pm, after 22 years and 25 days of peace, the US declared war on Japan.

The Japanese attacking force consisted of 31 ships with 253 aircraft. Japanese losses were 29 planes with 55 airmen killed and 5 midget submarines lost. In total, 64 deaths. (The first American casualty of the Pacific War was seaman Julius Ellsberry from Birmingham, Alabama, who was killed during the attack.) On January 26, 1942, a Board of Inquiry found the Commander-in-Chief US Fleet, Admiral Kimmel and the Commander-in-Chief Hawaiian Department, General Short, guilty of dereliction of duty. Both were dismissed. The new commander of the Pacific Fleet was Rear Admiral Chester Nimitz.

LUCKY HIT

During the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Hawaiian DC-3 airliner, coming in to land, was hit by a Japanese tracer bullet and set on fire. A minute later, the plane was hit by another bullet which hit the valve of a fire extinguisher, thus putting out the fire!



AMERICA'S FIRST PRISONER

The first prisoner of war captured by the Americans was Uaziro Sakamaki, an ensign in the Imperial Japanese Navy. He was captured on the morning of December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor after his midget submarine was blasted out of the water by depth charges. After the war he returned to Japan and found work with the Toyota Motor Corporation before retiring in 1987. Sakamaki died on November 29, 1999, aged 81.

FIRST ACT

The first plane shot down in the Pacific War was a British Catalina flying boat of RAF 205 Squadron. Flying out of its Kota Bharu base in Malaya, together with a Lockheed Hudson of the Royal Australian Air Force, they spotted the Japanese invasion fleet heading for the Malayan coast on the afternoon of December 6, 1941. Venturing too close, the Catalina was shot down.

ALIENS IN THE U.S.A.

The US Department of Justice reported in August, 1941, that of all non-Americans citizens who registered under the Alien Registration Act, 694,971 were from Italy, 449,022 from Canada, 442,551 from Poland, 416,892 from Mexico, 366,834 from The Soviet Union, 315,004 from Germany, 291,451 from Great Britain and 91,843 from Japan, a total of 4,921,439. On January 1, 1942, US Attorney General Francis Biddle, issues orders to all German, Italian and Japanese aliens to hand in their short-wave radios, cameras and firearms to their local police stations. They were also forbidden to change their address without permission and, if living on the east coast, to obey a 9pm to 6am curfew.

GERMAN/AMERICANS

The US Government viewed persons of 'enemy ancestry' as potentially dangerous. This included American born and naturalized citizens and those with permanent residence. The latter had come to the US seeking freedom and opportunity. They simply could not fathom the government's behaviour when their civil liberties were completely ignored, their families torn apart and sent to different internment camps, their assets frozen for the duration of the war. American civilians held prisoner in Germany were exchanged for German-American internees. On arrival in Germany some men were arrested by the Gestapo as spies and put in camps, leaving their families destitute again.

In January, 1945, the liner SS Gripsholm carried 1,000 exchangees to Germany. The last German/American was released from Ellis Island in August, 1948. Upon release, all internees (31,280) were sworn to secrecy and threatened with deportation if ever they spoke of their ordeal. Many returned to their former homes only to find the houses vandalized, the contents stolen or damaged. Confronted with feelings of anger, confusion, resentment, bitterness, guilt and shame, they desperately tried to mend their broken lives. Personal justice was denied to these German/Americans while the government acknowledged mistreatment of Japanese internees and granted them financial compensation.

JAPANESE/AMERICANS

Driven by hysteria after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the US arrested 737 Japanese Americans immediately and on the 11th another 1,370 were detained. In all, 16,849 Americans of Japanese ancestry were relocated in ten specially built War Relocation Authority Camps in the USA. Around 70% of these had already become US citizens. Most of these camps were located in California. Opened in March, 1942, all were closed by 1946 most internees being released well before the end of the war. In Latin America, around 2,000 Japanese were rounded up so the US would have prisoners to exchange with Japan. During the Japanese/American internment, 5,918 babies were born. A total of 2,355 internees joined the US armed forces and around 150 were killed in combat. The 100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team was formed after its members petitioned Congress for the privilege to serve in the war. It became the most decorated unit in US military history earning 21 Medals of Honor as well as 9,486 Purple Hearts. After the war, 4,724 US citizens of Japanese ancestry, angered by this terrible injustice, renounced their American citizenship and returned to Japan. There were no renunciants among the German or Italian Americans in US Camps.

It is strange that in Hawaii, the ethnic Japanese, over 30% of the Hawaiian population, were not interned after Pearl Harbor. The US Government later agreed that the nation had acted hastily in its treatment of aliens and that the vast majority of them were loyal to America. Deaths from natural causes in the camps accounted for another 1,862.

ITALIAN AMERICANS

During the war, a total of 51,156 Italian nationals were also interned in the USA at various times. These included the hundreds of Italian seamen from ships impounded in US ports at the outbreak of the war with Italy in June, 1940. The largest camp for Italian male internees was at Fort Lincoln in North Dakota. Later they were interned at Fort Missoula, Montana. In 1942 there were around 600,000 Italian residents in the USA who had not become US citizens. All were branded 'enemy aliens' by the US Government and 114,000 were restricted in their travel. Around 10,000 were compelled to move inland from their coastal area homes in California. As from October 10, 1942, the 600,000 Italian citizens living in the USA would no longer be classified as enemy aliens. This was the result of the splendid showing the Italians have made in meeting the test of loyalty to their new country.

INTERNED

After Pearl Harbor, the Canadian government interned around 22,000 Japanese Canadians. The Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, later apologized for this unjust treatment, stating "No amount of money can right the wrong, undo the harm or heal the wounds." A tax-free lump sum of $21,000 was paid to each internee.

THE WORKERS PARADISE

After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, German soldiers wrote home to their families describing the conditions they found there:

"The poverty, misery and filth we have seen in the past few weeks are indescribable. Wherever we look there is filth, decay, desolation, misery, death and suffering. People here know nothing about electric lights, radio, newspapers and the like. The houses they live in are just shanties with rotten straw roofs. Not even the farmers have enough to eat, all they have is a cow and perhaps a pig. There is lice and filth everywhere, they sit in their hovels and remove lice from each other. We look in vain for some sign of construction, for a trace of progress or a bit of culture. Only the Jews and party functionaries live well. It is worse than we imagined. One has to see it to realize how beautiful Germany is."

RELOCATION MIRACLE

As the German forces advanced eastwards the Russians started a unprecedented relocation of its war industries. In July, 1941, their vast manpower was employed to move its industrial cargoes to safer regions of the Soviet Union. A total of 1,523 complete factories were dismantled and moved further east. Soon, 667 plants were back in operation in the Urals, 226 in the Volga region, 322 in Siberia and 308 in Central Asia. On October 16, the Soviet government moved from Moscow to Kuibyshev, 525 miles to the east leaving Stalin, the only high official, remaining in the capitol.

LENINGRAD

The 900 day siege of Russia's second largest city cost the lives of around one and a half million civilians and soldiers. Food was so scarce that thousands were dying each day from hunger, disease and cold. With temperatures reaching minus 30˚C, around 53,000 people died in the month of November. On Christmas Day, 1941, an estimated 3,700 inhabitants died from starvation. Many just collapsed in the street, their bodies soon covered by snow and their whereabouts not known until the spring thaw. Cannibalism was resorted to on a number of occasions, the main victims being young boys and girls who were waylaid on the streets and murdered, in many cases by women, driven to desperation to get food for their hungry children. Stalin's suspicions of the party leadership in Leningrad increased when his orders to break out through the German lines were not implemented. After the war he had them all arrested, and taken to the secret police headquarters for interrogation. Tortured and forced to confess to treason they were all executed along with their families. The heroes of Stalingrad were now turned into enemies of the people. In January, 1944, the Russian winter offensive pushed the surrounding German troops fifty miles back from the city's perimeter, allowing railway links with Moscow to reopen and relief supplies to reach the now liberated city. Victory was celebrated by the hanging of a dozen captured German officers in the city centre who were accused of war crimes.

(Leningrad, which was never occupied by the Germans, has now reverted to its pre-war name, St Petersburg. It was here in St Petersburg that the German film 'The Downfall' was filmed)

'D-DOG' B-17 FLYING FORTRESS

The first B-17 'Flying Fortress' to be shot down in WW II was 525 D-Dog based at Kinloss, Scotland. Delivered to 90 Squadron of the RAF and flown by a British crew, D-Dog was shot down on September 8, 1941, by Lt. Alfred Jakobi's Bf-109 of 13/JG77 based at Stavanger-Sola near Oslo. The B-17, piloted by Canadian Flying Officer David Romans and his co-pilot Flying Officer F. G. Hart, plummeted to the ground in a near vertical dive and exploded just before hitting the mountainside at Bygland killing all seven crew members. The bodies were buried in the local Church Cemetery at Bygland by a Luftwaffe unit. In spite of its huge publicity the B-17 was no match for German fighters and drastic changes in armaments and other equipment were undertaken before the B-17 became the true backbone of USAAF units stationed in Britain. A total of 12,726 B17s were built at a cost of $276,000 each. Later, the B29 replaced the B17 at a cost of $639,000 each. The most famous B29 was named 'Bockscar' which dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. (Since Pearl Harbor (Dec.1, 1941) to the end of the war in the Pacific, the US had lost 22,948 aircraft in combat operations. This involved the loss of 19,265 lives)

LIBERTY SHIP

The first of the 2,751 Liberty ships built was the SS Patrick Henry, launched in 1941. President F. D. Roosevelt delivered a speech using 'Liberty' as the theme. He referred to Patrick Henry's famous quote "Give me liberty ... or give me death." Stating that these ships would bring liberty to Europe the name stuck, thence 'Liberty Ships'. Most of these ships were named after prominent (deceased) Americans. Eighteen were named after outstanding African-Americans. The only person to make an actual visit to a Liberty ship named in his honour was a Frances J. O'Gara, presumed killed in action but in fact was a prisoner of war.

P.O.W. ESCAPE ATTEMPT FROM BRITAIN

During the war, no German prisoner of war escaped from Britain. Many believe that Franz von Werra was the most notable escapee but von Werra made his escape in Canada, where he was sent as a POW. (In Canada there were twenty-one Prisoner-Of-War camps set up during WW11)

The most audacious attempt was made by Lt. Heinz Schnabel and Oblt. Harry Wappler on November 24, 1941. The two Luftwaffe officers were prisoners in Camp No.15 near Penrith, Northumbria (formally the Shap Wells Hotel). Forging papers that identified them as two Dutch officers serving in the RAF, they made their way to the RAF airfield at Kingstown near Carlisle. Without difficulty they entered the station and with the help of a ground mechanic started the engine of a Miles Magister, of which there were fifty parked around the airfield. Taking off, they headed for the sea and Holland, a distance of some 365 miles. Over the North Sea they realized they could not make it (the maximum range of a Magister was 367 miles on full tanks). Rather reluctantly they decided to turn back and landed in a field about five miles north of Great Yarmouth. Back at Camp No. 15 again, the two daring escapees were sentenced to 28 days solitary confinement.

P.W.E. (Political Warfare Executive)

Concerned with the 'black' propaganda broadcasts to Germany and enemy occupied Europe. All who tuned into the wavelength believed that the station was operating inside Germany. The personalities mostly concerned with the P.W.E were, Sefton Delmer, Richard Crossman, Ian Fleming, Robert Bruce-Lockhart and David Bowes-Lyon. The headquarters of P.W.E. was at Woburn Abbey, the home of the Duke of Bedford. In 1941 the station employed a staff of 213 people.

KILLED ON WAY TO FUNERAL

On November 21, 1941, one of Germany's leading air aces, Oberst Werner Moelders, 1913-1941, was killed when the plane, an HE-111 bomber in which he was a passenger, hit a factory chimney in fog and rain near Breslau. He was on his way to the state funeral of General Ernst Udet (1896-1941) Chief Air Inspector General of the Luftwaffe who committed suicide on November 17, 1941. Moelders, who had achieved 115 kills, 68 of which were achieved in the western theatre, was replaced by the fighter ace Adolf Galland (103 kills) who retained the post until January, 1945. (Werner Moelder's grave lies next to Ernst Udet's in the Invaliden Friedhof in Berlin)

BRITISH ULTIMATUM

Following the British ultimatum to end their conflict with Russia, the Governments of Britain, Canada, New Zealand and India declared war on Finland, Hungary and Rumania (December 6, 1941). In Britain, 150 Finnish nationals are arrested and in the US, 6 Finnish ships are seized in US ports and placed under protected custody.

FIRST AMERICAN NAVAL CASUALTY

The first US naval casualty of the war was the US destroyer Kearney, torpedoed and damaged off Iceland while on convoy escort duty. Eleven men were killed. The first US Navy loss was the destroyer Reuben James torpedoed and sunk off Iceland while escorting a British convoy from Halifax (October 31, 1941) 115 men were lost.

HUNTING REQUEST

After Pearl Harbor, the Department of Conservation in Nashville, Tennessee, handed in a request for six million licenses to hunt Japs at a fee of $2 each. Back came a note "Open season on Japs - no license required."

DECLARATION OF WAR

On December 11, 1941, the US Senate declared war on Germany and Italy. With only one short speech, the Senate voted 88-to-0 for war against Germany, 90-to-0 for war with Italy. There was one abstention, Republican Pacifist Jeannette Rankin called out 'Present' - a refusal to vote. The House of Representatives voted war with Germany, 393-to-0. After the vote was taken the chamber was filled with the noise of stamping feet from the galleries as the public stomped out. It seems that the war with Italy vote (399-to-0) wasn't worth waiting around for.

AMERICAN SERVICEMEN IN AUSTRALIA

The first US troops arrived in Australia at Brisbane, Queensland, on Christmas Eve, 1941. Almost one million American servicemen passed through Australia during the war. About 7,000 Australian women married their American boy friends and travelled to the USA as war brides.

1941 BRITISH CASUALTIES

In the first five months of 1941, British civilian casualties from German bombing raids amounted to 18,007 killed and 20,744 injured. April and May, 1941, saw the heaviest death toll with 11,459 killed and 12,107 injured. In the next seven months, till the end of December, 1941, 1,637 deaths were reported and 1,829 injured.

AMERICAN SERVICEMEN IN BRITAIN

In Britain, the Yanks were said to be "overpaid, oversexed, overfed and over here." The Americans countered this by saying the Brits were "underpaid, undersexed, underfed and under Eisenhower."




All text researched and compiled by George Duncan. Website by Columbus.

LESSER KNOWN FACTS ABOUT WORLD WAR ll 1942

* Dedicated to all those who took part in World War II *
Lesser-Known Facts of World War II - page 3 of 6.

This 6 page series provides some of these facts and stories:


1942
DOUBLE AGENTS

In January, 1942, Britain had a total of 19 German spies working as double agents. These had been 'turned' under threat of execution and agreed to work against their homeland. Others, who were of the more fanatical type, were hanged at Wandsworth Prison. Among the 19 were two Norwegians, John Helge and Tor Glad who were put ashore at Crovie, near Banff in the north of Scotland in April, 1941. Codenamed Mutt and Jeff, they had no intention no spying for Germany where they were trained. Soon after landing they gave themselves up to the Scottish police. Jeff, who failed to convince the authorities that he was genuine, was interred on the Isle of Man. Mutt was put to work as a double agent, feeding the Germans false information and ended up in a British army unit attached to an American regiment disarming German troops still in Norway. Jeff (Tor Glad) when he returned to Norway was put on trial as a German spy but after a discreet word from London's MI5 he was set free.

MASTER SPIES

CICERO. The code name for the spy Elyese Bazna, a Turkish subject and valet employed in the British Embassy in Ankara, Turkey. While working there he used a duplicate key to open the Ambassador's black dispatch box and photographed all the documents he found there to pass on to the Germans. These included minutes of the Teheran and Cairo Conferences and plans for the D-day invasion. In all, he was paid 300,000 British pounds for all the information he delivered. After the war, he was traced to South America where he tried to use this money to build a hotel. He discovered the notes to be counterfeit. He later wrote his memoirs which earned him quite a large sum but he died in poverty.

RICHARD SORGE. A German national born in Baku, Russia, and educated in Berlin where he became a communist spy and a Nazi party member. He posed as the German Foreign Correspondent of the newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung and established contact with the German Embassy in Tokyo from where he obtained details of Nazi intentions against the Soviet Union. These he passed on to the Soviet KGB. The information he passed on that Japan would not attack the Soviet Union resulted in Stalin withdrawing his Siberian divisions to the defense of Moscow. He also warned Stalin of Barbarossa, the German attack on Russia. Arrested later by the Japanese police, he was reported executed in Tokyo on October 9, 1944, in Sugamo Prison. In 1964, Sorge was posthumously awarded the title 'Hero of the Soviet Union'. He is buried in the Reien Cemetery in Fuchu City, Tokyo.

REINHARD GEHLEN. German Army general and commander of an intelligence unit which in 1945 surrendered to the US Forces, complete with men and intelligence files on the Soviet Union. He then worked for the Americans on espionage operations against the Soviets. Known as the 'Gehlen Organization' it had its headquarters at Pullach near Munich. Through this organization the Allies were able to hunt down many upper echelon Nazis in hiding. Gehlen retired in 1968 and his memoirs 'Der Dienst' (The Service) was published in 1971. His spy network was then renamed the 'German Federal Intelligence Service'.

LEOPOLD TREPPER. Jewish, of polish nationality, Trepper was the leader of the Red Orchestra spy network, a Soviet organization operating in Belgium and France. It was the KGBs principle source of information from occupied Europe. After his arrest in Paris by the Gestapo, he agreed to play a double game but given the freedom he was allowed, he escaped in June 1943 and went into hiding for the rest of the war. His own family, 48 members in all, were arrested and exterminated. Trepper survived the war and returned to Moscow where he faced court and had to serve ten years in a Soviet prison. On his return to Warsaw he started life again as a publisher of Jewish and classical literature. In 1974 he went to live in Jerusalem and there he published his autobiography 'The Great Game'. In 1982, he died in Israel at the age of 77.

ALEXANDER RADO. A Hungarian and also a Colonel of the Red Army. He set up a spy network in Switzerland known as 'The Lucy Ring', the most successful spy organization in World War 11 supplying the Soviets with advance information of German intentions in the east. In January, 1945, Rado was ordered to report to Moscow. Knowing that he had embezzled something like 50,000 dollars, which was sent to him to run his network, he disappeared when the plane taking him to Moscow made a stop in Cairo. Eventually the KGB caught up with him and he spent the next twelve years in a Siberian work camp. On his release, he took a job as Professor of Geography at the University of Budapest in 1966.

ALEXANDER FOOTE. An Englishman recruited by the British communist party in 1938. In 1940, he was ordered to go to Geneva as radio operator for Alexander Rado. Until the end of 1944 he had coded and transmitted thousands of messages to Moscow. In December 1944, he reported to the Russian Embassy in Paris with a briefcase full of secret information. Ordered to report to the 'centre' in Moscow, he arrived alone (Rado having left the plane in Cairo) to a warm welcome. In 1947, he began to loose his illusions about Russia and when posted to Berlin he presented himself to the authorities in the British sector. As at 1967, Foote was working for the British Government.

RUDOLF ROESSLER. A German, dedicated to the overthrow of Hitler. As an exile in Switzerland he maintained contact wit many of his friends from WW1 who had joined the German army and had attained high positions. All were opposed to Hitler and decided that all details of Hitler's conferences would be forwarded on to their friend Roessler. In 1941, Roessler became a Soviet Agent and joined up with Rado and the Lucy Ring. All through 1940 an avalanche of details poured from the OKW headquarters at Zossen and transmitted by Foote to Moscow. The successes of the Red Army on the Eastern Front were due mainly to 'Lucy'. Roessler died in 1958 without revealing his sources in the German High Command. He lies buried in the Swiss cemetery at Kreiens, outside Lucerne.

FRITZ KOLBE. An official in Hitler's Foreign Ministry, he copied and supplied around 2,600 secret documents to Allen Dulles, head of the American OSS (Office of Strategic Services) in Switzerland. When he heard of the Nazi Euthanasia Program he decided to rally his friends and fight against the regime. In some of the documents he smuggled out of Von Ribbentrop's office were crucial facts concerning the V-1 and V-2 rockets and where the Germans expected the Allies to land in Normandy. It was Kolbe who exposed the spy 'Cicero' in the British Embassy in Turkey. 'The risks he took were incalculable' wrote Allen Dulles after the war. Treated like a leper in post-war Germany the present Government has honoured him by naming a conference room in the new Foreign Ministry after him. MI-6 singled him out as 'the prize intelligence source of the war'. Fritz Kolbe died in Switzerland in 1971.

THE WANNSEE CONFERENCE

At the request of Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Nazi Reich Main Security Office, heads of fifteen various organizations assembled in a villa on the shores of the Wannsee Lake in Berlin on Tuesday, January 20, 1942. Here they planned history's most hideous crime, the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question' (Die Endlösung) in other words, the ways and means to kill off all the Jews of Europe, estimated to be around six million. In the event, the Nazis succeeded in disposing of millions Jews in the concentration camps of Europe. The villa, at 56-58 Am Grossen Wannsee, was built in 1914 and in January, 1992, the 50th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, the Villa was opened to the public as a memorial and education centre.

The villa at 56-58 Am Grossen Wannsee. The Conference was held in the downstairs dining room on the left.
THE EVACUATION OF ZAMOSC

In November, 1942, during one of the coldest winters of the war, a total of 110,000 Polish residents were expelled from the area of Zamosc, near Lublin, their destination being forced labour in Germany. These included 30,000 children, 5,000 of whom were considered suitable for Germanization and were taken care of by the Brown Sisters of the Lebensborn organization. Thousands more died of cold and hunger in the overcrowded trucks and trains taking them to Germany. The area around Zamosc was decided by Himmler to be the first large area of German settlement in Poland. It was hoped that within ten years about three million Germans would be settled in the territory administrated exclusively by the SS.

MARKED FOR EXTERMINATION

On a list of countries drawn up by Adolf Eichmann and presented to the Wannsee Conference, England is mentioned with its 330,000 Jews and political figures, all marked for deportation to the Nazi extermination camps in Poland after the proposed German takeover of the British Isles. On top of the list is the name, Winston Churchill.

OPERATION 'PLUTO'

In May, 1942, the first prototype of Pluto (Pipe Line Under The Ocean) was tested across the River Medway and a month later across the Firth Of Clyde in Scotland. The first of these 75 mm diameter pipes was laid to France on August 12, 1944, under the English Channel via the Isle of Wight to Cherbourg, France, a distance of 130 kilometres. In England, fuel for these pipes was pumped through a 1,600 kilometre network of pipelines from the ports of Liverpool and Bristol. Operation 'Pluto' was considered one of the greatest engineering feats in the history of war. As the Allied Armies advanced into Germany, 17 other pipelines were laid from Dungeness to the Pas-de-Calais and eventually reached as far as the River Rhine. In January, 1945, 300 tons of gasoline were pumped to France and in March this had reached 3,000 tons. By the end of the war a total of over 781 million litres had been supplied to the war machines of the Allied armies of liberation.

ICEBERG CARRIER

One of the most fantastic ideas to come out of WW11 was to build a super iceberg aircraft carrier. Gaining the support of Churchill and Mountbatten, British inventor, Geoffrey Pike, set out to build a prototype on Patricia Lake near Jasper in Canada, where it could be naturally frozen. The steel hull structure was filled with a compound of paper pulp and sea water which was frozen to produce a substance called 'Pykecrete' after the inventor. Pykecrete was almost as strong as concrete. The actual carrier, to be named HMS Habakkuk (after the Old Testament prophet) when built, could be up to 4,000 feet long, 600 feet wide, 130 feet high with ice walls 40 feet thick constructed from 280,000 blocks of ice and weigh anything up to one million tons. Pipes, circulating cold air from a refrigeratation plant inside the berg, would keep the ice from melting. It would be driven by 26 electric drive motors giving it a speed of around 6 knots. By 1943, technical problems meant that the vessel would not be ready until 1945 which was too late to be of any use in the Battle of the Atlantic where convoys were sailing part way to Britain without air cover. The model on Patricia Lake was eventually scuttled after the ice took almost a year to melt. A commemorative plaque was placed on the lake's shore in 1989. Sadly, the inventor Geoffrey Pyke, committed suicide in 1948 with an overdose of sleeping tablets.

ASPIDISTRA

The codename given to the powerful 500 KW transmitter which was purchased from America for use in broadcasting propaganda on the German controlled wave-lengths. It cost Britain £111,801, 4 shillings and 10 pence to buy the apparatus from the RCA factory in Camden, New Jersey. Another sum of £16,000 was spent to prepare the site and erect the masts near Crowborough in Essex. The transmitter first became operational on November 8, 1942.

THAT WAS NOT THE ENEMY!

During the period 1939 to 1942, twenty Blenheim fighter-bombers were shot down through mis-identification by RAF pilots and anti-aircraft fire (Seven were shot down by Hurricanes). This resulted in the deaths of thirty-two aircrew with seven others injured. Nineteen other aircraft were damaged by being fired upon by mistake.

CAVALRY CHARGE

The last Cavalry charge in history took place on August 23, 1942, at Izbushensky on the River Don. The Italian Savoia Cavalry Regiment, commanded by Colonel Bettoni, and consisting of 600 mounted Italian troops, charged against 2,000 Soviet troops who had opened a breach between the German 6th Army and the Italian Army. The Italian Lancers destroyed two Soviet Infantry armoured vehicles before being forced to withdraw with slight losses, about thirty-two casualties.

GOOD IDEA?

An attempt by the Americans to cause a volcano to re-erupt ended in failure. In 1942, the Tavorvur Volcano on Matupi Island, Rabaul, erupted and caused great concern for the Japanese occupation troops. To cause greater concern, the Americans purchased from the British Government two 'earthquake' bombs of the type invented by Barnes Wallis for the Ruhr Dams raid. The two bombs, together with a number of 2000 pounders, were dropped on the gaping mouth of the still smoking volcano. Both bombs missed the target and buried themselves in the sand near the end of the runway on the nearby Lukunai airstrip. In 1970, the two bombs were discovered unexploded. The Australian Navy was informed and the bombs were detonated.

LIQUIDATED

Heinrich Himmler, Chief of the SS, had his nephew, SS 1st Lieutenant Hans Himmler, demoted and sentenced to death for revealing SS secrets while drunk. The sentence was commuted and he was sent to the front as a parachutist. He was again charged with making derogatory remarks about the regime and sent to the Dachau concentration camp near Munich where he was finally 'liquidated' as a homosexual.

CHANNEL DASH (February 11-13, 1942)

A great embarrassment for the British Government was the dash through the English Channel in broad daylight by the three German warships 'Scharnhorst' 'Gneisenau' and 'Prinz Eugen'. As the convoy sailed from the port of Brest towards Boulogne (Operation 'Cerberus') they were attacked by six Swordfish torpedo bombers of the Fleet Air Arm 825 Squadron commanded by Lt. Cdr. Eugene Esmonde. No hits were made, all the six Swordfish planes being shot down. Of the 18 men of the Swordfish squadron, only five survived. Lt. Cdr. Esmonde was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. Of the 242 RAF planes dispatched to attack the convoy only 39 were known to have to have dropped their bombs on the ships but not one found its target. An attack by destroyers from Harwich was also unsuccessful. The Scharnhorst (Vice Admiral Ciliax) was damaged by two mines during the operation and Gneisenau hit a mine in the attempt to reach Germany, but early on the 13th Scharnhorst docked safely at her home base at Wilhelmshaven. Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen reached Brunsbüttel with Gneisenau continuing through the Kiel Canal to dry dock at Kiel. (The Prinz Eugen survived the war and was used in the Atom Bomb trials in the Pacific)

RENAULT TRAGEDY (March 3, 1942)

Royal Air Force bombers attacked the Renault car factory in Paris which was manufacturing engines for the German Panzer tanks. Poor bomb aiming caused many of the bombs to land on the workers homes nearby. A total 367 French workers died in this tragedy and around 1,500 were wounded.

DESERTERS?

On March 3, 1942, the FBI was ordered to round up about 8,000 foreign seamen who had deserted their ships while in US ports. They included around 3,000 Norwegians and 3,000 Greeks. The rest were Swedes, Dutch, Danes and British. They were asked to return to their ships or face deportation or internment.

SORRY NO REQUESTS

American disc jockeys were banned from playing listeners requests in 1942. The War Department explained that enemy agents might use the format as codes to pass military information on to their superiors.

OPERATION 'CHARIOT'

Code name for the British commando raid on the French port of Saint Nazaire on March 28, 1942. The 356 metre long Normandy Dry Dock and surrounding installations was the target for the 257 Army Commandos and 345 Royal Navy men who took part. The plan was to blow up the lock gates by ramming a ship, packed with explosives, straight into the gates themselves. The ship chosen for this task was an old lend-lease 1919-built American destroyer, USS Buchanan, renamed HMS Campbeltown. Internally she was stripped of all unnecessary equipment to accommodate four and a half tons of explosives made up of 24 depth-charges timed to explode at a certain time.

At 1.30am, and racing full speed ahead, the Campbeltown ploughed through the anti-torpedo nets and crashed into the lock gates with such force that her bows were peeled back some forty feet. Firmly wedged on the gate, her bows projecting over the top, crew and commandos made a hasty departure to wreck havoc on electrical and pumping installations around the dock. As daylight broke, scores of enemy officers and men swarmed all over the ship but failed to find the explosives. At 10.35am a terrific explosion rocked the dockside as the Campbeltown exploded, ripping the ship and the lock gates apart and killing most of the German officers and men on deck. The Normandy Dock was not brought back into operation until 1948. Of the 611 Commandos who went into action, 169 lost their lives. Some 200 were captured and made prisoner, five escaped and made it safely back to England through Spain. Five men were awarded the Victoria Cross, one posthumously, for outstanding heroism during Operation Chariot.

TRAGEDY AT IMBER

The area around Imber on the Salisbury Plain in England, comprising of around 91,000 acres, is the traditional training ground for the British Army. On April 13, 1942, during a demonstration of fire-power from a squadron of Hurricanes, the pilot of the 6th plane to make the attack inadvertently fired into the crowd of invited military spectators. He had mistaken the spectators for the rows of dummy soldiers placed on the ground as if in marching order.

The demonstration was immediately cancelled and all aircraft ordered to return to base. Fifteen minutes later some thirty military and civilian ambulances arrived to convey the dead and injured to hospitals. Twenty five officers and men were killed and seventy one injured. The Hurricane pilot, just approaching his 21st birthday, was found guilty of an error of judgement by the Court of Inquiry. (On June 28, 1942, seventy-six days after the tragic incident, he was shot down and reported missing in a sortie over Cherbourg).

THE BRAVEST

A total of 64 American nurses were captured when Bataan and Corrigidor fell to the Japanese on May 7, 1942. None took part in the Bataan Death March but were sent to the big civilian internment camp at Santo Tomas University on Rizal Avenue and the Los Banos internment camp in Manila. In the camps, 3,768 American and Allied male and female civilians, including survivors of US merchant ships, were interned during the war. Around 390 of these prisoners died from starvation and disease.

They were liberated on February 3, 1945, by elements of the US 44th Tank Battalion whose lead tank crashed through the locked gates of the compound and accepted the surrender of the camp from the Commandant, Colonel Hayashi. The Los Banos Internment Camp, containing 2,147 prisoners, was liberated on February 23, 1945, by troops of the US 11th Airborne Division supported by Filipino guerrillas. All the nurses survived the war. Altogether eighty-three US Army and Navy nurses became prisoners of war while serving in the Pacific area. Throughout World War II over 59,000 American nurses, including 479 black nurses, served in all theatres. A total of 201 nurses died, sixteen died as a direct result of enemy fire.

1,000 BOMBER RAIDS

On the night of May 30/31, 1942, the Royal Air Force launched its first 1,000 bomber raid of the war. The original target was to be Hamburg but bad weather over Germany caused a cancellation. Three days later the cathedral city of Cologne was attacked by a force of 1,046 bombers that took off from 52 airfields in England (Operation Millennium) A total of 1,455 tons of bombs was dropped by the 898 planes which actually attacked the city. Two-thirds of this tonnage being incendiaries. Forty-one British planes were lost and twelve badly damaged, never to fly again. Amazingly only two collision took place resulting in the loss of four bombers. In the blazing city 486 people had died and 5,027 injured, 18,432 buildings of all kinds were destroyed or badly damaged resulting in 59,100 citizens being made homeless. Next day, RAF Mosquito fighter/bombers flew over the still burning city on their first operational mission to photograph the damage. Around 300 acres of the city's centre had been destroyed in this, the 105th air raid on Germany's fourth largest city.

The second 1,000 bomber raid was conducted against the city of Essen in the Ruhr on June 1-2, 1942. This was not as successful as the raid on Cologne. It was on Essen that the first 8,000 pound 'Blockbuster' bomb was dropped from a Hanley Page Halifax bomber of 76 Squadron. (A total of 6,176 Halifax bombers were built during the war) The third 1,000 bomber raid was against the city of Bremen on June 12, 1942. There were no more 1,000 bomber raids after Bremen, the aircraft were urgently needed to fight the U-boat war in the Atlantic.

DRESS SENSE

The bombing of German cities had a curious effect on how people dressed. Afraid that their best clothes could be lost or burned, German women preferred to wear them on all occasions. In the air-raid shelters, particularly in the Ruhr, it seemed that every women owned a fur coat!.

LONG ROAD

The Royal Air Force and the United States 8th Air Force, used around 180 airfields scattered all over Britain. These airfields had over 4,000 miles of run-ways and taxi-ways. There was a saying at the time that a pilot could 'fly' from Lands End in south-west England to John O' Groats in the north-east of Scotland, without getting off the ground!.

DECLARATION

On June 5, 1942, the United States declared war on Bulgaria, Hungary and Rumania. In December, 1941, these three nations had declared war on the US. President Roosevelt said ''I realize that the three governments took this action (to collaborate with Nazi Germany) not upon their own initiiative or in response to the wishes of their own people but as instruments of Hitler''.

OPERATION PASTORIOUS

Between June 12 and 16, 1942, eight German secret agents were landed on the US east coast. Four were sent ashore from the German submarine U-202 near Amagansert on Long Island. Another four were landed at Ponte Vedra Beach near Jacksonville on Florida's Atlantic coast from the U-boat U-584. Their mission, to destroy a cryolite factory in Philadelphia. All had arranged to meet on July 4th in Cincinnati. A number of these agents were German-Americans trained by the Abwehr at their sabotage training school near Berlin. However, one of the team, a greedy unscrupulous ex-waiter named George John Dasch, and his team-mate Ernest Peter Burger, betrayed the whole operation to the FBI. Dasch carried on his person the sum of $160,000 which was to be used for expenses during their stay in the US. He was determined that the cash would stay in his own pocket. Soon after contacting the FBI, all eight agents were arrested.

At their secret military trial, Dasch and Burger received lengthy jail sentences but the money was taken off Dasch and deposited in the US Treasury Department vaults. The other six agents met their date with destiny in the 18 year old electric chair in a room on the fourth floor of Washington's District Jail. In 1948, after serving six years of their sentence, Dasch and Burger were deported back to Germany.

UNDERWATER GIANTS

In 1942, Japan commenced building the world's biggest submarines. The 400 foot long I-400 series had a displacement of 3,530 tons and were intended to destroy the Pacific exit of the Panama Canal. They could cruise 37,500 miles and dive to a depth of 325 feet. Each of the I-400s could carry three specially designed seaplane bombers which were dismantled and stored in a watertight hanger inside the submarine. Only three were completed before the end of the Pacific war and survived the massive American bombing of Japan's naval bases. All three were captured and destroyed by the Americans in April, 1946.

CAPTURED

On July 12, 1942, one of Stalin's favourite generals, General Andrey Vlasov, was captured by the Germans. He was decorated with the 'Order of the Soviet Union' for his defence of Moscow. In the P.O.W. camps, while a prisoner of war, Vlasov, seeing a great future for himself only in the event of a German victory, began to raise an army of volunteers from other Russian prisoners who were willing to fight alongside the Germans against Stalin. It was called 'The Russian Army of Liberation'. Many of these volunteers were forced by the Germans to join, it was either a case of join the Vlasov army or starve to death. Many of Vlasov's troops, while fighting in Czechoslovakia, deserted their German masters and joined up with the Czech Resistance movement.After the war, General Vlasov was returned to the USSR where he was tried for treason, sentenced to death, and hanged.

AUSSIE VICTORY AT MILNE BAY

The first Australian victory over the seemingly invincible Japanese Army. The Battle of Milne Bay (August 25 to September 6, 1942) on the eastern tip of New Guinea, was one of the great turning points of the Pacific war. Australian troops of the 2/12 Division, some just back from the fighting in the Middle East, fought an eleven day battle in jungle rain and mud, against an enemy force and for the first time in the Pacific war, beat them. The Japanese pulled out of Milne Bay on the 5th of September. Soon after the Japanese landings the Australian troops discovered, at a place called the KB Mission, several bodies of their comrades, who had been taken prisoner by the Japanese, tied to trees and stabbed full of holes. They had been used for bayonet practice.

After this brutal discovery, no more prisoners were taken by the Australians during the battle. In the fierce hand to hand fighting for the airstrips, where bayonets were used as much as guns, Japanese soldiers had the habit of lying amongst the dead corpses and then rising up to shoot the Aussie soldiers as they passed. Soon both sides were bayoneting every dead body they came across just to make sure they were indeed dead. At Milne Bay the cost in Australian lives was high, 161 men were killed. Some 750 Japanese perished. No Australian prisoner lived to tell the tale, all were executed.

WOMAN FIGHTER PILOT

Olga Yamschchikova of the Red Air Force, became the first woman night fighter pilot to score a kill. On September 24, 1942, she shot down a JU-88 bomber over Stalingrad. Olga was a member of the 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment, an all women unit which during the war flew 4,419 combat missions and shot down 38 enemy aircraft. Nearly a million Soviet women served in the armed forces during the war. Most were volunteers and were replacements for the great number of losses of Soviet soldiers. Only a small portion however were directly involved in actual combat.

OPERATION JUBILEE

Code name for the seaborne assault on the town and port of Dieppe on the French coast on August 19, 1942. The plan was to test the German defences, destroy certain military targets and to occupy the town and surrounding area for one day and then re-embark and return to England. The troops chosen for this action were around 5,000 Canadians from the Canadian 2nd Division who were becoming bored and wanted to see some real action. Some hundreds of British and fifty American commandos were to accompany them and land on eight different points on the enemy held coast.

Landing on the shingle covered Puys beach at daylight, with no smoke cover, men of the Royal Regiment of Canada were cut to pieces by machine gun fire from pillboxes manned by the German defenders. Out of 27 officers and 516 men, only 3 officers and 57 men survived to get back to England. Twenty-eight Churchill tanks, intended to support the infantry, were all lost in the sea or bogged down on the shingle beach. By 9am, realising that the assault was a failure, the Army Commanders decided that the only alternative was to withdraw. By the afternoon, after nine long terrible hours, the survivors were on their way home leaving behind 215 officers and 3,164 men, some 2,000 being taken prisoner and including 570 wounded. The Commandos lost 24 officers and 223 other ranks. The Royal Air force lost 106 aircraft and the German Luftwaffe, 48 planes. The lessons learned at Dieppe were put to good use during the coming Allied invasion of North Africa in November and later at Salerno. (On September 1, 1944, the 2nd Canadian Division returned to Dieppe to take over the town after the Germans had given up without a fight. Survivors of the 1942 raid staged a victory march-past over the ground they had once fought for. The wheel had turned full circle).

PETROL SPILL

On December 5, 1942, three naval trawlers, commissioned as anti-submarine warfare vessels, HMS Canna, HMS Bengali and HMS Spaniard were berthed in the harbour at Lagos when a petrol spill caught fire engulfing the three ships. One by one they exploded and in the process killed around 200 people. Fishing trawlers were used extensively during the war on escort duties and mine sweeping.

ULTRA

Code name for the Bletchley Park operation in which coded messages from the German secret military cipher machine Enigma were decoded and read. (Codes were first read by the Polish cryptologists Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki and Henryk Zygalski as early as 1933) The military version was adopted by the German Army in 1929 and by the Luftwaffe in 1934. Any reference to Ultra in the press was officially banned during the war and after. It was not until 1974 that much of the Ultra material was declassified. In 1945, high ranking military officers in Britain were sworn never to reveal that the code had been broken because it would give the Germans the chance to say they 'were not well and fairly beaten, no possible excuse must be given to explain away their complete defeat by force of arms'. About 80% of the staff at Bletchley Park were female, mostly Wrens and Waafs. The breaking of the Enigma code was undoubtly the greatest intelligence coup of the entire war, thanks to the Polish cryptologists. (Henryk Zygalski died of a stroke in Plymouth in 1970)

Would our great commanders in the field have been so successful without the influence of Ultra? It is not generally accepted that at the same time the Germans were reading the British naval code and had been doing so since 1936! Up till late 1942, neither side knew that their naval codes were being read. When it finally dawned on them, new ciphers were introduced. A veil of secrecy still hangs over Ultra. Until the official records in the Public Records Office are opened the many hidden secrets of the Enigma story must remain just that ... an enigma!

1942 AIR RAID CASUALTIES

For the first five months of 1942, air raid casualties in Britain were 1,526 killed and 1,572 injured. The next seven months till the end of December the casualties were 1,754 killed and 2,531 injured.




All text researched and compiled by George Duncan. Website by Columbus.

LESSER KNOWM FACTS OF WORLD WAR ll 1943

* Dedicated to all those who took part in World War II *
Lesser-Known Facts of World War II - page 4 of 6.

This 6 page series provides some of these facts and stories:



1943
FORBIDDEN

On January 20, 1943, a young Polish farm worker from Ebersbach, near Wurttemberg, Germany, was hanged because of sexual relations he had with the farmer's daughter. All slave workers from five kilometres around, were rounded up and brought in to witness the penalty for such a crime. About the same time, ten German women in Augsburg were jailed for terms of four to ten months for having sexual relations with French prisoners of war. In Duisburg, a twenty-two year old woman was sent to a concentration camp for the same crime; her twenty-six year old Polish friend was sent to the camp at Neuengamme and hanged on June 18, 1942. Between May and August, 1942, the Gestapo dealt with 4,960 cases of forbidden relations between Germans and foreign slave workers.

DEPORTATION

On January 21, 1943, a train carrying 1,000 Jewish adults from a mental institution in Apeldoorn, departed Holland for the east. Also on the train were 74 boys and 24 girls from a nearby home for the physically handicapped. Fifty Jewish nurses accompanied the transport under a promise they would be returning to Holland after the delivery of their patients. The promise was never kept. Every single one on the train met their death at Auschwitz.

CAMP VUGHT

There were four major concentration camps set up in Holland during the Nazi occupation. The camps at Westerbrork and Vught were used mainly as transit centres for Jews being sent East to the extermination centres in Poland. Amersfoort and Ommen were penal camps for Jews and Dutch political prisoners and hostages. All prisoners experienced extreme violence during their incarceration in these camps. At the lesser known Camp Vught, also known as Concentration Camp s'Hertogenbosch, received its first prisoners on January 13, 1943. Half a mile outside the camp, located amongst trees, was the shooting range where on during September 4 and 5 a total of 117 prisoners were executed by firing squad. One notorious train transport left Vught on June 5, 1943. On board were 1,266 children, whose parents were sent east some days before, all met their deaths at the extermination at Sobibor camp in Poland. As the Allied armies approached the town of Vught the camp was hastily evacuated. The remaining male prisoners were put on a train for Sachsenhausen, the female prisoners, 600 in number, were sent by train to Ravensbrück. The SS guards then fled north leaving the camp to be liberated by the British on the evening of October 26, 1944. At Westerbork, around 12,000 Jews, including 2,000 children, were transported to the death camps in Poland. On April 18, 1990, a museum was opened as the National Monument Camp Vught on the exact location where the camp once stood.

(During its short duration from January, 1943, to September, 1944, a total of 749 men, women and children died from various causes in Camp Vught.

NO ESCAPE

Between 1942 and 1944, a total of 25,257 Jews were shipped out of Belgium on twenty eight train convoys. Among them were 5,430 children under the age of sixteen, the youngest only thirty-nine days old. At the end of the war only 1,207 were still alive when the concentration camps in Poland were liberated. A further 5,034 Jews managed to escape across the border to seek refuge in France. They had fled to France to escape Nazi persecution in their own countries. Unfortunately these were rounded up after the fall of France in 1940 and deported, via Drancy, to Auschwitz. They were the first Jews to arrive there. Of these, only 317 survived. (The site of the Auschwitz concentration camp was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979)

PROTECTION OF JEWS

Five countries, including Hungary, initially resisted German demands to deport their Jews. In Finland, only eight Jews were deported before a public outcry resulted in the Finnish Cabinet stopping all further deportations. In Denmark, King Christian X urged all Danes to help save their Jews. Before the deportations were carried out, Danish fishing vessels ferried 7,906 endangered Jews to the safety of neutral Sweden. Sadly around 80 of these Jews were caught sheltering in the church in the fishing village of Gilleleje and were transported to concentration camps. Some 686 of these Danish citizens were Christians married to Jews.

In Italy, no Jews were deported while Mussolini ruled the country but after the armistice, when Germany occupied the country in 1943, the round-up and deportation of Jews commenced. At 5.30 am on October 16, 1943, a forty-four man SS unit under the command of SS Captain Theodor Dannecker, rounded up 1,259 Jews in Rome. Many of these were baptized Christians and following a protest from Pope Pius X11 some 218 were released. The other 1,041 were put on a train to Auschwitz and at war's end only fifteen survived to return home to the Holy City. Others, around 4,238, were in hiding in hundreds of monasteries, convents, private homes and church institutions in and around Rome. To protect other Jews from the same fate the Vatican opened its doors and gave shelter to 477 men, women and children. In the whole of Italy some 32,000 Italian Jews and about 12,500 foreign Jews lived in fear of their lives. Before the Italian surrender a total of 8,369 of these had been arrested and deported. Only 979 survived the death camps. The majority of Jews who survived in Italy were saved by the Italian people themselves who risked their own lives in helping them hide or flee across the border into Switzerland.

In Bulgaria, an agreement between the Bulgarian Commission for Jewish Affairs and the Reich Security Office had already been signed for the deportation of 48,565 Bulgarian Jews. Thousands had already been interned in March, 1943. The Bulgarian people and the church leaders raised such a protest against the deportations that the interned Jews were released and the deportation order rescinded. When the war ended, the Jewish population of Bulgaria was larger than it had been before the war.

RESISTANCE

Jews were active in all national resistance groups formed in countries overrun by the German Military. Many thousands of Soviet Jews joined the Soviet partisan movement and 113 received Russia's highest award for bravery, 'Hero of the Soviet Union'. In Yugoslavia, 1,318 Jewish partisan fighters were killed in action. One partisan member, Dr Rosa Papo, became the first woman general in the Yugoslav army after the war. In France, over 1,000 Jews were executed for their part in the French resistance.
STALINGRAD (February 2, 1943)

After a 199 day siege the German Sixth Army, under the command of Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus, surrenders to the Soviet Union's superior forces.

147,200 German and Romanian soldiers were killed.
91,000 were taken prisoner including 24 Generals and 2,500 other officers.
About 5,000 of these prisoners survived the war.
14,000 sick and wounded were evacuated by air.
1,000 crewmen and 488 transport planes were lost in the supply and evacuation effort.
After the surrender, Germany began a three day period of mourning and Paulus became a member of the Free Committee for a Free Germany, a puppet organization of Soviet Russia, He settled in the former Soviet controlled East Germany after his release from a Soviet prison camp in 1953. He died on February 1, 1957, in Dresden

(The grave of Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus (1890-1957) the first German Field Marshal in history to surrender, is located in the local cemetery at Baden Baden)

PROTEST IN BERLIN

For one whole week starting on February 27, 1943, German women in Berlin staged the only public protest against the deportation of its Jews. This was something unheard of in Hitler's Germany. During the 'final roundup' of Berlin's Jews, around 10,000 were arrested and within days transported east to the death camps in Poland. Among those arrested were about 1,700 male Jews who were married to non-Jewish German women. They were separated from the others and incarcerated in the Jewish Community Centre at 2-4 Rosenstrasse in the Berlin suburb of Mitte. When the wives of these Jews realized what was happening they gathered in force in front of the Centre shouting 'Give us back our husbands'. Each day the crowd grew larger and even in the face of SS thugs armed with machine-guns they refused to give up.

Exasperated at the turn of events, Joseph Geobbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, realized he was facing a public relations nightmare and ordered the release of all intermarried Jews in the Centre. These unsung heroes, German women married to Jews, won an astonishing victory over the deportation of their Jewish husbands. Almost all of the released Rosenstrasse Jews survived the war. Over 90 percent of German Jews still alive after the war were married to non-Jewish Germans.

GYPSIES

Persecuted since they first arrived in Europe from India, these people were nomadic and not tied to land. They used the collective name Gypsies which stems from the old belief that they originated from Egypt. Under the laws of the Third Reich, thousands were arrested, sterilized and sent to concentration camps. In 1942, Himmler ordered all German Gypsies to be sent to Auschwitz where a special camp (Birkenau, Section B11e) was constructed. In 1943 a total of 20,943 Gypsies were registered in the camp and by September of that year around 7,000 had died. On the nights of August 2 and 3, 1944, a total of 21,000 Gypsies died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. It is estimated that over 200,000 Gypsies were put to death during World War 11. Unfortunately today, hatreds towards Gypsies have resurfaced and these people are still considered outcasts in many European countries. Next to the Jews and Russian POWs the Gypsies suffered most during the Holocaust.

FREEMASONS

Among other groups selected for 'special treatment' by Hitler were the Freemasons. They were also hunted down, arrested and in many cases executed in Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Italy and in Stalin's Soviet Union. It is estimated that around 80,000 Freemasons died in Nazi concentration camps. These victims came from all countries occupied by Germany and from Germany itself.

OPERATION 'GUNNERSIDE'

On the night of February 27/28, 1943, one of the most daring undercover operations of WW II took place in southern Norway. The destruction of the heavy water plant at the Norsk Hydro Electrisk factory at Vermork was given highest priority at headquarters of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The first attempt (Operation Freshman) ended in failure when two Halifax bombers, both towing gliders with thirty-four commandos on board, crashed in bad weather over Norway. Forty-five men lost their lives, some in the crash, the others were shot in cold blood after capture by German forces.

Another attempt (Gunnerside) was made by SOE, this time by parachuting a commando force of volunteers, trained in Scotland, on to the frozen surface of one of the lakes on the 3,500 square mile Hardanger Plateau. A fourteen man Norwegian Army Commando group eventually reached Vermork and forced entry into the seven storey factory building through windows on the first floor and placed explosives near the eighteen electrolysis cells in the basement. Mission accomplished, the saboteurs retreated back the way they had come. At 1.15 am, the explosion did not destroy the building but about a ton of heavy water was released to pour down the drains. Two months production was lost. On 17th of April the plant started production again. It was now the turn of the US 8th Air Force when 140 bombers attacked the plant causing immense damage and killing twenty-two Norwegian and German workers. Production at the plant stopped for a second time.

In February, 1944, the heavy water apparatus was then dismantled and placed on board the railway ferry 'Hydro' prior to being transported to Germany. This included 157 electrolysis tubes containing 607 kilos of heavy water packed into thirty-nine large drums. Members of the Gunnerside team, which had been hiding in the snow covered mountains throughout the past year, and with help from local partisans, placed explosives on board the ferry which was docked at Meal ready to sail next morning. At 10.30 the ferry blew up half way across Lake Tinnsjö. Fourteen Norwegian civilians and four Germans went down with the vessel. Twenty-seven persons were rescued. Four drums of the heavy water were salvaged.

TREASON?

When the SS announced on March 3, 1943 that an SS Division was to be formed in Latvia to fight the Russians, around 32,000 Latvians volunteered. They formed the 'Waffen Grenadier Division der SS (No.1)' During the winter offensive they fought bravely against the Soviets. Pulled out of the battle zone to avoid encirclement, they were sent back into Prussia. Gradually pushed westward by the advancing Red Army they eventually surrendered to the British. Not so lucky was the 'Waffen Grenadier Division der SS (No.2)' formed soon after the first. It failed to escape to the west and was overtaken by the Red Army. As Latvia was annexed by the USSR, they were classed as Soviet citizens and therefore guilty of treason and being guilty of treason, all were executed.

CROWD CATASTROPHE

On March 3, 1943 In Victoria Park, near the Bethnal Green underground station in London's East End, an army defence unit was using a new type of rocket launcher. The whining noise they made sounded like falling bombs. The air-raid alert sounded at 8.17 pm and hearing this many families in the area rushed to the underground tube station for safety. At this time it was being used only as an air-raid shelter and already over 500 people had entered. A woman carrying a baby tripped and fell at the bottom of the nineteen step dimly lit staircase. The rushing crowd behind, in sheer panic, was unable to stop and fell in a heap on top of her and the baby, suffocating each other. In all, 173 persons died, crushed under the sheer weight of bodies. The dead included 27 men, 84 women and 62 children.

THE BAUM GROUP

This Berlin group was composed mainly of young Communist Jews and operated in Central Berlin and in the districts of Kreuzberg and Neuköln. Their main activity was the distribution of anti-Nazi posters and helping the slave workers who worked in the Siemens factory. In May, 1942, Hitler's propaganda minister, the 5ft 4ins Joseph Goebbels, had organized an anti-Russian exhibition called 'The Soviet Paradise'. As an act of protest, the group decided to set the buildings on fire. However, the resulting fire was soon put out by firemen and a few days later the Gestapo succeeded in arresting 27 of the participants.

Brought before the Peoples Court on the Potsdamer Strasse, they were found guilty of treason and on May 27, 1943, were executed. Three women members of the group received prison sentences and sent to Auschwitz from where they never returned. Herbert Baum, the leader of the group, died in prison after being tortured by the Gestapo but he never betrayed his comrades. A monument, bearing the names of all twenty-seven members stands at the western entrance of Berlin's Weissensee Jewish Cemetery on Herbert-Baum-Strasse where some of the group lie buried.

SUICIDE?

Stalin's son, Yakov Djugashvili, from his first wife Ekaterina, now a 2nd Lieutenant in the artillery corps, was captured on May 16, 1942 and interned in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp where he was later shot while trying to escape. (Some sources say he committed suicide by throwing himself at the perimeter fence to force the guards to shoot him.) In 1943, an attempt was made by the Germans to exchange Yakov for Field Marshal Paulus who was captured after the fall of Stalingrad. The request was refused by Stalin. Although he grieved for his 36 year old son he is quoted as saying "I will not exchange a private for a Field Marshal".

Over two million Soviet prisoners of war were liberated by the Red Army. All were to suffer at the hands of Stalin who always maintained that Russia had no POW's in German hands. All were considered traitors to the Motherland for allowing themselves to be captured.

WILHELM KUBE

Kube, Gauleiter of Brandenburg, anti-Semite and deputy in the Prussian State Assembly, was removed from office in 1936 for suggesting that Frau Buch, Martin Borman's mother-in-law, was half Jewish. During the war he became District Commissioner in the Occupied Eastern Territories where, as head of the civil administration in western Belarus, he reported on July 31, 1942, that fifty-five Jews had been executed in his district. A year later, on July 31, 1943, he was murdered by his White Russian housekeeper, Yelena Mazanik, who had placed a bomb under his bed. Mazanik was a member of the Belorussian partisan movement. The reprisals were swift and horrific, whole villages being wiped out and around 1,000 males were rounded up and either shot or hanged.

STARVATION IN CHINA

Nearly three million people died of starvation in the Honan province of China during 1942 and 1943. Due to drought, the crops of 1942 failed. Another factor was the war with Japan and the uneasy alliance between the Chinese Nationalists and the Chinese Communist forces. Hungry peasants raided the homes of the wealthy seizing anything they could eat in an effort to stay alive.

BOMBING ERROR

The bombing of the MINERVA car factory in Antwerp on April 5, 1943, turned out to be one of the major tragedies of WWII. The Erla factory was converted to repair workshops for Luftwaffe planes and therefore on the priority list for attention by the US Eighth Air Force. The bombing run was poor, due to evasive action being taken to avoid German fighters and ground missiles. Two bombs hit the factory killing many workers but the rest of the bombs were released too late and fell on the residential part of Mortsel, a suburb of Antwerp, over a mile away from the target.

A total of 936 civilians were killed including 209 schoolchildren. Only 18 children survived the bombing of the St. Lutgardis school at No 30, Mechelsesteenweg. (which still stands). In all, 342 people were injured and 220 houses destroyed. On March, 27, 1945, the last of the German V2 rockets fell on Mortsel killing twenty-seven people. It was here in Mortsel that Lieven Gevaert built his photographic film factory later known as Agfa-Gevaert.

SABOTAGE ATTEMPT

On April 21, 1943, a Wellington bomber took off from Hendon en route to Glasgow. On board was 6ft 4in tall General Charles Andre Joseph Marie de Gaulle. On the runway, the plane failed to respond to the elevator control. The pilot, Flt. Lt. Peter Loat, DFC, brought the plane to a halt. It was then found that the control rod had been burned through with acid. Another plane was selected and De Gaulle arrived safely in Glasgow. He returned to London by train and never flew in Britain again. It was De Gaulle, who in 1934, first suggested the theory of Blitzkrieg (Lightning War) a tactic used with great success by the Germans in the opening stages of the war against Poland and France.

OPERATION 'MINCEMEAT' (April, 1943)

One of the war's great deception schemes, launched to convince the German High Command that the Allied landings would take place on Sardinia and not on Sicily, the obvious choice. The body of an unknown man who had died recently was dressed in the uniform of a major of the Royal Marines and given the name of Major William Martin. A briefcase was attached to the body containing highly confidential documents that foretold future Allied war plans in the Mediterranean. Major Martin's body was transported from Loch Ewe in Scotland by the submarine HMS Serap to a point just off the coast of Spain and there committed to the sea. It eventually washed ashore and into the hands of German intelligence agents. Within days the contents of the briefcase was being analysed in Berlin. Winston Churchill, then in the United States, received the coded message 'Mincemeat swallowed whole'. The body of 'Major Martin' lies buried in the Roman Catholic Cemetery Of Solitude at Huelua, Spain.

Official files on 'Operation Mincemeat' are not searchable until 2043 but in November 1995, some of the top secret files were released to reveal for the first time in 52 years, the true identity of 'Major Martin'. He was a Glyndwr Michael, born February 4, 1909, in Aberbargoed, a small mining village in Wales. A vagrant alcoholic, he had committed suicide by taking rat poison containing phosphorus when sleeping rough in a disused London warehouse and died from chemically induced pneumonia.

The real Major Martin, whose name and identity was used for the deception, moved to the USA after the war and settled in Virginia. He died there on December 10, 1988, his ashes scattered over the Gulf Stream so that eventually they would arrive at his country of birth, Scotland.

SAD POLISH LOSS (General Wladyslaw Sikorski: 1881-1943)

Poland's former Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, set up the Polish Provisional Government in London. When the Soviet Union was invaded he tried to persuade Stalin to release the thousands of Polish officers captured by the Soviets in 1939. (their bodies were later found at Katyn) Stalin remained silent on their fate and broke off all dealings with Sikorski. The Soviets then set up their own puppet government in Poland.

Weeks later, General Sikorski and some of his staff, including his daughter, were killed when their plane, a Liberator, crashed seconds after take off from Gibraltar, en-route to England, on July 4, 1943. The body of the General was laid to rest in the newly established Polish Cemetery at Newark, Nottinghamshire. The pilot, Flt. Lt. Edward Prchal of the Czechoslovakian Air Force, was the only survivor. The body of General Sikorski's daughter, Zofia, Chief of the Polish Women's Auxiliary, was never found. The remains of General Sikorski were returned to his beloved Poland in 1993. His cap and uniform, recovered from the sea at the site of the crash, is displayed in the Sikorski Museum, in the Polish Institute at 20, Princess Gate, London.

Flt. Lt. Edward Prchal died in 1984 in Calistoga, California and his ashes interred in the Czechoslovak plot in the Brookwood Cemetery in England.

FAMOUS RUHR RAID (May 16, 1943)

On this day in 1943, nineteen Lancaster's of RAF Squadron 617, bombed the Mohne, Eder, and Sorpe dams in the Ruhr. The main attack on Mohne was led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson, his aircraft carrying the new 'bouncing bomb' invented by Dr Barnes Wallis. The breach in the wall caused flooding which drowned around 1,200 people, including 700 Russian prisoners of war whose camp was washed away in the flood. At the Eder Dam, 68 people were drowned. Eight aircraft crashed or were shot down. Seventy seven crew members died, fifty six survived. Thirty three decorations were awarded including the Victoria Cross to Guy Gibson. (Sir Barnes Wallis died in 1979, aged 92)

SURRENDER (June 11, 1943)

Blockaded on May 14, the small 83 square kilometre volcanic island of Pantelleria, in the Mediterranean, was first subjected to heavy bombardment by the Royal Navy (Operation 'Corkscrew') and then bombed by planes of the North-West African Strategic Air Force under the operational control of US General Carl Spaatz. The Italian Admiral Gino Pavesi, in charge of some 12,000 troops and 10,000 civilians on the island, surrendered to troops of the British 1st Infantry Division on June 11, after 6,250 tons of bombs fell on the island in six days. Fifty-six of his troops were killed and 116 wounded, A total of 11,621 Italian and 78 German troops were taken prisoner. This was the first time a surrender had been achieved through bombing. Another island bombed into submission was the island of Lampedusa in the Strait of Sicily where 4,600 troops surrendered on June 13.

GOMORRAH

The code name for the bombing of Hamburg during the ten days of July 24 to August 3, 1943. Around 3,000 British and American bombers dropped 9,000 tons of bombs on the city destroying some 277,330 dwellings including some 16,000 multi-storeyed buildings. It produced a fire-storm, the first in history, in which the flames reached a height of three miles above the city. Temperatures in the centre of the conflagration reached 1,400 degrees F (800 degrees C) and as the inferno sucked in more oxygen, winds reached an incredible 150 miles an hour. Thousands were caught in this heat, their bodies exploding in a ball of flame. After the raid, over one million people fled the city for the comparative safety of the countryside, in fear of further bombings.

After the war, the terrible toll was revealed, 30,482 people had died but the most regrettable fact was that 5,586 children had also died in the flames. (During the war around 63,000 men from Hamburg died while serving in the German armed forces)

GENERAL HANS CRAMER

Last German Commander of the Afrika Korps, was captured in May 1943. Imprisoned in a POW camp in Wales, his deteriorating health caused him to be repatriated to Germany through the Swedish Red Cross. He was brought from Wales to the London Cage, the route taken brought him through the south and south-western area of England. He was allowed to see the massive build up of tanks, planes and ships getting ready for the D-Day invasion. What he didn't know was the exact area of England he was being driven through. He was told it was southern and eastern England and this is what he reported to his seniors in Berlin when he arrived there on May 23, 1944, adding emphasis to the Allied propaganda that the invasion would take place in the Calais area.

THE LONDON CAGE

The name given to the headquarters of the War Crimes Investigation Unit and the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre located in a large mansion on the corner of Kensington Palace Gardens and Bayswater Road. Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel A. P. Scotland, all high-ranking German prisoners were interrogated here after their capture. The interrogation teams consisted of British Army officers and sergeants of German-Jewish stock who spoke the language fluently. Secretly bugged, the private conversations between these prisoners were recorded.

ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

On March 13, 1943, General Henning von Tresckow and his ADC, Fabian von Schlabrendorf, placed a bomb on board Hitler's plane (after his visit to the Russian front). Disguised as two gift wrapped bottles of Cointreau liquor, they were intended as a gift for General Helmuth Stieff at Hitler's HQ. When news of Hitler's safe arrival reached the plotters, Schlabrendorf immediately flew to the HQ and retrieved the package and exchanged it for two genuine bottles. It was found that the detonator became defective in the high altitude cold air. From September 1938 to July 1944, there were seventeen assassination attempts plotted against the German Führer.

RESISTANCE IN GERMANY

The anti-Hitler movement inside Germany, which included German communists and Jehovah's Witnesses, was the largest indigenous resistance movement of any country during the whole war. Only in Germany was an attempt made to assassinate their leader. Around 800,000 persons were sent to prison at one time or another for active resistance to the regime. These groups included the European Union, White Rose, The Red Orchestra, Solf Circle, Freiburg Circle and the Kreisau Circle. Kreisau was the name of the estate in Silesia of anti-Nazi lawyer, Helmuth von Moltke, whose mother was English.

While the western allies did all in their power to help other resistance movements, i.e. in France and the Netherlands, they did nothing to help or encourage the movement in Germany which in all probability could have ended the war sooner. But the Allies were intent on unconditional surrender and refused to make any deals at all with Germans. Accordingly, the Allies viewed all Germans as bad, not only Nazis.

PALM SUNDAY

On April 18, 1943, fifty one Luftwaffe tri-motor air-transport planes and sixteen escorting fighters, were shot down in a little over ten minutes by a group of seventy US and British fighters. The pilots were guided to their flight path by messages received from the German enigma codes (Ultra). The slow Junker 52 transports were on their way with supplies to the German Army in North Africa. This disaster became known as the Palm Sunday Massacre. Seven Allied planes were also lost.

COINCIDENCE

On July 30, 1943, a Sunderland flying boat, U for Uncle, from the Australian 461 Squadron, spotted and attacked a German U-boat in the Bay of Biscay. The U-boat, commanded by Korvkpt. Wolf-Harro Stiebler, sank taking the lives of 53 of her crew. There were fifteen survivors. (By a strange coincidence, the submarine was the U-461).

PEUGEOT CAR WORKS

The Peugeot car factory at Sochaux, near Montbeliard, was bombed by the RAF on the night of July 14, 1943. The raid caused little damage but over 100 French civilian workers were killed. After the German takeover of the factory the owner, Robert Peugeot, was compelled to turn his factory over to the production of turrets for tanks and also to the manufacture of aero-engine parts. British SOE agent, Harry Ree, operating in the area, contacted Robert Peugeot and suggested a plan to sabotage the factory. On November 5, 1943, much of the vital machinery was destroyed by explosives smuggled inside the factory which put production out of action for three months. Two months later the aircraft parts section of the factory was blown up but soon replaced by the Germans only to be destroyed again by Ree and his French resistance saboteurs. In the end the Peugeot Works proved of little value to the Nazi war machine.

DISASTER AT PORT MORESBY

In September, 1943, three battalions of US paratroops and some Australian gunners were dropped near Lae on the Huon Peninsula and secured the airfield at Nadzab. Back at Port Moresby, the major Allied air-base in the region, a US Liberator bomber crashed and exploded among troops of the Australian 7th Division waiting to be airlifted to Nadzab. This disaster took the lives of 59 soldiers and wounded 92.

BRITISH FREE CORPS

Also known as The Legion of St. George. The idea that British POWs be recruited to form an infantry SS unit was first put forward by the self-styled fascist, John Amery, son of a minister in Churchill's war cabinet. In 1943 the SS expressed interest in the idea and the Legion of St. George was created to fight only against communists on the German-Finish front. Despite promises of an easy life of luxury, only about thirty prisoners responded. Lieutenant William Shearer was the only officer to volunteer but was soon diagnosed as a schizophrenic and repatriated to England on medical grounds. The unit included three Canadians, three South Africans, three Australians and one New Zealander. Many changed their minds and were returned to their POW camps. By March, 1943, only six remained as part of the 11 SS Panzergrenadier Division 'Nordland'. After the war, John Amery was tried for treason and received the death penalty. He was hanged on December 19, 1945. The remaining members received periods of imprisonment.

TOP SECRET

Fifteen kilometres north-west of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder in the former East Germany, lie the remains of a massive underground factory built by the Ordnance Department of the German Wehrmacht in the late 1930s for the manufacture of the nerve gas Tabun. In 1943 the manufacture of a later generation of nerve gases, Sarin and Soman, was started and during its operational life about 25 tons of chlortifloride for the gas was produced. The five-storied factory, 20 metres underground and containing 650 rooms and large chambers 80 by 40 metres in length and width, in which was assembled some of the deadly V-weapons, was captured by the Red Army in February, 1945, as they advanced through the thickly wooded Falkenhagener Heide. In the 1970s, the Soviets converted the whole factory, the ventilation towers filled with filters in case of a biological attack and installing massive steel doors, half a metre thick, for use as a command bunker in the event of a future nuclear or biological war. Abandoned by the Russians in 1992, the whole complex is now left to crumble away by the forces of nature.

In 1946 and 47, the British military dumped around 40,000 tons of poison gasses, including Tabun, into the Baltic Sea. Thousands of tons of this material were uncovered in Austria as the war drew to a close.

THE BIGGEST USAF LOSS

The single biggest loss to the US 8th Air Force was when 291 B17s and B24s raided the German ball-bearing factories at Schweinfurt, fifty miles northwest of Nuremberg on October 14, 1943. This was the second raid by US Flying Fortresses on the five factories producing ball bearings. The first was on August 17 involving 229 bombers. In the first attack the Americans lost 36 bombers, in the second attack a total of 60 planes were shot down or crashed on returning to base. A total of 599 airmen were killed and 40 wounded in the largest and most sustained air battles of the European war. The bomber crews claimed to have shot down 288 German aircraft. The actual figure, obtained after the war, was ... 27. In Schweinfurt, 276 civilians were killed. In all, Schweinfurt suffered sixteen air raids, the Americans by day and the British by night.

SINGLE BIGGEST RAF LOSS

The single biggest loss for the Royal Air Force was on the Nuremberg raid of March 30, 1944, when, of the 795 aircraft taking part, 62 were shot down by German fighters, 14 shot down by flak, 2 were lost in collisions and 16 listed as missing. Of the total aircraft lost, 64 were Lancasters and 30 were Halifaxs. In the city itself, 74 people were killed and 122 injured. Of the RAF crew members, 545 were lost. This was a casualty rate of 11.9%

DEATH BEFORE DISHONOUR (November 10, 1943)

A macabre incident involving the American destroyer USS Spence occurred just south of Bougainville. The crew spotted a raft with four live Japanese on board. As the Spence drew along side to attempt a rescue, the Japanese opened fire with a machine-gun. Rather than face the shame of surrender the Japanese officer in charge of the raft then put his pistol in each man's mouth and blew out the back of each man's skull. He then turned the gun on himself and pulled the trigger. All four bodies fell into the water to be devoured by sharks. The Japanese Bushido creed dictated that surrender was shameful and instilled in the soldier that self-destruction was preferable to capitulation. To be captured was a fate worse than death according to the Japanese code of honour. In the town of Bayombong in Luzon, men of the US 37th Division entered a ward in the local hospital and found all the patients dead. They were wounded Japanese soldiers who had been killed by their own comrades rather than have them suffer the humiliation of capture.

DEATH RAILWAY

By the end of 1943, the 15,000 Australians imprisoned in Changi had left for slave labour on the Burma-Siam Railway. The first group, 'A' Force, consisting of some 3,000 men, boarded the Japanese hell-ships Tohohashi Maru and Celebes Maru. Packed like sardines they could neither stand nor lie. Soon most were suffering from diarrhoea and the smell and conditions can only be imagined.

The prisoners were unloaded at Margui and Tavoy in Burma. Ahead lay a 35 km walk to the base camp at Thanbyuzayat many prisoners dying on the way. Within weeks around 61,000 Allied prisoners, Dutch, British, Australian and Americans (700 men from the USS Houston) were scattered in camps throughout Burma (Myanmar) and Siam (Thailand) near the 265 mile long railway they were about to construct. It was completed in October, 1943, after 14 murderous months. For every mile of track, 393 men died. Also in the workforce were around 200,000 Asian labourers. Work on the railway and the building of the two bridges (one wooden and one steel) over the Kwae Noi River, took its toll, estimates putting the Asian death toll as high as 80,000. The Allied death toll was nearly 13,000. Today, three beautifully laid out cemeteries lie along the route of the railway line. At Kanchanaburi lie the remains of 6,982 POW's including 1,362 Australians. At Thanbyuzayat there are 3,771 graves and at Chungkai 1,329 graves. The names of those with no known grave are commemorated on memorials in Rangoon, Hong Kong and Singapore.

THE BURMA ROAD

The 681 mile long winding road over the mountains from Burma into China was constructed by the British and thousands of Chinese coolies during the undeclared Sino-Japanese war of 1937-39. To enable the Chinese to continue the war against Japan, whose forces already occupied the coastal regions, allied ships crammed into the docks at Rangoon bringing lend-lease war supplies for the start of the long journey up the Burma Road to Kumming. A small US convoy reached Kumming on January 20, 1945, after a 16 day drive from Myodynia. The first full Allied convoy to reach China was on February 4, 1945. This enormous flow of supplies was protected from the air by famous American squadron the 'Flying Tigers' whose volunteer pilots were paid $500 for every Japanese plane they shot down. These pilots first enrolled as civilians in the Chinese Air Force, American Volunteer Group-AVG, under the command of Colonel Claire Chennault and later incorporated into the US Army Air Force as the 23rd Pursuit Group. During a major attack by the Japanese on the port of Rangoon on February 25/26, the AVG claimed 217 kills for the loss of 16. The RAF claimed 74 kills for the loss of 22 aircraft. The Japanese then stopped trying to close the port by air effort. Rangoon was ultimately captured by the Japanese army on March 8.

Part of the Burma Road

THE STILWELL ROAD

When Burma fell to the Japanese in 1942 and the Burma road closed, fuel and supplies had to be flown over what was called the 'Hump' (the Himalayan mountains) from India to China. A new road was then built, at a cost of almost 149 million US dollars, this time constructed by African-American Service Units and around 50,000 coolies. Around 1,100 Americans died during its construction. This new road from India to the Chinese border where it met the Burma Road, was 478 miles long and opened on January 31, 1945. Initially called the Ledo Road it was later renamed the Stilwell Road by Chiang Kai-shek in honour of the American General Stilwell who had worked so hard for it to be built. (General Stilwell died at age 63 on October 12, 1946. He was cremated and his ashes scattered over the Pacific Ocean)


PUBLIC EXECUTION (December 19, 1943)

Three German Gestapo officers and a Russian accomplice, were hanged in the market square of KHARKOV in the USSR. Captain Wilhelm Langheld, Hans Ritz, Reinhardt Retelav and Mikhail Bulanov were found guilty of war crimes by a Russian Military Court. A crowd of around 40,000 watched as lorries on which they stood were driven away, leaving them hanging from the scaffold. The Nazis themselves often used this method for executions in the Soviet Union as in the case of Kieper and Kogan, two members of the Russian Regional Court who were hanged on August 17, 1941, at Zhitomir. Forced to watch the hangings, 400 Jews were rounded up in the city. After the executions, the Jews were taken outside the town and shot into a pit ten to fifteen metres wide and four metres deep.

GRATEFUL

After the Italian armistice on September 3, 1943, around 100,000 Italians volunteered to help the Allied cause. The surrender was signed by General Eisenhower and Badoglio aboard the British battleship HMS Nelson. After a slow transition period, from being a defeated enemy to being a willing ally, some 150 Italians actually enlisted in the US Army landing force at Anzio as ammunition carriers and interpreters. On April 18, the Italian Liberation Corps was formed. Consisting of 25,000 men, the Corps occupied such important towns as Chieti, L'Aquila, Teramo and Ascoli Piceno. The eastern side of the Italian Peninsula, including cities such as Bologna and Venice, were freed by Italian troops under Allied command. On October 13, 1943, Italy declared war on Germany. The first unit to enter the conflict was the Italian 1st Motorized Group, incorporated into the US Fifth Army. About 600,000 disbanded Italian soldiers from the German occupied north of Italy were crammed into cattle cars and transported to Germany for forced slave labour. In 1944, the Italian Co-belligerent Air Force was formed and equipped with US and British-built planes. Its primary function was to support the Italian troops fighting in Greece and Yugoslavia and to attack German ships sailing in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

By April, 1945, around one million Italian soldiers, sailors, airmen and partisans were taking a direct role in the Allied war effort. A total of 17,400 were killed in action against Germany. Around 480,000 Italians died from all causes during the war.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

By the middle of 1943 approximately 90,000 British and Allied soldiers were incarcerated in POW camps throughout Italy. When the Allies invaded the south of Italy, members of the Italian underground took this opportunity to arrest the fascist dictator, Mussolini (Italy's King Victor Emmanuel had dismissed Mussolini on July 25, 1943) whom they found living at the Hotel Albergo-Rifugio on the Gran Sasso mountain.

A new government, headed by Marshall Badoglio was formed and immediately sued for peace with the Allies. In POW camps all over Italy cries of 'finito, finito, viva Badoglio' could be heard loud and clear. Prisoners now prepared to await their imminent release. On September 12, SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny and his soldiers rescued Mussolini (Operation Eiche) from his mountain retreat on the Abruzzi Apennines where he was imprisoned and by the end of the month had re-established his authority in Northern Italy as Hitler's puppet ruler. Allied authorities ordered all prisoners to 'stay put' for the time being. A few days later the POW's awoke to find German soldiers everywhere. Marched to various train stations they were soon on their way to Germany to undergo a further eighteen months, in some cases under appalling conditions, in POW camps and in concentration camps in Germany and Poland. There can be few examples of utter disappointment on such a massive scale as that of the Allied POW's in Italy.

CAPTURE

After his rescue from the mountain top hotel, Mussolini took up residence in the Villa Feltrinelli on the western shore of Lake Garda. Here he ruled over the newly formed Fascist Republic of Salò. Guarded by thirty SS men his every movement and decision he made was scrutinised by the Germans. He considered himself not so much a resident but more a prisoner. However he found solace with his mistress, Claretta Petacci, who had been moved into the Villa Fiordaliso nearby. On April 18, 1945, he and Claretta left the villa for the last time but on April 28 they were captured by local partisans near Lake Como. Both were executed. Two days later, men of the US 10th Mountain Division took possession of the Villa Feltrinelli without a shot being fired. Most of Mussolini's possessions were 'souvenired' including his precious Stradivarius violin and eventually made their way back to the USA. (The Villa Feltrinelli is now the Grand Hotel Villa Feltrinelli)

ITALIAN P.O.W's.

The Italian soldiers transported to Germany after the armistice, were treated abominably and had to survive on starvation rations. Hundreds died of hunger and overwork, tuberculosis and pneumonia. Their living quarters were primitive, 250 men in barracks designed for 100. Those still loyal to the Fascist government of Mussolini were treated far better in the camps. The worst cases of TB were sent back to Italy but when the Italian mothers saw their sons, living skeletons and dying, their hatred for the Germans knew no bounds. Back in the internment camps volunteers were asked for to form an SS Division and thousands volunteered encouraged by the promise of better food and clothing. When the Italian SS Division finished its training it was sent to Italy to try and stem the Allied advance. Once in Italy, the volunteer soldiers deserted in their thousands and joined the partisans.

MUTINY AT SALERNO

On September 20, 1943, one of the saddest episodes in British military history took place: a mutiny by some 300 replacement troops from the 51st Highland Division and the 50th Northumbrian Division. These veterans of the North African campaign had been convalescing in a hospital in Tripoli while their parent Divisions were returned to the UK. Sent to Salerno as replacements, they believed that their officers had broken a promise to them that they would be sent to Britain to rejoin their own regiments. Disembarking at Salerno they sat down on the beach and three times refused to report to their assigned units. The Corps Commander, General Richard McCreery, addressed the men and some agreed to join their assigned units but 192 men still persisted on disobeying. They were put under arrest and sent back to Constantine where they were court martialled. The three leaders of the mutiny, all sergeants, were sentenced to death, the others to jail sentences ranging from 7 to 10 years.

In the Official British History of 1943, the Salerno Mutiny is not even mentioned but is reported in Hugh Bonds book 'Salerno' published in 1961.

THE BARI DISASTER

The port of Bari, on Italy's east coast, suffered the most devastating air raid of the war since Pearl Harbor. On December 2, 1943, scores of German JU-88s blasted the harbour to smithereens and in the process sank seventeen ships and damaged six others. About thirty ships were in the harbour waiting to unload war supplies. One American merchant ship, the SS John Harvey, whose cargo included 2,000 M47-A1 mustard gas bombs, (intended for retaliatory use in case the enemy started using it) exploded, killing all 74 persons on board. A total of 628 military personnel were hospitalized in the 98th British General Hospital and the 3rd New Zealand Hospital. Within a month, sixty-nine patients had died from the effects of the gas. In the town of Bari (pop.200,000) hundreds of civilians became casualties but the number of deaths is not known for certain. (some sources put the death toll at around 1,000) The harbour was closed for a full three weeks after the bombing.

EMERGENCY LANDINGS

In 1943, when an increasing number of British and American planes were returning crippled and low on fuel, Britain built a special Emergency Landing Ground (abbreviated to E.L.G.) in the county of Suffolk. Named RAF Woodbridge E.L.G. it handled a total of 4,115 emergency landings by the end of the war.

1943 BRITISH CASUALTIES

Air raid victims for the first three months of 1943 were 973 killed and 1,191 injured. For April, May, June and July, 1,237 killed and 1,607 injured. The next five months, till the end of December, 1943, casualties were 247 killed and 561 injured. The month of September saw the lowest casualty list since the bombing began, only 5 killed and 11 injured.





All text researched and compiled by George Duncan. Website by Columbus.

LESSER KNOWN FACTS OF WORLD WAR ll 1944-1945

* Dedicated to all those who took part in World War II *
Lesser-Known Facts of World War II - page 5 of 6

This 6 page series provides some of these facts and stories:

during the Pre-War Years ... to 1939, 1940
during 1941
during 1942
during 1943
during 1944 and 1945
More Lesser-Known Facts of WWII.

1944
MONASTERY BLUNDER

On February 15, 1944, US bombers dropped 427 tons of bombs on the mountain top monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy. The operation was planned by the US General Ira Eaker at the request of the Allied ground forces, believing the monastery to be a German stronghold. Very few enemy troops were there at the time but over 300 women and children from the town of Cassino, who had fled the fighting and taken refuge in the monastery, were killed. By the time that the Polish 12th Podolski Lancers, under General Anders, raised their regimental flag on the ruins of Monte Cassino at 9.30am their casualty rates were 3,779 killed or wounded. The flag was hastily sewn together from pieces of a Red Cross flag and soldiers' handkerchiefs. The Monastery was rebuilt after the war and reconsecrated by Pope Paul V1 in 1964. (General Wladyslaw Anders lies buried in the Polish Cemetery at Monte Cassino)

The ruins of Monte Cassino
THE FIRST GERMAN GENERALto be executed during the war by the Allies was General der Infanterie, Anton Dostler. On March 22/23, 1944, during a small scale operation behind enemy lines in northern Italy, a group of 15 Italian-Americans were on a mission to blow up an important railway tunnel but were captured and taken prisoner before the mission was completed. They were summarily shot on the instructions of 55 year old General Dostler who had simply passed on the order from higher authority (Hitler's Füfrerbefehl of October 18, 1942) which stated that all enemy encountered in Commando actions were to be executed. The plea of superior orders did not save Dostler from the firing squad. After a five day trial he was found guilty of a war crime and sentenced to death. On November 27, 1944, the Mediterranean Theatre Commander, Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgeway, confirmed the sentence. At 8 a.m. on the morning of December 1, 1944, General Dostler was tied to a stake on the firing range of the 803rd Military Police Battalion located near Aversa, Italy. A black hood was placed over his head, a white marker pinned to his chest and the order to fire was given to the 12 enlisted men of the US Army who composed the firing squad. (General Dostler lies buried in the German War Cemetery at Pomezia some miles south of Rome)

General Dostler receives the Last Sacrament
HUNGARIAN JEWS

After Hitler's armies occupied Hungary on March 27, 1944, (Operation Margarethe) its government actively supported the Nazis in the deportation of its Jews. Up till 1944, the Hungarian Regent, Admiral Horthy, had steadfastly refused Hitler's offer to resettle the Hungarian Jews. But after the occupation, and after Eichmann and his SS units moved in, the deportations began on May 15, 1944, the first train reaching Auschwitz on the 17th. The pro-German Government co-operated by ordering its policemen to escort their deportees to Auschwitz. When their uniforms were seen by the Hungarian prisoners already in the camp, scenes of "unbelievable jubilation were witnessed as the prisoners ran to the wire cheering and sobbing in the belief that their policemen had come to rescue them." Around 365,000 Hungarian Jews were transported to their deaths after the occupation of their country. The majority of women and children were murdered within hours of their arrival. Fit and healthy men were spared for a while for slave labour. Over 300,000 were still in Hungary awaiting their doom. This included just over 70,000 in the Budapest ghetto (fortunately all these survived the war). French Vichy police also collaborated in the rounding up of Jews. Starting on August 27, 1942, they arrested 9,872 Jews in Vichy-controlled Lyon and transported them to Drancy, near Paris, prior to deportation to Auschwitz.

In an effort to negotiate with the Allies the SS offered to exchange Jews for 1,000 trucks. This offer was rejected and as a gesture of good faith the SS allowed a train, containing 1,684 Hungarian Jews to leave Budapest for the safety of Switzerland. The train eventually ended up at the Belsen Concentration Camp near Hanover. There, the Jews were kept for about six months before being allowed to proceed to Switzerland. This must be the only recorded case where the SS actually saved Jews.

(Between 1933 and 1938 a total of 453,721 Jewish refugees from Europe were settled in 27 different countries. The Jewish population of Europe in 1939 was 7,870,700).

SWISS NEUTRALITY

On a bombing raid on German military installations near the German/Swiss border on April 1, 1944, a force of 23 B-24 bombers from the USAF 392nd Bombardment Group, on its 59th mission, inadvertently entered Swiss air-space and owing to a navigational error mistakenly bombed the Swiss town of Schaffhausen. Fifty Swiss civilians were killed. The real target was to have been the chemical works at Ludwigshafen, 120 miles away. In 1949, the US agreed to pay $64 million in compensation. This was an attempt to secure Switzerland as an ally in the 'Cold War'. The greedy Swiss demanded that interest be paid on the $64 million, claiming that the damaged property had not been able to earn any money since the bombing. This demand was rejected.

The British Royal Air Force also flouted Swiss neutrality a couple of times and attempted to bomb a ball-bearing factory in Basel suspected of producing ball bearings for the German Army but both times the bombs missed the target. During the war a total of 167 American bombers and 12 British bombers made emergency landings in Switzerland. Severely damaged in combat over Germany and unable to return to their bases in England their only alternative was to head for neutral Switzerland. In one day, on March 18, 1944, no less than eleven American bombers made emergency landings at the Dubendorf airfield. The crews were interned by the Swiss authorities in camps at Adelboden, Grippen, Les Diablerets and in the notorious punishment camp at Wauwilermoos (for escapees). They were supposed to be treated like POW's under the rules of war but in many cases living conditions were little better than German concentration camps.

In all, around 1,500 American servicemen were interned in neutral Switzerland.

HIGHEST NIGHT PHOTO

The highest night photograph of the war was taken on April 18, 1944, over Osnabruck. The RAF Mosquito crew used a target indicator flash and took the picture from 36, 000 feet.

AIR TRAGEDY

An old B24 Liberator bomber, stripped of all equipment and fitted with a radio control system to be operated from a 'mother' plane after the B24 crew had baled out, blew up in mid-air during a trial flight in preparation for 'Operation Aphrodite' the code name for the bombing of the flying bomb sites on the Continent. An electrical malfunction triggered the explosion killing the pilot and co-pilot. The pilot was Lieutenant Joseph Kennedy, the older brother of John F Kennedy the future President of the USA.

INACCURATE BOMBING

March 13, 1944. In a raid on Le Mans, France, by RAF Bomber Command, some of the bombs were dropped short of the mark, killing some 100 civilians. Fifteen locomotives and around 800 railway freight cars were destroyed. The killing of innocent civilians during raids on specific targets became an increasingly severe problem for bomber crews.

April 9/10, 1944. The attack by 186 RAF bombers on the rail yards at Lille-Deliverance, France, killed 456 civilians and destroyed over a thousand homes. At the rail yards around 2,000 freight cars were destroyed.April 10/11, 1944. One hundred and twenty-two Royal Canadian Air force Halifax's dropped 600 tons of bombs on the Merelbeke-Melle rail yards at Ghent, Belgium. Unfortunately, the rail yards being located in a built-up area, 438 Belgian civilians were killed.

April 19/20, 1944. Around 200 bombers, mostly Canadian Halifax's from 46 Group, attacked the rail yards at Noisy-le-sec near Paris. Many bombs fell on a built-up area of the town destroying over 700 houses and killing 464 civilians. Some 370 were injured.

March 3, 1945. Over 500 inhabitants of the suburb of Bezuidenhout, a suburb of The Hague, Holland, were killed when Allied bombers missed their intended target, the V-2 launching sites in the Hague Forest and dropped their bombs on Bezuidenhout.

DISASTER DURING 'OPERATION TIGER' (April 23-30, 1944)

In preparation for the D-Day landings on Utah beach, the US Forces were conducting a series of exercises on a stretch of beach called Slapton Sands, near Plymouth. In an area comprising around 30,000 acres a total of 3,000 people (750 families) 180 farms with livestock were evacuated. This enormous task had to be completed in six weeks.

During the actual exercise, while manoeuvring for position in Lyme Bay on the night of April 27 the landing ships were attacked by nine German motor torpedo boats, E-boats, from Cherbourg in France. Two of the landing craft, LST 507 and LST 531 were sunk and others damaged. On board the two landing ships the casualties were severe, 638 men killed (197 sailors and 441 soldiers) and hundreds injured. This was more than ten times greater than the casualties sustained in the real assault on Utah Beach on June 6 (43 Americans killed, 63 wounded). Altogether, including casualties from other ships and those killed by friendly fire on shore, a total of 946 Americans gave their lives during Operation Tiger. News of this disaster was kept a closely guarded secret for many months. For the full tragic story go to http://members.lycos.co.uk/worldwartwo/slapton.html.

CARELESS TALK

In spite of all precautions taken to protect the secrets of D-day, some officers still engaged in 'Careless Talk'. One such case was that of US Major General Henry Miller, chief supply officer of the US 9th Air Force, who, during a cocktail party at London's elegant Coleridge's Hotel, talked freely about the difficulties he was having in obtaining supplies. He added that things would ease after D-day declaring that would be before June 15. (When Eisenhower learned of this discretion he ordered that Miller be reduced to the rank of colonel and sent back to the US where shortly after, he retired from the service)

MILLION-TO-ONE

Around midnight on June 5, 1944, Private C. Hillman, of Manchester, Connecticut, serving with the US 101st Airborne Division, was winging his way to Normandy in a C-47 transport plane. Just before the jump, Private Hillman carried out a final inspection of his parachute. He was surprised to see that the chute had been packed by the Pioneer Parachute Company of Connecticut where his mother worked part time as an inspector. He was further surprised when he saw on the inspection tag, the initials of his own mother!

D-DAY

D stands for Day, H for Hour. This expression was first used on September 20, 1918, during World War I. The US First Army issued Field Order No 8 which read, "The First Army will attack at H-Hour on D-Day with the object of forcing the evacuation of the St. Mihiel Salient". After the landings on June 6, 1944, many believed that the D stood for 'Deliverance'.

D-DAY LANDINGS (June 6, 1944)

Utah Beach - 23,250 American troops were landed. US 1st Army 7th and 5th US Corps
Omaha Beach - 34,250 American troops were landed. 29th and 1st US Div.
Gold Beach - 24,970 British troops were landed. 50th Division, British 2nd Army
Juno Beach - 21,400 Canadian troops were landed. 3rd Canadian Div.
Sword Beach - 28,845 British troops were landed. 3rd British Div.
By June 12, 326,000 troops were on the beaches, plus 54,000 vehicles. By July 2, another 929,000 men and 177,000 vehicles were put ashore. The ship armada at Normandy totalled 6,939 vessels of all kinds. In the 10 days after D-day (June 6 to June 16) a total of 5,287 Allied soldiers were killed. The number of French civilians killed during the landings has never been established but must number in the hundreds. From D-Day till the end of the war, British casualties were 30,280 dead and 96,670 wounded.

The German surrender was signed 337 days after the D-Day landings.

PIGEONS AT WAR

Thousands of carrier pigeons accompanied the troops to Normandy on D-day and brought back essential details to Allied Headquarters in a capsule tied to their legs. A special loft was erected at the secret code deciphering centre at Bletchley Park. Considered vermin by many, these pigeons, were first used as early as the year 1150 AD and played an important part in both world wars. News of Wellington's victory at Waterloo first came by pigeon post. Many of these birds were specially bred in Belgium prior to 1939. Often used as a distress signal from downed aircraft, a pigeon named 'Winkie' escaped from a bomber after coming down in the English Channel in 1943. It flew back 120 miles to its base at RAF Leuchers in Scotland in time for rescue boats to reach and save the crew of the stricken bomber. Winkie was awarded the Dickin Medal (the animal version of the Victoria Cross) the first pigeon to be awarded with the medallion. Many of these pigeons were dropped by specially designed parachutes to be picked up by members of the French resistance. They were soon on their way back to Britain with Important information. At this time the Germans were training Falcons to intercept the pigeons while in flight and many were killed this way. In all, thirty-two animal VCs were awarded to pigeons during WW11. Founded by Maria Dickin in 1943, the Dickin Medal was awarded to any animal, bird or dog, displaying conspicuous gallantry during war. Other Pigeons so awarded were, to use their code names, William of Orange, the hero of Arnhem, Mary of Exeter, Duke of Normandy and Paddy, to name but a few. Managed by the elite division MI-14, the office in charge of Pigeon operations, these pigeons were responsible for the saving of thousands of military lives.

The city of Colvi in Italy was occupied by British troops on October 18, 1943, at 10am, well ahead of schedule. The US Air Force was to bomb the city an hour later to help the British entry. Attempts by radio to cancel the raid failed. A pigeon, GI Joe, borrowed from the Americans at the nearby airfield to accompany the troops, was released with the important message to cancel the raid, tied to it's leg. It arrived just as the bombers were about to take off. It is estimated that around a thousand British soldiers could have died if the raid had proceeded. GI Joe was the only bird or animal in America to receive the Dickin Medal. It died on June 3, 1961, aged 18, and can be seen today, mounted, in the Historical Centre at Fort Monmonth, New Jersey.

FIRST USE OF NAPALM

First used on July 17, 1944, when US P-38s attacked a fuel depot at Coutances, near St Lo. The next use of napalm was on April 15, 1945, when American bombers attacked the Atlantic coast town of Royan at the mouth of the Gironde. In the Pacific, napalm was used when US forces invaded the island of Tinian in the Marianas. It was also used in the bombing of Tokyo. This jellied fuel became the standard fuel explosive, later used widely - and notoriously - during the Vietnam War.

GÖRING'S VERMEER

In 1944, Hermann Göring paid £165,000 for the painting 'Woman Taken in Adultery' by the rarest of all Dutch painters, Vermeer. The painting was found in Emma Göring's home in Austria. It was later proved to be a forgery by Hans Van Meegeren. In 1945, Van Meegeren was arrested by Dutch authorities and sentenced to one year in jail. He died just nineteen days after his jail sentence began. Today, Göring's fake Vermeer is hidden away in the strong room of the Dutch State Collection in the Hague, never to be shown to the public or sold.

FIRST D-DAY CASUALTIES

It has been generally accepted that Lieutenant Den Brotheridge of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Regiment, British 6th Airborne Division, became the first British soldier to be killed in the invasion of Europe (D-Day, June 6, 1944) While he led his platoon of twenty-one men on the attack on the Orne Canal bridge at Benouville, he was hit in the neck by a bullet fired from the guns of the German sentries defending the Pegasus Bridge. Seconds before, a burst of fire from Brotheridge's Sten-gun killed one of the sentries, seventeen year old Private Helmut Romer, who became the first German to die in the defence of Hitler's 'Fortress Europe'. (It has since been discovered that when Lieutenant Brotheridges' glider landed near the bridge, 29 year old Lance Corporal Fred Greehalgh of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, drowned when exiting the glider. This would make him the first D-Day casualty. (Just months before the 50th anniversary of the landings, the Pegasus Bridge was demolished)

Meanwhile, over the town of St-Mare-Eglise, twenty eight year old Lt. Robert Mason Mathias of the 508th Parachute Regiment, US 82nd Airborne Division, was preparing to jump from his C-47 Dakota, when he was wounded by a shell burst. In spite of the wounds in his chest he commanded his men to 'Follow me' and hurled himself from the aircraft. Some time later, his men found his dead body, still strapped in his chute. Lt. Mathias was the first American soldier killed on D-day.

US CHUTE'S DEADLY DELAY

The 957 men of the US 82nd Airborne Division suffered a 16% casualty rate on landing among the Normandy hedgerows. Twenty five men were killed, fourteen missing and 118 wounded. Everything depended on a quick dispersal after landing and to get to the nearest cover. The delay caused by the difficulty of getting out of their chute harness proved fatal to many.In later drops, the buckles were dispensed with and the British quick-release mechanism was adopted.

AIR-POWER JOKE

The failure of the German Luftwaffe to appear over the D-day beaches caused the Wehrmacht soldiers to quip "If the plane in the sky is silver, it's American, if it's blue, it's British, if it's invisible, it's ours!"

THE TRAGEDY OF VERCORS

The Vercors Massif is a limestone plateau surrounded by many cliffs, ridges and valleys, its highest point being the 2,346 metre high Grand Veymont. Situated not far from Grenoble in central France it became the scene of the greatest and most tragic battles involving thousands of men of the French resistance. Just after D-day these men had rallied to Vercors to assist the Allies by slowing down the German forces on their way to Normandy. Completely surrounded by the enemy these brave resistance fighters hoisted high the French Tricolour, to be clearly seen from the German headquarters at Grenoble, and proclaimed the plateau the Free Republic of Vercors the first democratic area of France since the start of the German occupation in 1940. On July 22/23, 1944, about twenty enemy gliders landed and out poured some 500 SS soldiers who began shooting everyone in sight and raping all females regardless of age. Houses were set on fire with whole families inside. Ground troops then attacked the town of St Nizer and by nightfall some ninety-three houses were smouldering ruins. The air support promised from Algiers never arrived. In the town about forty wounded maquisards were captured, then tortured and shot. On August 18, the last of the German troops pulled out of Vercors when the Allied landings began in the south of France. Some 800 people had been killed on Vercors since the first day of the German assault. On August 13, the first American tanks rumbled through the crowded streets of Grenoble. (The whole sad epic of Vercors is detailed in the book 'Tears of Glory' by Michael Pearson)

G.I. RAPIST HANGED

The first Allied soldier to be hanged after D-Day was Private Clarence Whitfield, a black US soldier of the 494th Port Battalion. He was convicted of the brutal rape of Aniela Skrzyniarz, a Polish farm girl working on a farm at Vierville Sur Mer, just behind Omaha Beach, on June 14, 1944. On August 14, Private Whitfield was hanged on a gallows that was erected in the garden of the Chateau at Canisy, five kilometres south of Saint Lo.

GRIM REPLY

General Fritz Bayerlein, commander of the Panzer Lehr Division, when ordered by Field Marshal Von Kluge to hold the line at all costs, replied angrily "Out in front every one is holding out. Every one. My grenadiers and my engineers and my tank crews, they are all holding their ground. Not a single man is leaving his post. They are lying silent in their foxholes, for they are all DEAD."

JAPANESE MASS SUICIDE

On July 8, 1944, American troops were stunned by the discovery of some 8,000 Japanese troops and civilians who had committed mass suicide in the final battle during the invasion of the island of Saipan in the Pacific. Pushed back into Marpi Point at the northern tip of the island, they were told by the Japanese commander, Lt. General Saito, that they would be "tortured and killed by the Americans." Hundreds of women then threw their children over the cliffs before jumping themselves. Thousands of bodies were found floating in the pounding surf, and thousands more piled up on the jagged rocks. Lt. General Saito committed ritual suicide (hara-kiri) his body was then burned by his aides. His ashes, when found by the Americans, were given a military funeral.

CASUALTIES IN ITALY

Allied losses in Italy amounted to 31,886 killed, 19,471 of them were Americans. US losses for Italy and Sicily (1,233) combined were 36,169 dead. British and Commonwealth casualties in the 39 day Sicilian campaign were 2,721 men killed.

FREE FROM COMMUNISM

As Hitler's armies advanced on Stalingrad they overran the Cossack regions of the Don, Terek and Kuban. Hundreds of thousands of Russians willingly enrolled in the German army to form a Cossack Army under the Russian General Krasnoff. Hitler promised that they would be settled in 'lands and everything necessary for their livelihood in Western Europe'. Their new homeland was to be in north-east Italy in the valley of Carnia on the plain of Undine where they would live their national life free from the confines of Bolshevism.

Italian families in the area were ejected from their homes which were then used to house the Cossack soldiers and their families who had arrived in fifty trains during July and August 1944. To the Cossacks this was paradise far removed from their dreary life in the Ukraine. Hitler had named this new independent state 'Kosakenland'. Many atrocities were committed by these Russians against the Italian civilians, particularly the women, causing one Archbishop to write to Mussolini 'It is terrible to think that Friuli will be governed by these illiterate savages'. Discipline was soon restored when General Krasnoff himself arrived. Cossack officers were under no delusions, they knew they were there to shed blood for the Nazi cause. With the Allied armies approaching from the south and Tito's IX Yugoslav Corps approaching from the east, the 'Free Republic of Carnia' soon disintegrated and the Cossacks and their followers forced to trundle north towards Austria and internment by the British.

US AIRFORCE DISCLOSURE

On October 4, 1944, the US War Department discloses that a total of 11,000 men of the US Air Force have been killed in 5,600 fatal air accidents since the attack on Pearl Harbor.

V WEAPONS HIT LONDON

The V1 (Flying Bomb or Buzz Bomb) attack on Britain started on the night of 13/14 June, 1944 and ended on March 29, 1945. A total of 10,500 missiles were launched and 3,957 were destroyed by defences, 3,531 reached England and 2,353 fell on London. The death toll from these missiles was 6,184 killed and 17,981 persons were seriously injured. The last of the V1s (Doodlebugs) was destroyed over Sittingbourne in Kent on March 27, 1945. Three months later Germany unleashed the deadly V2 rockets from bases in occupied Holland. A total of 1,115 rockets arrived over England, 517 fell on London, killing 2,754 people, 6,523 were injured. The V2 attack lasted seven months. On September 8, 1944, at 6.48 pm, the first of Kammler's V2s exploded on London destroying the home of Mr and Mrs Clarke at No 1, Staveley Road, London. On November 25th, 164 people were killed when another V2 rocket hit the Woolworth's store in South London. The last V2 rocket to fall on England fell at 4.45pm on March 29, 1945, on the town of Orpington in Kent. In charge of the entire missile project was Dr Hans Kammler (promoted to SS Major General) In the closing days of the war, a search for Dr Kammler was launched but he was never found.

To this day, he remains perhaps, the only German general to have disappeared without trace.

LONDON AUXILIARY AMBULANCE SERVICE.

During the bombing of London in 1940-41 and the later attacks by V1s and V2s in 1944-45, the men and women of the LAAS, another neglected branch of war-time services, worked 12 hour shifts for a wage of around £2 per week. Driving an ambulance through London's blacked-out streets with bombs falling all around called for courage of the highest order. To recover the dead and dying, some with appalling injuries, and transporting them to hospitals or First-Aid Stations was no mean feat. Dismembered bodies, bundled into body bags, were taken to the largest refrigeration system in London, the Billingsgate Fish Market, there to await some form of identification. Land mines, dropped by parachutes, were another hazard. One ambulance unit, when entering the Thermionic Club, a gentleman's club in Portland Place, just after a mine exploded, found several headless gentlemen still sitting in their armchairs, their heads having been blown off by the blast. There were 139 Auxiliary Stations in and around London employing some 1,200 full-time and 883 part-time personnel, the majority being female. Others were men too old or sick for military service and also quite a few conscientious objectors. For their courage and devotion to duty, three members of the LAAS were awarded the George Cross and nine were awarded the British Empire Medal.

V WEAPONS HIT ANTWERP

The city to suffer most from Hitler's vengeance weapons (the V1s and V2s) was the Belgian port of Antwerp. After four years of German occupation the city was now to suffer the agonies that London had endured, only this time much worse. The first V2 rocket struck the city at 9.45am on Friday. October 13, 1944, killing 32 people. On October 28, a V1 killed 71 persons and destroyed forty homes. On November 27, a V2 impacted on Teniers Square as an Allied military convoy was passing through. The explosion killed 157 persons including 29 Allied soldiers. On December 24, 1944, the first of Hitler's new V4 Rheinbote rockets were fired at Antwerp.

The worst disaster of all was on December 12, 1944, when a V2 rocket hit the REX CINEMA in Antwerp killing 492 people, mostly British troops. Another 500 were injured. Over a period of 175 days and nights a total of 106 V1s and 107 V2s hit the city killing 3,752 civilians and 731 Allied soldiers. Some 3,613 properties were destroyed.

COINCIDENCE

On July 20, 1944, a flight of Heinkel 177s, commanded by Obstlt. Horst von Riesen, was circling the Masury Lakes near Hitler's HQ in East Prussia, when the engine of one plane caught fire. An order to jettison the bomb load was given. By pure coincidence the bombs exploded at exactly the same time as Stauffenberg's bomb went off in the Führers conference room. On landing, Von Riesen was arrested and faced a court martial but was released some hours later when the bomb plot was confirmed.

LOSSES

During the eleven month campaign, from Normandy to the Baltic, Scotland's 51st Highland Division's battalion the Gay Gordon's had suffered 986 casualties among its ranks. On top of this, seventy five officers had been killed or wounded. This amounts to almost a complete turn round of the famous battalion.

COWRA BREAKOUT (August 5, 1944)

The greatest prison break in history took place from the Prisoner of War camp No. 12 at Cowra situated in the Lachlan Valley in New South Wales, Australia. The compound contained Japanese and Italian POW's. On the night of 4/5th August, 1,104 Japanese prisoners broke out, believing that dying while attempting to escape would wipe out the shame of capture. In the wholesale indiscriminate shooting that took place during the breakout, 231 Japanese prisoners were killed and 107 wounded. Only four Australian soldiers were killed and four wounded. Eighteen of the twenty-odd huts were set on fire in which 20 prisoners had already committed suicide. In all, 334 Japanese escaped from the camp and in the hunt that followed, 25 died by shooting and suicide.

Fearing reprisals against Australian POW's in Japanese prison camps, the whole incident was kept top secret for over six years. The Japanese Cemetery at Cowra contains the graves of 522 Japanese nationals who died in Australia during World War II. A similar incident happened at the Japanese P.O.W. camp at Featherstone, New Zealand, when during a stand off between prisoners and guards, the prisoners rushed the guards, who opened fire with machine guns killing 48 Japanese and wounding 74 more.

TUNNEL TRAGEDY

A freight train carrying hundreds of civilians, who had jumped on board because no other transport was available, stalled in a tunnel near Salerno, Italy, on December18, 1944. Toxic fumes from the engine filled the tunnel and within a short time a total of 426 people died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

AIR CRASH

A US 8th Army Air Force B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into the Holy Trinity School in Lytham Road in Freckelton, Lancashire, on August 23, 1944, killing 38 children. Twenty-three others, including teachers, civilians and the three man bomber crew, also died. This was the worst aircraft crash in Britain during the war. The bomber, from the American Base Air Depot No. 2 at nearby Warton, was on a test flight when the pilot received a radio signal to land immediately as an electrical storm was heading their way. The B-24 never made it back to base but at 10.30 am crashed in heavy rain into the village school. The village centre was turned into a sea of flames as nearly 3,000 gallons of aviation fuel ignited.

COPY CAT

In 1944, three of the most advanced strategic bombers to date, the B29 Superfortress, made a forced landing on Soviet territory after a raid on Japan. Stalin ordered that they be impounded. Two were dismantled completely and rebuilt in every last detail. The Soviet version made its first appearance after the war as the Tupolev TU-4.

HORSES

Horses have played a significant role in warfare since the 19th century BC when they were used in Chariot warfare. The last major use of these animals was in Poland when the Polish cavalry used them in a last-ditch attempt to defend their country against enemy tanks. The total number of horses captured by the Allies in France, Belgium and Holland amounted to 10,794. These animals were all disposed of to farmers, except those used for work at the Antwerp docks. In the German army a key element in the field of transport was horses. Non-motorized infantry divisions were allotted 4,800 horses. When the war began the German ground forces had well over half a million of these animals and at war's end a total of 2,700,000 horses had served in the war. This was twice the number used by Germany in the Great War of 1914-1918.

JEEP

Nearly 649,000 of these vehicles were produced during WW11, 631,873 were delivered to the US Army and Air Force. Mostly used to support the Allied armed forces in war. In 1939 the US Military asked 135 companies to submit designs for an all-purpose vehicle. Only three companies responded to the request, Willys, Ford and Bantam. Willys-Overland was granted the manufacturing contract. The word 'Jeep' comes from the code letters GP the G meaning Government and the P a code letter meaning '80 inch wheelbase reconnaissance car' the name given to the Ford prototype and adopted by Willys as their trade mark. When slurred together the letters GP sounds like 'Jeep'. Peak production at the Willys-Overland plant in Toledo, Ohio, was one Jeep every 80 seconds.

VOLKSWAGEN

The 'Peoples Car' designed by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche in 1934 and promised to German workers through the 'Strength Through Joy' (Kdf) scheme. Known originally as the Kdf Wagen, subscriptions amounted to around 280 million German Reichmarks from 336,668 subscribers who were encouraged to save five marks weekly. Not one subscriber received the car. In 1945, the factory was captured by the US 102nd Infantry Division and as the site lay within the British zone of occupation, the British took over the badly bombed factory, fifty-eight per cent of which lay in ruins. A Military Government team, led by Major Ivan Hirst of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, got production going and produced the first post-war Beetle Volkswagen car in early 1946. In March of that year the 1,000th Volkswagen rolled off the production line and by the end of the year a total of 9,871 were built. It soon became one of the world's most popular cars. In the museum at the Volkswagen Works at Wolfsburg, near Hannover, you can see the original Prototype No 3 Kdf Wagen with a astonishing 400,000 kilometres on the clock. In 1970, the 14 millionth 'Beetle' was presented to the United Kingdom.

SHELL SHOCK

The US Army suffered a total of 929,307 cases of 'Battle Fatigue' during the war. In June alone, in Normandy, an alarming 10,000 men were treated for some form of battle fatigue. Between June and November, 1944, this amounted to a staggering 26% of all US casualties.

COURT MARTIAL

During the battle for Normandy, four British officers and 7,018 other ranks were court martialled for desertion. Fifty-nine officers and 3,628 other ranks were court martialled for other offences.

THE LOST DIVISION

This was the name given to the American soldiers who had deserted in France and in Germany at the end of 1945. They numbered around 19,000, many living on farms and working as labourers, as black market racketeers, or in safe hiding places in their new found girl friends' houses. By 1948, about 9,000 had been found. In 1947, the British Government announced an offer of leniency for British deserters and 837 gave themselves up.

NITRO BLAST (October 20, 1944)

During the Allied assault on the Scheldt Estuary (Operation Switchback) the British 248 Armoured Assault Squadron of the Royal Engineers took up position in a field near the village of Ijzendijke. No. 3 troop was assigned the task of operating a mine-clearing device known as a Condor, a 300 foot length of canvas hose launched empty across a minefield and then pumped full of liquid nitro-glycerine which was then detonated, clearing a wide path through the minefield. While unloading the nitro-glycerine from three Canadian lorries, a tremendous explosion rocked the area sending shock waves that flattened everything in its path. Trees, farm buildings and military vehicles were set on fire or completely wrecked by the blast. The three lorries carrying the glycerine simply disappeared leaving three large craters on the site. This accidental explosion, the largest in North-west Europe during WW11, took the lives of 26 British and 15 Canadian soldiers and wounding 43 others. Fifty-three years later, in 1997, a memorial was unveiled on the site commemorating the victims. The ceremony was attended by over a hundred British and Canadian veterans.

EXPLOSION (November 27, 1944)

The large underground gypsum mines at RAF Station, Fauld in Staffordshire, was being used as storage for three and a half thousand tons of high explosive bombs. Within were 22 miles of railway track. At 11.10am on the morning of November 27, the bombs exploded en masse claiming 70 lives, including 7 Italian POWs who were brought in to help, and injuring another 22. It left a crater 80 feet deep and covered an area of twelve acres on which lay 200 dead cattle. An official explanation has never been issued as to the cause of this, the greatest explosion ever in the United Kingdom. A memorial, erected in 1990 lists the names of all seventy dead, and states that eighteen of the bodies were never recovered.

GLEN MILLER DISAPPEARS WITHOUT A TRACE

On December 15, 1944, an American Dodge staff car, driven by Staff Sergeant Edward McCulloch of Oceanside, California, entered the small grass airfield at RAF Twinwood Farm near London and deposited his two passengers near a waiting plane piloted by a 25-mission pilot, Flight Officer Johnny Morgan. His passengers were a Lieutenant Colonel Norman Baessell (General Goodrich's Executive Officer) 2nd Lieutenant Don Haynes, the band's executive officer (there only to see the plane off) and the American band leader, Glenn Miller. At 13.55 PM, the small UC-64A single engined Norseman plane with its three occupants took off on a flight to Paris. Nothing was ever heard of the plane again. In Paris, members of the band waited in their Hotel des Olympiades for news, only to be told that Glen Miller was missing. (On Christmas Eve the band was greeted with wild enthusiasm as it played its first concert without their leader).

On the same day, December 15, a force of 138 RAF Lancaster bombers was returning from an aborted raid on Siege (east of Cologne). Carrying a full bomb load, the Lancaster was a difficult plane to land, and in such circumstances all bombers had to jettison their load over the Channel in an area designated as the 'Southern Jettison Area'. While jettisoning their bomb loads, the crew of a Lancaster from 149 Squadron saw a small plane crash into the sea below them. Forty-two years later, when the Lancaster crew were traced and contacted in New Zealand, they swore that the plane they had seen was a Norseman. The mystery remains to this day. Did the Norseman stray off course into the prohibited area only to be downed by bombs falling from the Lancaster bombers above? The chances of finding the small plane on the bed of the Channel are a million to one against.

Glenn Miller gave his last concert at the Queensbury All Services Club in Soho, London, on December 12, 1944. Later, in 1945, one of the venues for a band concert, without their leader, was at Nuremberg Stadium in Germany. Performed in front of thousands of cheering GIs on the same field where many Hitler Youth ceremonies took place. Today, the control tower at Twinwood Farm has been completely refurbished and dedicated to Major Glen Miller and the American Band of the AEF. For full details of the Glen Miller Band during their six months stay in Britain, see Chris Way's book "Glen Miller in Britain Then and Now".

WAR DIARY

General Eisenhower's talents did not greatly impress the British General Montgomery. At the end of Montgomery's war diary, a special note, written by the famous general, stated "And so the campaign in Northwest Europe is finished. I am glad; it has been a tough business ... the Supreme Commander had no firm ideas as to how to conduct the war and was 'blown about by the wind' all over the place ... the staff at SHAEF were completely out of their depth all the time. The point to understand is if we had run the show properly the war could have been finished by Christmas, 1944. The blame for this must rest with the Americans. To balance this it is merely necessary to say one thing, i.e. if the Americans had not come along and lent a hand , we would never have won the war at all."

ROYAL AIR FORCE CASUALTIES

During the first six months of 1944, out of each 1,000 bomber crews who had flown missions during that period, 712 were reported killed or missing and 175 were wounded...an 89 percent casualty rate.

BRITISH AIR RAID CASUALTIES IN 1944

In the first four months 1,493 persons were killed and 2,871 injured in air raids. In April, for the first time in four years, there were no casualties reported. In June, Hitler's V1 flying bombs killed 1,935 persons and wounded 5,906. In July the V2 rockets killed 2,441 and injured 7,107. In the next five months, casualties amounted to 1,548 deaths and 6,055 wounded. (There were 60,585 British civilian deaths from air raids during the war, 86,175 were seriously wounded)

1945
OPERATION 'BODENPLATTE'

On January 1, 1945, the German Luftwaffe launched a surprise attack on thirteen British and American held airfields in Belgium and northern France. Around 800 aircraft, mostly Focke Wulf Fw190s and Messerschmitt Bf109s took part in this low level attack. A total of 224 Allied aircraft were destroyed, the RAF lost 144 planes, with a further 84 damaged beyond repair. Pilot losses were minimal. On the way there and back, around one hundred Luftwaffe planes were shot down by their own anti-aircraft ground batteries whose officers were not warned of the planned assault.

SPECIAL TRAIN (Sonderzug)

Hitler's private train was pulled by two locomotives and including two armoured railroad cars. The train was originally named 'Amerika' and after the United States entered the war the name was changed to 'Brandenburg' and was last used by Hitler on January 15, 1945, when he left the Führer Headquarters at Adlerhorst at 6pm and arrived back in Berlin the next day. This train was used by Hitler during the attack on Poland and during the war a total of thirteen H/Qs were built for Hitler including the underground bunker at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. The balcony was added in 1937 by Albert Speer who had just been created Inspector General of Buildings in Berlin.

The Chancellery in 1939

The Chancellery,with balcony, in 1945
BATTLE CASUALTIES

The 'Battle of the Bulge' (December 16, 1944, to January 27, 1945) cost the Americans 8,497 killed and 46,170 wounded. A total of 20,905 men were reported missing, most of them prisoners of war. German casualties amounted to 12,652 killed. This final offensive by Germany delayed the Allied advance by six weeks. By January 28, the line was restored to its original German starting point as at December 16. The majority of the American dead , including those from the Battle of the Huertgen Forrest, lie buried in the magnificently kept US Military Cemetery at Hamm, near Luxembourg. It contains 5,076 graves plus the names of 371 missing. The grave of General George S. Patton is also located here, the inscription on his Italian marble cross reading... George S. Patton Jnr... General Third Army... California... Dec 21, 1945.

General Patton's car after the crash. This 1939 French assembled Cadillac is on display at the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armour at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
LIBERATION

On January 26, 1945, Red Army troops liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Among the 2,819 prisoners found alive (including 180 children) were 754 Poles, 542 Hungarians, 346 French, 315 Czechs, 180 Russians, 159 Dutch, 143 Yugoslavians, 76 Greeks, 52 Rumanians, and 41 Belgians. Of these, 223 were suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis. As well as the living, 536 dead corpses were found in the grounds of the camp. Most had died from hunger and pure physical exhaustion. For the survivors in the camp a new source of terror emerged as the Soviet troops set about raping the female prisoners including many Soviet women prisoners. Eighty-four days after the liberation the Red Army was in Berlin. Around 50 British Jews died in Auschwitz, most had emigrated to France, Belgium or Holland before the war.
(It is not generally known but in Auschwitz a brothel was established to give incentives to those hard working slave prisoners. Block 24 was emptied and the first floor turned into a brothel. Girls were picked from the non-Jewish prisoners and forced to work in the brothel. Visits were only allowed if the prisoner had a special voucher which was issued only to those prisoners who were well and fit enough to work. No male Jews were given these vouchers)

THE EDDIE SLOVIK EXECUTION

At 10.05am on January 31, 1945, Private Eddie D. Slovik, 36896415, of Company G, 109th Infantry Regiment, US 28th Infantry Division, was executed by a twelve man firing squad from his own regiment. The execution took place in the garden of a villa at No 86, Rue de General Dourgeois in the town of St. Marie-Aux-Mines near Colmar in eastern France. Slovik, the son of poor Polish immigrants, was the only American since the Civil War to be shot for desertion. The order for the execution was signed by General Eisenhower. Of the hundred thousand or so GI deserters from the US Army, 2,864 were tried by general court-martial for desertion since the war began. Forty-nine were sentenced to death but in only one case, that of Eddie Slovik, was the sentence carried out. Colonel James E. Rudder of the 109th Infantry Regiment would later write to his men "The person that is not willing to fight and die, if need be, for his country has no right to life". The villa at No. 86 has since been demolished and three residential apartment blocks have been built on the site. The street name has also been changed. Eddie Slovik's widow died in Detroit on September 7, 1979 where she had been living under an assumed name. In 1987, the remains of Eddie Slovik were returned to the USA and now lie buried next to his wife, Antoinette, in the Woodmere Cemetery, Detroit, Michigan. (During World War 1 over 300 British and Commonwealth soldiers were shot by firing squad for alleged cowardice and desertion. Completely ignored was the fact that the majority of these soldiers were sick, traumatised and clearly suffered from shell-shock)

MILITARY CRIMES

A total of 49 US soldiers were hanged for crimes that were committed on French soil after the D-Day landings. In the whole European theatre of operations, 109 civilians were murdered by American soldiers. In Germany, 107 German nationals were murdered. At the same time 214 US soldiers were also murdered by their own countrymen.

In France, there were 181 reported cases of rape by US Forces. In Germany there were 552 reported cases of rape. Those sentenced to death for various crimes amounted to 443 (245 white men and 198 coloured) Only 21 per cent of those sentences of death were actually carried out. (Only one Canadian soldier was executed in WW11, the charge being murder and black market dealings)

SHEPTON MALLET PRISON

Britain's oldest jail was built in 1610 and used for executions up till 1926 when the last hanging took place on Tuesday, March 2. During World War 11 this prison in Somerset was taken over by the American Armed Forces for the executions of convicted US soldiers. An execution chamber was added to one of the prison's wings and a British style gallows was installed as the normal method of US Army hanging was not permitted in England. In all, 18 executions were carried out in the prison, 9 were for murder, 6 for rape and 3 for both crimes. Eleven of the condemned were Afro-Americans, three were Latino and four were white soldiers. Seventeen were of the rank of private and one corporal. Rape was not a capital offence under British law but was under US Military law. Sixteen of the executions were carried out by hanging, the executioners being Albert Pierrepoint and his nephew Tom Pierrepoint. Two executions for murder were by firing squad, the first on May 30, 1944 and the second on November 28, 1944. Shooting by firing squad was the usual sentence in the case of a soldier convicted of a purely military offence, i.e.. killing of an officer or fellow soldier.

Cell No 10 in Shepton Mallet prison was used to store some of Britain's national treasures including a copy of the Magna Carta, the Doomsday Book and the logs of Nelson's Flagship, HMS Victory.

L.M.F. (Lack of Moral Fibre)

Lack of Moral Courage is a subject that has been largely ignored in military history records. This unique and horrendous label LMF was given to RAF bomber crew members who displayed 'cowardice' during combat and were indefinitely banished from his squadron. In the Royal Air Force some 4,000 cases were classified LMF. Sergeants were reduced to the lowest rank and put to work shovelling coal, peeling potatoes and in some cases sent to work underground in the coal mines. An officer was asked to resign or transferred to a desk job in administration. Many of these LMF cases had already completed a dozen or more operational raids, some even were decorated for bravery which makes any punishment unfair and unjust. No one was executed for LMF, the ultimate punishment was dispensed with many years before. Most LMF case reports have somehow disappeared or have been destroyed and it is hoped that the stigma of LMF has been erased from the files.

CAMP X

Established in December, 1941, on a 275 acre farm bordering lake Ontario in Canada, this Special Training School for secret agents saw hundreds of agents trained for secret missions into occupied Europe and Asia. Training was extremely rigorous and involved parachute jumping, hand-to-hand combat, radio operation, secret writing and use of explosives. The camp ceased operations in 1944 but continued as a secret communications facility throughout the Cold War. In 1969, Camp X was closed down and today all that remains is contained in a 17 acre memorial site named 'Intrepid Park' in memory of Sir William Stephenson, head of the British Intelligence Service (BSIS) and founder of Camp X.

SUICIDES

Relatively few Jewish prisoners committed suicide while in the concentration camps, but after liberation, many hundreds took their own lives. The guilt they felt for being alive, while so many of their people died, was worse than the daily threat of death and torture they faced in the camps. Many survivors gave up their faith after the war and refused to believe their Rabbis who tried to explain that the Holocaust was the 'Will of God' a necessary sacrifice to the establishment of the state of Israel.

FLAG RAISING

The first American flag, the Stars and Strips, to fly over Japanese territory was raised on Mount Suribachi on island of Iwo Jima. It was considered too small (54 by 28 inches) for such an important victory so another, much larger flag (96 by 56 inches) was procured from a beached Tank Landing Ship, LST-779, and raised on the Mount on February 23, 1945, just as press photographer Joe Rosenthal took his famous picture. The two famous flags were preserved by the marines and are now displayed in the US Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, Virginia. The first flag raising was photographed by combat photographer Louis R Lowrey but being a less dramatic picture was never given the publicity of the Rosenthal photograph. In the bloodiest fighting of the Pacific war, 4,554 Americans were killed including 170 Navy frogmen who died attempting to clear beach defences on Iwo Jima. Japanese casualties included around 21,900 dead. (On March 16 the island of Iwo Jima was declared secure, only a small pocket of 200 Japanese were still active. The final suicidal assault by the trapped Japanese troops ended in the deaths of 196 of them.

Rosenthal's famous photograph. Three of the men pictured were killed before the island was secured.
OKINAWA

(April 1-June 21, 1945) The only invasion of the Japanese homeland, 360 miles south of Japan. The 81 day battle for the island in the Ryukyus caused losses totalling 107,500 among the Japanese garrison. The US 10th Army casualties were 7,374 killed and around 4,600 wounded. This was the highest losses suffered by the Americans in the Pacific War. For the first time large numbers of enemy troops surrendered, a total of 7,400.The commanding general of the Japanese forces, Lieutenant General Mitsuru Ushijima, committed suicide. The commander of the Japanese naval base, Admiral Minoru Ota, also committed suicide. In all, 234,183 persons were killed. This included Japanese and US soldiers, Korean labourers and Okinawa residents. All their names can be seen today inscribed on 114 stone Memorials. Just before the invasion, US forces discovered around 350 Japanese suicide boats in nearby Kerama Islands. All were positioned for attacks on Allied ships in the expected invasion of Okinawa. The US Navy lost 4,907 men and 36 ships. The ferocity of the Japanese defenders was a key consideration in the decision to drop the atomic bomb on the Japanese homeland although conventional fire-bombing had killed more civilians than the two atomic bombs. Without the nuclear bombs the Japanese would have probably surrendered anyway. (It was here on Ie Shima, near Okinawa, that American war correspondent Ernie Pyle (aged 44) was shot dead by a sniper on April 18. His grave is in the Punchbowl Cemetery, Honolulu. In the six days of fighting for the island, 4,706 Japanese troops were killed)

OPERATION 'STARVATION'

The code name for the American attempt to starve the Japanese into submission in early August, 1945. The US Navy and Air Force blockaded Japan's inner waters and harbours by laying 12,135 mines the result of which around 670 ships of all sizes were sunk or put out of commission. On August 6 the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and the second bomb dropped on Nagasaki on the 9th. Japan agreed to surrender unconditionally on August 14. (Japanese casualties in all theatres from 1937 to 1945 were 1,140,429 killed in action)

BOMBING MISSION

On Saturday, March 3, 1945, fifty-six RAF B25 Mitchell bombers appeared over the Hague in Holland. Their mission was to bomb the V-2 rocket sites situated in the woods just outside the city. Inadvertently the bombs started to fall on Bezuedenhout, a residential suburb of the city and at least a mile from the V-2 sites. Over 3,000 houses were destroyed and 511 of its citizens killed. In all, around 12,000 people were rendered homeless. An inquiry by the RAF revealed that the tragedy was the fault of the aircrew briefing officer who had read the horizontal and vertical co-ordinates the wrong way round. The officer concerned was later court martialled and punished.

THE LARGEST BOMB

On March 29, 1945, the railway viaduct at Bielefeld, Germany, was attacked by RAF Lancaster's of 617 Squadron, (The Dambusters). The bombers were specially modified to carry the 'Grand Slam' the monster 22,000lb (9,979kg) bomb designed by Barnes Wallace. At almost 10 tons, the Lancaster could only carry one bomb at a time. Piloted by Squadron Leader C. Calder, his Lancaster, one of the 33 converted, dropped the bomb about thirty metres from the viaduct, the resulting explosion caused powerful shock waves to radiate outwards destroying two arches each 1,100 feet in length. The bomb was the largest ever used in war, it could penetrate seven meters (23 feet) of reinforced concrete as it did on the U-boat pens near Bremen. The Grand Slam measured 7.7 meters in length and contained 4,144 kg of explosive. A total of 41 of these bombs were dropped in WW11. A total of 7,374 Lancaster bombers were built during the war. (The last RAF crews to loose their lives in the war were the crews of two Halifax bombers which collided in mid-air during a raid on Kiel on May 2, 1945. All thirteen crew members were killed.)

SLAVE LABOUR?

Just over 18,400 Italian POWs were brought to Australia between 1943 and 1945. Due to a labour shortage in rural areas, around 13,000 were assigned to work on farms throughout the country. Farm owners were obliged to pay £1 sterling per week to the War Office for each prisoner assigned to them. The POW's themselves received one shilling and three pence per week for their work. Food and lodging was free. Labour Unions and the Returned Services League (RSL) bitterly opposed this arrangement, seeing the use of prisoners as a form of slave labour. The RSL complained that Italian prisoners on the farms were being treated as members of the family while Australian soldiers were dying in battle in a war that Italy helped create.

BERGEN-BELSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP

On April 15, 1945, the Belsen concentration camp, near the village of Bergen, north of Hannover, was liberated by British troops. Scattered around the grounds were around 10,000 decaying corpses which the troops had to bury in mass graves using bulldozers. Some of the survivors who had been transferred to Belsen from Auschwitz, stated that living conditions here were far superior to those in Auschwitz. But this was soon to change as trains bringing thousands of inmates from camps in the east began to arrive in Belsen. Conditions became catastrophic during the final months of the war as transports bringing food supplies to the camp were increasingly being destroyed on the roads and railways by Allied bombers. Gross overcrowding, inadequate supplies of food, water and medicines and an uncontrollable outbreak of typhus caused the deaths of about 37,000 inmates up to the day of liberation.

In the few weeks after the British takeover, another 13,000 died in spite of all the care taken to preserve life. On May 2, some 95 medical students from London's teaching hospitals were flown to Belsen to help treat the sick prisoners. But in striking contrast to the distorted press coverage at the time, the Belsen Concentration Camp was not an extermination facility. There was no deliberate intention by the Germans to starve the prisoners to death at Belsen (officially designated as a convalescence camp). No gas chambers were discovered and the crematorium consisted of only one furnace in which to cremate the dead. The Camp's Commandant, Josef Kramer, along with his chief physician, Dr Fritz Cline, quarantined the camp and did everything in their power to prevent the catastrophe, even appealing to higher authority for more transport to fetch vegetables and other foodstuffs from the countryside. In spite of their efforts both Kramer and Cline were executed after being found guilty at the Belsen War Crimes Trial. A total of 86 staff members, including 28 SS women guards were captured. By June 17, twenty had died, some by suicide and others from the rigours of digging graves to bury the dead inmates which the British forced them to do. By the end of the month the whole camp had to be burned down, even the timber building housing the crematorium.

The Crematory Oven At Belsen (Now removed)
One of the Mass Graves (2,500 Dead) at Belsen today.

The burning of Belsen in 1945
FLOSSENBÜRG CONCENTRATION CAMP

Situated in an isolated area close to the Czech border in north-eastern Bavaria, near the ruins of Schlossberg Castle, the site was chosen because of its close proximity to granite stone quarries where prisoners could be used as cheap slave labour. Established in May, 1938, it has often been referred to as the 'forgotten camp' having received less publicity as other Nazi camps. The twenty huts for the prisoners were built to accommodate 300 persons but by 1944 around 1,000 persons were crammed into each hut. This caused serious health problems. Tuberculosis and Typhoid ran rampant in 1944 and resulted in the deaths of around 50 prisoners each day. An estimated 300 prisoners, too sick to work, were killed by lethal injection carried out by the camp doctors. Prisoners were forced to work in winter in temperatures of 25 degrees below zero. Punishment was severe, prisoners doused in water and forced to stand until they froze.

In 1943 the camp expanded into armaments production, producing the Messerschmitt 109 fighter plane. It was here in the bunker courtyard that Hitler took his revenge for the 20th July assassination attempt. Seven of the co-conspirators were hanged including Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Hitlers Chief of Intelligence, General Hans Oster the former Chief of Staff to Canaris and anti-Nazi theologian Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Canaris was found guilty of high treason by SS Judge Thorbeck and next day, April 9th, 1945, was taken from his cell and marched, naked, down a number of steps into a small secluded area where stood the six meat hook gallows. Hanged the same day were Oster and Bonhoeffer. The hangings were swift, the SS did not wait for one to die before hanging up the next victim. The bodies were then burned on a wooden pyre in the execution yard and the ashes buried in holes dug in the ground. In 1945, Flossenbürg and its 74 sub-camps held some 40,000 prisoners, 11,000 of them women. On April 16, the entire SS detachment of guards abandoned the camp leaving 1,526 seriously ill and emaciated prisoners to be liberated by units of the US 90th Infantry Division on April 23. In the week that followed some 350 of these prisoners died. Prior to liberation thousands of inmates were forced marched to other camps such as Belsen or Mauthausen and during these death marches some 7,000 died on the way. Today, the Flossenbürg Camp Cemetery of Honour contains 5,451 graves.

PRISONERS OF WAR IN THE USA

On February 8, 1945, the US Army announces that there are 359,258 POW's interned in the USA. These include 305,873 Germans, 50,561 Italians and 2,820 Japanese. In all, 666 POW camps were set up in the USA during the war.

PUBLIC DOUBLE-HANGING

On February 10, 1945, in the village of Hameau-Pigeon on the Cherbourg peninsula, hundreds of black US troops were made to witness a double hanging. Two black US soldiers (Privates Yancy and Skinner) were convicted of murder and rape and sentenced to death. Among the spectators were twenty French witnesses including nineteen year old Marie Osouf, the girl who was raped and the family of Auguste Lebarillier, Maria's boy friend, who was murdered.

BREAKOUT

Near the town of Bridgend in the south of Wales stood the Island Farm prisoner of war camp for German POW's. It was originally built to house workers at the huge Ordnance factory nearby. During the night of 10/11 March, 1945, an attempt was made by the prisoners to escape. Using a tunnel which had been dug during the previous three months, 66 prisoners managed to get out of the camp, the 67th being spotted by the guards. All were recaptured within a few days.

OPERATION CARTHAGE (March 21, 1945)

At the request of the Danish resistance movement, a force of RAF Mosquitos from 487, 464 and 21 Squadrons of 140 Wing, escorted by Mustangs of Fighter Command, attacked the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen. The Gestapo had taken over the five storey Shell House, the pre-war H/Q of the Shell Petroleum Company. On the day of the raid it housed a large number of Danish resistance fighters who had been arrested and were being interrogated as the first bombs fell. Some prisoners were killed but 30 escaped during the bombing. Some 151 Gestapo agents and their Danish collaborators were also killed.

Although the raid was a success, a horrific tragedy occurred nearby. One of the Mosquitos, on its bombing run, struck a light mast in the railway goods yard, veered to the left and crashed in a ball of fire near the Jeanne d'Arc Catholic School. The fire and smoke from the crash was mistakenly targeted by the next wave of Mosquitos which dropped their bombs on and around the crash site. The resulting fires soon spread to other buildings and eventually engulfed the school which burned to the ground in less than two hours. Eighty-six children and ten teachers lost their lives in this tragedy and sixty-seven were injured. When rescuers reached the school cellers they found the bodies of forty-two children huddled together. They had all drowned in water from the firemen's hoses.

SAFE BET

On March 27, 1945, Argentina declared war on the Axis powers, thus bringing the number of countries fighting against the Axis to 53. Another latecomer was Turkey who remained neutral through most of the conflict but declared war on Germany in January, 1945. This was followed by Paraguay on February 8, Egypt on February 24, Lebanon on February 27, Saudi Arabia on March 1 and finally Finland on March 3.

ANTI-RED

On March 27, 1945, sixteen prominent anti-communist Poles were invited to a conference with Russian officials to discus political matters. All were arrested on arrival, sent to Moscow and imprisoned. Thus, the mighty Soviet Union eliminated the last vestige of anti-communist leadership in Poland.

END OF AN ERA

On March 29, 1945, the British Empire Air Training Scheme was officially ended. Training schools were located in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Southern Rhodesia. Trained in these schools were 168,662 aircrew including 75,152 pilots, 40,452 navigators, 15,148 bomb aimers and 37,190 other miscellaneous aircrew categories, many of whom were trained in South African Air Force schools.

RADIO WERWOLF

On April 1, 1945, the German station 'Radio Werwolf' began broadcasting for the first time from a special transmitter in the town of Königswusterhausen, not far from Berlin. It was created by Propaganda Minister Geobbels to rally the population to suicidal resistance. Its theme, repeated over and over again was "Besser tot als rot" (Better dead than red).

GERMAN 'KAMIKAZES'

On April 7, 1945, the first German 'kamikaze' attacks on Allied aircraft took place west of Hannover. Driven by desperation, the volunteer pilots in their ME-109s fired their cannons at point blank range into a stream of American bombers and then ramming them. Twenty-three bombers were destroyed this way and another twenty-eight shot down by the escorting jet fighters during the battle. On the eastern Front, twelve Luftwaffe pilots, led by Rudolf Escherich from the Fighter Squadron 'Udet' volunteered to form a suicide mission to crash their planes into bridges spanning the river Oder. The mission was a failure, many of the planes being shot down before they reached the target and others failed to find the bridges as the area was blanketed with smoke. With the Red Army across the Oder, further suicide missions were abandoned.

BOMBER WING KG-200.

A top secret wing of the Luftwaffe commanded by bomber ace Werner Baumbach. It was within this wing that the Luftwaffe established its own suicide (kamikaze) units. In February, 1944, KG-200 was responsible for all strategic and covert aerial missions. Operational orders came direct from Hitler's own intelligence service, the S.D. Many of the planes flown by KG-200 were captured Allied aircraft such as the American B-17 and B-24. These were given Luftwaffe markings and colours. But not all, some retained their original Allied markings and colours which completely fooled Allied pilots and ground ack ack gunners. The most secret weapon of KG-200 was the MISTAL bomber, usually a Junkers 88A with four tons of explosives packed into the cockpit. Mounted on top of the bomber was a Messerschmitt BF 109F fighter, both planes controlled by the pilot of the 109F. The bomber was aimed at its target before release. They were intended to destroy bridges over the Elbe and Oder rivers thus delaying the Soviet advance on Berlin. However, though some bridges were attacked, in the end they proved to be a dismal failure.

TREASURE TROVE

The Kaiseroda Salt Mine at Merkers, north of Frankfurt, gave up its secret to the men of the 358th Infantry Battalion of the 90th US Infantry Division on April 8, 1945. Under shaft No 3 and 1,600 feet below ground, the American soldiers discovered a veritable treasure trove. Among the hundreds of kilometres of tunnels and chambers they found in vault N0. 8 almost the entire gold and currency reserves of Hitler's Third Reich. More than 700 numbered sacks were stored, each containing between 55 lbs and 81 lbs of gold bars and coins, laid out in twenty rows. Currency to the value of $241,113,302 was also found in sacks in vault No. 20, this included 110,000 English pounds and in 711 sacks were US twenty dollar gold coins, $25,000 to a sack. In addition to this treasure, SS loot, stolen from the occupied countries of Europe was also stored here. This included over 1,000 paintings, objets d'art and 189 boxes and suitcases filled with coins, jewellery and silverware. In one vault were over two million books including the Goethe library from Weimar. The removal of this treasure, estimated at 400 tons, involved the use of thirty 10-ton trucks to transport the hoard to the American Exchange Depository building on the Adolf Hitler-Allee in Frankfurt.(The city of Frankfurt was captured on March 29, 1945, by the US 5th Division. During the war it had suffered 5,559 dead in Allied air raids)

INTERNMENT CAMP KETSCHENDORF

Established in April, 1945, by the Soviet occupation forces near the village of Ketschendorf in Furstenwalde south-east of Berlin and named 'Special Camp Number 5'. It housed internees who were arrested or kidnapped by the Russian military forces. No reason was given for the arrests, they were simply taken away and disappeared. Many were teenage boys who were never seen again by their parents. At first the prisoners were primarily members of the Nazi Party and members of the SS. Parents of the teenage boys arrested were also suspected of being Nazis. In November, 1945, months after the war had ended, there were still 9,395 persons interned in Camp Ketschendorf. During this time it is believed that over 5,000 internees died due to the catastrophic conditions under which they were forced to live. During 1952 and 1953 the site was being developed by the civil authorities and many mass graves were discovered. Around 4,500 bodies were exhumed and reburied in a mass grave at Halbe. Another camp 'Special Camp Number 2' was set up in the former concentration camp at Buchenwald. It held 28,000 internees, 7,000 of whom died from neglect and hunger. These camps were unknown to the outside world till years after the war.

WRONG LISTING

On April 25, 1945, patrols of the US 69th Division's 273rd Infantry Regiment first made contact with the Soviet Forces in the village of LECKWITZ on the Elbe river. The nearby village of TORGAU has been incorrectly reported as the first meeting place (it was in fact the second) and as such is mentioned in nearly all history books.

FIRST HELICOPTER RESCUE

In April, 1945, Captain James Green of the US Army Air Force, became the first person in history to be rescued by a helicopter. While searching for a downed transport plane in the Naga Hills in Burma, the light plane in which he was flying ran out of fuel and crashed in the jungle. A week later a search team reached the crash site to find Green barely alive. Badly injured, he could not be carried out. Back at the airfield at Shinbwiyang a small Sikorsky helicopter was available and the pilot, Lieutenant R. Murdock, decided to attempt a rescue. Barely clearing the mountains, the helicopter managed to land and airlifted Captain Green to safety.

It was not until the Korean War that the helicopter fully came into its own.

ARCHIVES

On April 17, 1945, a special team of American Intelligence agents searched a castle in the Hartz mountains belonging to Baron Witilo Griesheim. In room after room the agents found, staked in piles, hundreds of thousands of documents representing the entire archives of the German Foreign Ministry. Some documents dated from 1871. When the war ended, it took a fleet of over one hundred trucks to transport the archives to Berlin. The complete records of Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry were uncovered in a salt mine, 1,300 feet underground, near Grasleben. In a room in the Hotel Kyffhauser in Sangerhausen, were found the SS Marriage Bureau Files. The Bureau was responsible for investigating the background of all SS personnel and their brides to be. Permission was granted only to those who could prove to be one hundred per cent pure 'Aryan'.

WELCOME TO LEIPZIG

The task of capturing the German city of Leipzig was given to the US 2nd Infantry Division and the US 69th Division. The commander of Company G of the 2nd Division's 23rd Infantry was Captain Charles B. MacDonald. The city surrendered on the 20th of April, 1945 without much of a fight. As the troops entered the city they were surrounded by teeming crowds of civilians and thousands of armed Wehrmacht soldiers, British and American prisoners of war who were on work detail in the town and thousands of slave workers. The chief of the city's police, General von Grolman, welcomed them with a generous supply of cognac and champagne. Captain McDonald returned to his battalion headquarters for further orders which were to pull his men out from the city. He drove back to Leipzig once more to negotiate the surrender only to find a real binge was taking place, his men now in an advanced stage of intoxication and were really whooping it up with the city's fairer sex. Disappointment followed when they sobered up to find the US 69th Division (General Reinhardt) had entered the city from the south-east and claimed the kudos for capturing the town. But not everyone was happy that April day. In his office in the Town Hall, Alfred Freyburg, the town's mayor, was found seated at his desk, dead. His wife and daughter sat opposite on armchairs, both dead from poison each had taken. Next door, the city's treasurer, Dr Kurt Lisso, sat slumped on his desk while nearby on a sofa lay his wife and 20 year old daughter. In an adjoining room the body of Walter Dönnicke, the commander of the local Volksstrum, lay dead. All had committed suicide. (As Leipzig lay in the future Russian Zone of Germany, the city was handed over to Soviet troops on July 2, 1945. The Soviet occupation would last for the next 44 years) During this 'Cold War' period, for some obscure reason, the Goosestep (Prussian Paradeschritt) was retained by the East German Army until disbanded in 1990.

The suicide of Dr Kurt Lisso and family.
OPERATION ''MANNA'

On April 29, 1945, eighteen aircraft of No 153 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, began dropping food parcels from a height of 400 feet to the starving Dutch civilians. In the winter of 44/45, the 'Hunger Winter' as the Dutch call it, northern Holland and the heavily populated cities in Western Holland was still under German occupation. Around 18,000 of the elder, sick and young had died through sickness and lack of sufficient food. Churchill had written on April 10th, 'I fear we may soon be in the presence of a great tragedy'. The first food drop (284 bags) was over Ypenburg, near the Hague, subsequent drops were on the Dundigt Racecourse. Before the food-drop operation began an agreement was reached whereby German anti-aircraft units would not fire on low flying aircraft dropping food. This was agreed to by the then Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands, Artur Seyss-Inquart, who was later found guilty of participating in the deportation of Jews. (He was hanged at Nuremberg on October 16, 1946) Over the next ten days the squadron flew 111 sorties, dropping 7,029 tons of the much needed food. Soon, on May 2nd, the US 8th Army Air Force with their B-17s joined in the rescue operation dropping a further 4,155 tons. In Holland today, the 5th of May is celebrated as Liberation Day. It is estimated that about 50,000 Dutch civilians died during the war because medical help was not available.

THE COST

The liberation of Holland cost the lives of over 50,000 Allied soldiers. Altogether 4,500 Dutch soldiers died for their country as did 258 POWs who died in German prison camps. At sea, a total of 1,500 Dutch sailors lost their lives and 104,000 Dutch Jews were exterminated. Some 23,000 citizens died in air-raids and over 5,000 died in concentration camps. Of the half million men transported to Germany as slave labour, 30,000 never returned. Executions and massacres claimed over 2,800 victims, 19 of whom were women. In all, 237,300 Netherlanders perished during the Nazi occupation. This does not include the 10,000 Dutch pro-Nazis who died fighting on the German side.

DUTCH TRAITORS

About 25,000 Dutchmen were pro-Nazi and fought for Germany. Around 10,000 of them were killed during the war and although many Dutchmen fought bravely on the Allied side, it is a sad fact that more went into battle wearing the field grey uniform of the enemy than in the British khaki.

GRAND THEFT IN HOLLAND

The loot the Germans transported back to the Reich from Holland was staggering:

13,786 metal working machines
2,729 textile machines
18,098 electric motors
358 printing presses
31 dredgers
over 7,000 barges
90,000 lengths of railway line and a half million sleepers
over 60,000 motor cars, 40,000 trucks and 25,000 motor bikes
154,647 kilos of Dutch gold disappeared into the Reichsbank's safes in Berlin
320,000 cows, 472,036 pigs and 114,220 horses.
A total of 346 works of art were also stolen including 27 Rembrandts, 12 Hals, 47 Steens, 40 Rubens and 12 Van Goghs. Most of these paintings were recovered after the war.

FLOODING (May 2, 1945)

In the early morning of May 2, a group of sappers from the SS Nordland Division, part of Steiner's 11th SS Panzer Army, were sent into the U-Bahn and S-Bahn rail tunnels in Berlin directly under the Landwehr Canal near Trebbinestrasse. Demolition charges were fastened to the ceiling of the tunnel, the ensuing explosion blasting a large chunk out of the reinforced concrete roof allowing the canal waters to rush in and flooding over twenty kilometres of tunnels up to a depth of one and a half metres. Thousands of civilians and wounded soldiers were sheltering in the tunnels as well as several train carriages acting as hospital trains packed with wounded. In the S-Bahn tunnel under the Anhalter railway station, the Muncheberg Panzer Division had set up its temporary command post. As the water rose to over a metre and a half those sheltering there panicked, trampling others underfoot while overhead heavy fighting continued. Casualties were impossible to determine as many could have already died from their injuries in the underground dressing stations set up in some of the tunnels. At the time it was thought that thousands had drowned but a recent, more conservative, estimate puts the death rate at around the 100 mark. Fifty bodies are known to be buried in the Jewish Cemetery on the Gross Hamburgerstrasse.

GRAND THEFT IN BERLIN

Berlin fell to the Russians on May 2, 1945. A Major Feodor Novikov of the Red Army ordered the vaults of the Reichbank to be opened. Still in the vaults were 90 gold bars worth 1.3 million dollars and gold coins worth 2.1 million dollars. Also 400 million dollars worth of negotiable bonds. Major Novikov ordered the vaults locked and demanded the keys. Shortly afterwards the entire contents of the vault disappeared. The gold was never seen again, but the bonds keep turning up even today all over the world! Another six and a half tons of gold, recovered from Ribbentrop's castle 'Schloss Fuschl' near Salzburg and turned over to the US Army on June 15, 1945, also disappeared and no records of it being received at the Frankfurt US Foreign Exchange Depository can be found. In 1945 it was worth over seven million dollars. Much of the gold recovered by the Americans was re-smelted and in the process all hallmarks, Nazi symbols and identification numbers, were erased.

OUR ALLIES (May 3, 1945)

On this day the British 6th Airborne and the US 7th Armoured Division captured the north German town of Wismar. The actual capture was carried out by men of the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion. Just outside the town were the Russian front lines from where drunken soldiers, fuelled by a mixture of vodka and rocket fuel, were flocking into town in search of wine, women and song. The main hospital in Wismar was now occupied by the Paras. That night, a group of Russian soldiers approached the main gate of the hospital and demanded that all German nurses be brought out. Told that no women were here they pushed the sentry aside and entered the courtyard. A half dressed Para pocked his head out of a window and shouted 'They are our girls, get lost'. Suddenly a shot rang out followed by the rattle of a British Sten-gun. The drunken Russians scattered as shooting broke out on both sides. It was all over in minutes, the Russians retiring to their own lines. In the cobbled courtyard of the hospital lay the bodies of six dead Soviet soldiers.

VICTIMS (May 5, 1945)

The only US citizens killed by enemy bombs were a woman and five children. They died in Lake view, Oregon, when they picked up a bomb that was carried across the Pacific by balloon from Japan. The Rev. Archie Mitchell, minister of the Christian Alliance church in Bly, his wife and five children, aged between eleven and thirteen, were hiking through the Fremont National Forest looking for a picnic spot when one of the children picked up something that looked like a large balloon. They started dragging it from the wood when the attached bomb exploded. When Rev Mitchell caught up with them he found his wife and five children all dead. Hundreds of these balloons, 25 feet in diameter, were launched against the USA and Canada but only 290 actually landed.

LAST SURRENDER

The last Wehrmacht soldiers to surrender were a small company on the tiny Channel Island of Minquiers and a group of eleven soldiers on the island of Spitzbergen. A French fishing boat, skippered by Lucian Marie, approached the island of Minquiers and anchored nearby. A fully armed German soldier approached and asked for help saying 'We've been forgotten by the British, perhaps no one on Jersey told them we were here, I want you to take us over to England, we want to surrender'. This was on the 23rd of May, 1945, three weeks after the war ended!

Under German occupation since June 30, 1940, the German garrison surrendered the Channel Islands on May 9. This was the only British home territory occupied by the enemy. On a tiny outpost of Hitler's Third Reich, eleven German soldiers and naval marines maintained a top secret weather monitoring station on an isolated part of the east island of Spitzbergen, code name, 'Operation Haudegen'. Although they were told that the war had ended on September 4, 1945, nothing was done to fetch them back. They survived on canned food and by shooting polar bears until their distress calls were picked up by the Norwegians. A seal-hunting ship was sent to their rescue. It arrived on September 4 and its captain accepted their surrender, four months after the war had ended!.

LIGHT UP

On May 28, 1945, all British and American merchant ships on the Atlantic and Indian oceans were now allowed to show their full navigation lights and need no longer darken ship. Convoys were abolished. These conditions did not apply to the Pacific theatre.

'FLYING BOMB' CASUALTIES

In the first four months of 1945, 1,275 persons were killed and 2,578 injured from V1 and V2 attacks on Britain. On the 27th of March the last V2 rocket fell on London killing 127 people and wounding 423.

TOKYO RAID

The most destructive air raid of the war was against Japan's capital city, Tokyo. During the night of March 9/10, 1945, 1,665 tons of napalm-filled bombs was dropped on the city from 279 US B-29 bombers. The death toll was greater than that at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, the official count being 83,793 Japanese killed in the 30 minute raid. Another 41,000 were severely injured or burned. The Allied air attacks on Tokyo destroyed 15.8 square miles of the city. As of July 1, 1945, only about 200,000 residents of Tokyo remained in the city, all others had been evacuated to safer areas.

TOKYO ROSE

Iva Ikuko Toguri, an American citizen with Japanese parents. War broke out when she was visiting her parents in Japan and she decided to stay on and work for the Japanese Broadcasting Company. She was given the name 'Yokyo Rose' by the GIs who listened to her radio show. Although she never used the nickname she introduced herself as 'Orphan Ann' during her 'Music for You' segment on Radio Tokyo's English-language 'The Zero Hour'. There were more than one Tokyo Rose, American GIs branded all female radio broadcasters with the name and there were at least a dozen but she was the only one persecuted. After the war she was wrongly convicted of treason and after spending some time in prison (about six years) she was pardoned by President Gerald Ford in 1977. Iva Toguri died in September, 2006, in Chicago. She was 90.

JAIL BREAK

Richard Sakakida was a native of Hawaii and son of Japanese parents. As a naturalized American he joined the C.I.C. (US Counter Intelligence Corps). Sent on a secret mission to the Philippines, he was taken prisoner when the Japanese invaded that country. While working for the enemy as an interpreter, he was able to arrange meetings with the guerrilla forces. Their leader, Ernest Tupas, and many of his followers were locked up in Muntinglupa prison in Manila. Sakakida and a group of guerrillas, dressed in Japanese uniforms, entered the prison and overpowering the guards, released Tupas and nearly 500 of his followers, most of whom fled to the mountains to continue their guerrilla activities. After the war, Richard Sakakida was awarded the US Bronze Star for his part in one of the greatest jail breaks of the war.

POW TRAIN DISASTER (July 16, 1945)

A few weeks after the war ended, a US military freight train carrying tanks crashed into the rear of a train carrying German prisoners of war. The POW train had stopped due to an engine breakdown and the US train carrying the tanks had been given a signal by the American signalman to proceed despite the track ahead being blocked. On the POW train, 96 German soldiers were killed and six killed on the US train. This happened at Assling, near Munich and was Germany's worst rail disaster in the previous fifty years.

FORGOTTEN PRISONERS

The repatriation of Italian POW's from Russia took place between September 1945 and March 1946. A total of 10,087 were released from the Soviet camps where many had died. Twenty-eight of the prisoners were considered 'Fascist War Criminals' by the Soviets and unjustly accused of the most horrendous crimes. They were detained for a further twelve years and only after the death of Stalin in 1954 were they released. One prisoner, Father Giovanni Brevi, kept a diary in which he listed all the names of prisoners who died in the camp. Alongside each name he added the cause of death; starvation, torture and shooting etc.

INTERNEES

During the Pacific war, 291 American airmen were interned in the Soviet Union. They were the crews of 37 planes which had to make emergency landings on Soviet soil after bombing operations over Japan. All were interned in a camp near Tashkent from which most of them 'escaped' to Teheran in Iran. The dilemma these prisoners created for the Soviets was that under international law, a neutral country during wartime (the Soviet Union and Japan were not at war) was prohibited from releasing combatants from belligerent countries who came into their custody. The so-called 'escapes' were secretly negotiated between the US and the Soviet Union. (In spite of its neutrality treaty with Russia, the Japanese military contemplated an attack on Russia from the east but in one of the most fateful decisions of the war decided instead to intensify their push south into Indonesia)

DENMARK'S SHAME

As the war drew to its close, between 200 and 250 thousand German refugees fled to Denmark from the advancing Red Army. Six months after the war ended, Dr. Kirsten Lylloff became curious as to the great number of babies and children's graves in a cemetery at Aalborg where she used to live and practice. The refugees, mostly women and children, were at first housed in schools and local halls until later in 1945 around 142 camps were set up for them. Danish civilians were forbidden to have any contact whatsoever with the refugees. Dr. Lylloff discovered that by the end of 1945, 13,492 refugees had died in the camps. This included around 7,000 children under the age of five. Most had died from malnutrition, dehydration and curable illnesses such as scarlet fever. Medical assistance was consistently denied the refugees by the Danish medical authorities and the Red Cross. After five years of Nazi occupation from April, 1940 to May, 1945, the Danish authorities were in no mood to play 'nurse' to these unfortunate German refugees. Fear that they would be branded collaborators by the Allies was another factor. During the German occupation over 10,000 young Danish men joined the German forces to fight on the Eastern Front. Around 6,000 were killed.

SWEDEN'S SHAME!

During 1939-1940, the Stockholm Enskilda Bank (SEB) of neutral Sweden purchased all the branches of the Bosch Group that were situated outside Germany. This bank acted as a cloak for Hitler's regime and also helped the giant corporations such as IG Farben and Krupp to hide their foreign subsidiaries in order to avoid confiscation by the Allies. This association with Nazi Germany did not end there, massive shipments of iron ore were sent to Germany from the Kiruna-Gällivare ore fields in Northern Sweden. There is no doubt that this material support helped extend the war by several months. The Enskilda Bank also helped the Nazis dispose of many assets confiscated from Dutch Jews prior to their deaths in Auschwitz. In 1940, Sweden was coerced into allowing German troops to march through the country to Norway during the German invasion.

BRITAIN'S SHAME!

British policy towards the Jews of Europe during WWII leaves little to be proud of. It was the British Government which did its best to block all escape routes out of German occupied territory to these unfortunate people. If they had been treated as refugees and not as prospective Palestine immigrants there is no doubt that much more would have been done to help them. There was extreme reluctance by British authorities to admit refugee Jews to any of its territories. Official thinking in many government circles at that time was that Jews were part of the nations among whom they lived and were not a distinct entity and therefore had no special claim to help. i.e. a Dutch Jew was a Dutchman, a Polish Jew, a Pole, in spite of the fact that they were persecuted as Jews, not as Dutch or Poles.

GERMANY'S SHAME!

About 90% of the German legal profession aligned themselves voluntarily with the Nazi regime. During this time they handed out no less than 45,000 death sentences. The two most notorious judges were Judge Oswald Rothaug, who once sent a Jewish shoe wholesaler named Katzenberger to the gallows for allowing a German girl to sit on his lap, and the Berlin Peoples Court Judge, Roland Freisler, who dispensed death sentences at every opportunity. Freisler was killed during an Allied air raid on Berlin on February 3, 1945, a falling beam crushing his skull. (He is buried in his wife’s family grave in the Forrest Cemetery in Dahlem, Berlin) After the war, only a few judges were ever prosecuted for judicial murder, none receiving a death sentence. After the war about 90 found re-employment in the West German Justice System. In 1941, the age at which a death sentence could be given was reduced to 14 years. In 1940, about 900 German civilians were executed. This had risen to over 5,000 by 1943. Between 1943 and 1945, the 258 Peoples Court Judges and prosecutors had sentenced to death a total of around 7,000 people.

ARGENTINA'S SHAME!

Under the rule of Juan Peron, Argentine provided a safe haven for hundreds of Nazi war criminals. Set up in 1944 by Otto Skorzeny, the escape route known as 'Odessa'(Organization Der Ehemaligen SS Angehorigen) Organization of Former SS Members, helped many top Nazis to escape the justice of the Allies. In 1950 Argentine held the record for helping these illegal immigrants to settle. War criminals such asAdolf Eichman, Joseph Mengeleand Claus Barbie, were among those who disappeared from sight at the end of the war. Pope Pius X11 (Eugenio Pacelli) and Odwal Hugal, a prominent bishop in the Vatican endorsed the hiding of these Nazis and helped their escape plans for entry into Argentina where most lived in relative safety for the rest of their lives.

PLÖTZENSEE PRISON

In Berlin's infamous Plötzensee Prison, constructed between 1869 and 1879 on a 62 acre site, 2,891 persons were executed during the twelve year reign of National Socialism. This included 679 persons from Czechoslovakia, 254 from Poland and 245 from France. In 1937 the guillotine was put in place in the execution chamber, being brought from its former home in the Bruchsal prison in Baden. In that year a total of 37 prisoners were beheaded. In 1938, 56 prisoners were executed and in 1939, 95 prisoners were put to death. In 1942, a steel beam, to which eight iron hooks were suspended, was fitted between the walls of the chamber. The first victims to die by this slow strangulation method were members of the resistance group known as the 'Red Orchestra' whose members consisted mostly of Berliners, forty percent of whom were women. After the failed July 20 coup, 90 persons were executed here for their part in the conspiracy. The guillotine was badly damaged during the night air raid on September 7/8, 1943, when a bomb hit the execution chamber. After this raid, 186 prisoners were executed in groups of eight to prevent them escaping from the damaged prison.

Memorial Urn, situated outside the execution chamber, contains a handful of earth from all Nazi concentration camps.
Part of the former Plötzensee Prison today
JEWISH SOLDIERS

Among the 5,000 European Jews who emigrated to Palestine before the outbreak of war, 734 were killed in action after volunteering for the British armed forces. As the only Jewish fighting unit in the war, they saw action against the Wehrmacht in North Africa, Greece, Crete and in Italy. In Poland, after the German invasion in 1939, around 61,000 Jewish soldiers were among the 400,000 Polish Army men taken prisoner when Poland surrendered. They were separated from their Polish comrades-in-arms and sent to Germany as slave labourers. Not many survived the hunger and brutality imposed on them.

THE JEWISH BRIGADE

In 1944, the Jewish Brigade, consisting of three infantry battalions and commanded by Brigadier Ernest Benjamin, became part of the British Army fighting in Italy under its own official Zionist flag. After the war, the Brigade carried out many clandestine operations as secret vengeance squads seeking out former concentration camp guards and SS officers who had gone into hiding when the war ended. Their method was straightforward, first apprehend the victim for questioning, drive him to a safe location in a wood and there the Brigade identified themselves and then passed out a death sentence. The victim was then strangled or in some cases shot.

GERMANY'S LAST HOPE

The entire youth of Germany, boys of 14 to 17 years, were expected to turn the war around during the last days of Hitler's Third Reich. But reality soon overcame the illusion. The Hitler Youth and the Volkstrum, consisting of old men, were Germany's last hope of survival. These troops were all that stood between Germany and Armageddon. Over a thousand of these boy soldiers were sent to defend the city of Breslau. There, they awaited the Russian onslaught. When it came, every house became a strongpoint. Many of there young boys killed themselves out of sheer terror of falling into the hands of the Soviets but their comrades fought on desperately for days more until the city surrendered on May 6, 1945. These boy soldiers only helped prolong a war which had long been lost. In Hitler's last public appearance he decorated the Hitler Youth member Alfred Zeck, from Goldenau, with the Iron Cross. Zeck was only twelve years old becoming the youngest recipient of the prestigious medal.

HALBE

In a last desperate stand before the fall of Berlin, General Busse's 9th Army, retreating from the Oder, fought a ferocious battle in the forests around the small town of Halbe 40 kms south-east of Berlin. Surrounded by the army of the Soviet Marshall Georgi Konev, all avenues of escape were closed and in the following slaughter the 9th Army suffered catastrophic losses compatible with any suffered in the Soviet Union. As one witness remarked 'The massacre in that forest was appalling, wounded were left untreated and screaming by the roadside'. In this desperate battle over 50,000 soldiers of both sides and many civilians were killed and buried near where they died, in woods, fields, private gardens and roadside graves. It took months for the local population to clear the forest and surrounding area of corpses which were dug up and reburied in the war cemetery at Halbe (Waldfriedhof Halbe) the largest WW11 German cemetery. There are over 22,000 graves, with hundreds of headstones simply marked 'Unknown'. Many markers mention mass burials of 30, 50, 100 or more unknown soldiers. Every year for a decade after the battle, scores of bodies were still being discovered in shallow graves in the woods around the town. In the battle around Halbe at least 20,000 soldiers of the Red Army died, most of them buried in the cemetery on the Baruth-Zossen road. The number of refugees killed is not known but must have been in the hundreds. Auther's note. In August, 1988, my wife and I visited the cemetery, having first obtained the necessary permission and special passes from the East German communist authorities. Our guide, Walter Passoth, from the village of Münchehofe, remarked that he believed we were the first foreigners (Engländer) to visit the cemetery.

Looking Back. As the Russian troops encircled the villages of Halbe, Neundorf, Buchholz, Prieros and Münchehofe, bombing, strafing and artillery shelling became intense. When the barrage subsided, 17 year old Ilse Kutschewsky, who had been hiding in the cellar of her parents bakery in Munchehofe for the past week, emerged to survey the debris of war. Bodies were lying everywhere, on the street, and in gardens. Soldiers, civilians and refugees, those still alive crying out for help. To help out in the local makeshift hospital and morgue, already filled with the dead and dying, she noticed a soldier, barely conscious and with his leg partly blown off. Grabbing a scissors she cut through the remaining strips of skin and muscle thus separating the leg from the body. A tourniquet was applied to the upper part of the thigh but on checking his condition some minutes later she found that he had died. After the Russian's had overran the villages and continued their march to Berlin, the task of cleaning up began. Bodies found on the street were dragged to the local cemetery and placed in a large pit dug by the locals. The unmarked grave, containing around thirty bodies can be seen today just inside the entrance. (Ilse Kutschewsky is now Mrs George Duncan, of Perth, Western Australia, the author of this website)

NEEDLESS WASTE

Australian pilots were needlessly wasted on missions of no tactical benefit to Australia. The last months of the war saw these young pilots assigned to an inferior role shooting up enemy positions on odd islands of no strategic importance bypassed during the American advance. Many were shot down by anti-aircraft fire or crash landed when they ran out of fuel. Eager to participate in the real war further north, which was 'OUT OF BOUNDS' to Australians, they felt 'left out' of the really important operations that were being fought to bring the war to a speedy end. These pilots gave their lives in the backwaters to feed the ego of General Douglas MacArthur who had no intention of bestowing laurels on the brows of anyone but himself and his own men. In spite of his promise that Australian troops would be integral to the liberation of the Philippines, his fanatical determination to re-capture his former home, alone and without the help of his allies, caused great indignation and bitterness within the ranks of Australian Air Force Squadrons.

The campaigns, in which Australians replaced US troops needed in MacArthur's campaign against the Philippines, i.e. New Britain, Bouganville, Tarakan, Brunai Bay and Balikpapan, made no difference to the outcome of the war or the time it took to bring the Pacific war to a close. The capture of the airfield at Balikpapan for instance, cost 229 Australian lives but could not be repaired before the end of the war. At Brunei Bay, 114 Australians died for what was planned to be a British naval anchorage but it was never used. At Tarakan, 225 men of the 26th Brigade of the Australian 9th Division, died in a campaign that lasted 52 days. With the end of active hostilities, the troops were left wondering what it was all about. The capture of the island had not shortened the war by even one day. The campaign had no military or strategic value, some officers described the effort as ‘a complete waste of time’, another said ‘All it was good for was killing Japs and to bury our dead’. (Japanese dead totalled 1,540)

WHAT IF?

If China had been a united country and combined the forces of the Peoples Liberation Army with the Nationalist Army instead of against each other, it could well be that the Japanese forces would have been forced to withdraw early in the war. The self-seeking leaders of the two armies, Chiang Kai-shek of the Nationalists and Mao Tse Tung of the Peoples Liberation Army uselessly wasted time in confrontation with each other instead of concentrating on the common enemy, Japan.

RE-EDUCATION

At the cessation of hostilities in Europe a campaign was launched by the Allies to re-educate the Germans in the hope that they (the Germans) would grovel, stoop, cringe and beg forgiveness. In a country 60% devastated by war and with chaos and disorder everywhere, the Allies forced 2,000 German civilians to watch a film titled 'Todesmühlen' (Mills of Death) screening at ten different cinemas. In the film, scenes from the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Belsen, Dachau and Nordhausen were shown. About half the audience choose not to respond but the 1,040 who did said the film should be shown to all Germans. The surprising thing was that 85.5% felt no sense of collective guilt. 82% admitted that they had no knowledge of the Nazi death camps. 70% said they thought the German people should not share responsibility. Few civilians in Germany bought the idea of collective guilt. The film 'Todesmühlen' as a re-education device, was a total failure.

PIERRE LAVAL (1883-1945)

Three times Prime Minister of France, the third time head of the French Vichy Government, he was given asylum in Spain when the Allied armies invaded France. On July 31, 1945, he was flown to Linz in Austria and there he gave himself up to the US authorities who promptly turned him over to the French army. Eventually he was tried by a French court and sentenced to death for treason. After a failed attempt at suicide he was executed by firing squad. (He is buried in the Cimetiere de Montparnasse in Paris)

FEAR IN WAR

In a research into Fear in Combat, the US Army questioned the men of four divisions, a total of 6,020 men.

304 admitted to a violent pounding of the heart
254 to a sinking stomach feeling
207 to shaking and trembling
190 to a sick stomach
183 to coming out in a cold sweat
74 to vomiting
46 to losing control of the bowels
28 to urinating in their pants.
US SERVICEMEN: FIT FOR DUTY?

From 1941 to 1945, a total of 17,955,000 Americans were medically examined for induction into the armed forces. Some 6,420,000 (35.8 percent) were rejected as unfit because of some physical disability. Altogether, 16,112,566 Americans served their country in World War 11. A total of 38.8 percent (6,332,000) were volunteers. In all, 405,399 American service men and women gave up their lives in a war that cost the US $288 Billion Dollars.

A LONG WAR

The last Japanese soldier to surrender was Captain Fumio Nakahira who held out until April, 1980, before being discovered at Mt. Halcon on Mindoro Island in the Philippines. Before that, there was Onoda Hiroo, discovered in the jungle of Lubang Island on March 11, 1974, twenty-nine years after the war ended. He has since published a book 'No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War'. Nakamura Teruo was discovered on the island of Morotai on December 18, 1974, still believing the war was on. Sergeant Yoloi Shoichi survived in the jungles of Guam until found on January 24, 1972. He died in September, 1997 at the age of 82.

RAPE IN WAR

The rape of Jewish women by Nazi forces is well documented. After the attack on Poland in September,1939, mass rape of Jewish women was an everyday occurrence. In Warsaw, forty women were taken from the ghetto to a party in the officers mess and forced to drink, strip and dance with German officers after which they were raped repeatedly before being sent back to the ghetto. In the concentration camps, Jewish women were raped by their guards. This of course contravened the Nazi race laws that prohibited sexual relations between 'Aryans' and Jews. At the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials evidence was presented that hundreds of Russian women were raped. Many French women, especially those in the resistance, were brutally raped during the occupation. Not only German soldiers but British and American fighting men did their fair share of raping.

During the occupation of Japan, Japanese women were subjected to mass rape by the soldiers of the occupation forces starting on the first day, August 21, 1945. Over a period of ten days, 1,336 cases of rape were reported. In one instance a woman was raped by twenty-seven US soldiers. In Hiroshima, occupied by the British and Commonwealth Forces, many Japanese women were raped. One young woman was raped by twenty Australian soldiers. On August 21, 1945, Japanese authorities decided to set up a Recreation and Amusement Association (RAA) for the benefit of Allied occupation troops in an attempt to cut down the instances of rape. At its peak, around 20,000 prostitutes worked for the RAA. On September 20, 1945, the first brothel for the 350,000 US troops in Japan was opened. It was called 'Babe Garden'. It was closed down on March 27, 1946 to stop the spread of VD. Unfortunately these brothels did little to minimize the incidence of rape during the first year of the occupation.

SOVIET RAPES IN BERLIN: UNKNOWN TOTAL

The official figures for Berlin rapes by Soviet troops does exist but has never been published. However, Berlin’s former mayor, Ernst Reuter, said that the figure given him was 90,000. In 1945, Berlin had a population of some 2,700,000 of which about 2,000,000 were women. Many rapes of course were never reported and the figure of 90,000 includes only hospitalized cases and doctors reports. Some 10,000 women in Berlin died as a result of rape, many by suicide. The death rate was thought to have been much higher among the 1.4 million estimated victims in East Prussia, Silesia and Pomerania. Doctors were besieged by women seeking information on the best way to commit suicide. A charity institution, orphanage and maternity hospital, 'Haus Dehlem' was forcibly entered by second line Russian troops and pregnant women and women who had just given birth were repeatedly raped. In the Soviet Zone of Germany nearly 90% of females ages between 10 and 80 were raped in what undoubtedly was the largest case of mass rape in history. This included women expelled from the eastern provinces. Among the rape victims were many women who became prominent figures in post-war Germany. Hannelore Kohl, wife of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl was raped when twelve years old, along with her mother while they tried to escape from Berlin on a train heading for Dresden. Hannelore Kohl committed suicide in 2001.

Most German children born in Berlin in 1946 were the result of rape. Women and young girls were forcibly dragged from their homes and raped, the drunken Soviet Mongolian soldiers queuing up to await their turn. For two whole weeks these mass rapes of women continued. Some Jewish women, thinking that their nationality would save them, showed their identity cards to the rapists but none of them could even read. Marshal Zhukov issued orders that any soldier caught in the act of rape after the two week period was up, was to be shot on the spot. Many a Russian soldier met his end this way. No US soldier was ever executed for rape in Germany. As one GI wrote 'Many a sane American family would recoil in horror if they knew how 'our boys' over here conduct themselves'. The psychological effects on many of these rape victims were devastating, future relationships with men became extremely difficult for the rest of their lives. (Between 1942 and 1945, a total of 2,420 rapes were reported in England, 3,620 in France and more than 11,040 in Germany by the occupying troops.) It is estimated that around two million German women had undergone an illegal abortion in the three years after the war ended.

TRANSFERRED

By September, 1944, around one million and thirty thousand prisoners from the Soviet Gulags were transferred to the Red Army. Political prisoners and those convicted of anti-Soviet activities were not released. Further releases were made in the Spring of 1945 just weeks before the onslaught on Berlin. Exchanging a Gulag death for a hero's death at the front was motivation enough for many of these prisoners, five of whom later became 'Heroes of the Soviet Union'. Fed a daily dose of anti-German propaganda and films showing the terrible atrocities committed by Nazi troops while in Russia, they soon became full of a burning hatred for the enemy and longed for revenge. Once on enemy soil they were confronted with signs saying 'Red Army soldier: You are now on German soil, the hour of revenge has struck'. The orgy of rape, looting, murder and drunkenness committed by these ex-prisoners of the Gulags on innocent German women and children was a direct result of this indoctrination. (At this time Berliners were saying that optimists were learning English and the pessimists learning Russian).

SUICIDE ATTACKS

Prior to the proposed invasion of mainland Japan, Operation 'Olympic’ on November 1, 1945, the Japanese military speeded up its preparations to attack the Allied invasion force while still at sea, coming up with some very desperate ideas for suicide attacks of differing kinds:

Thousands of volunteer pilots were hastily trained for airplane suicide attacks. Over 500 aircraft of all types were available for these kamikaze missions.

Around 400 Koryu and Kairyu suicide submarines (five and two-man versions of the Kaiten) would set out on their one-way journey. Also prepared to sacrifice their lives were 300 volunteers for the Shinyo human torpedoes.

Most bizarre of all were the hundreds of strong swimmers who would swim out with deadly mines strapped to their backs to explode against the hulls of the Allied ships.
Just when all was set for the greatest military mass suicide in history, the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. On August 14, 1945, the Japanese ordered all kamikaze operations to cease. The originator of the first kamikaze attack, Vice Admiral Takijiro Ohnishi, committed suicide by disembowelling himself. By the end of the Pacific war on September 2, 1945, a grand total of 1,228 Japanese suicide pilots had given their lives for their Emperor. Their score was 34 US ships sunk and 288 damaged. These included three escort carriers and fourteen destroyers. No battleships or cruisers were sunk.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Just before Christmas, 1946, the ban on fraternization between German Prisoners of War and British civilians was finally lifted. Invitations poured into P.O.W. camps in Britain from British families eager to invite the POWs into their homes for Christmas, the first real Christmas the prisoners had experienced in years. The last of German POWs were repatriated by the end of 1948 but around 24,000 decided to stay in Britain rather than return to their homes now in the communist zone of East Germany. Many of those who stayed behind ended up marrying British girls and raising families.

WAR BRIDES

Around 48,000 European women, with 22,000 children, emigrated to Canada during and after the Second World War. Today in Canada there are some 300,000 children or grandchildren of these War Brides. Over one million American GIs were stationed in Britain in the two years preceding D-Day. Approximately 130,000 were black Americans. Near 70,000 British girls married their GI boy friends and 47,000 married their Canadian soldier. About 20,000 children were born to these GIs and just under 1,000 were black children. By 1950, a total of 14,175 German and 758 Japanese war brides arrived in the USA. In Australia, by 1950, about 650 Japanese girls married their Aussie boy friends and were admitted to Australia when the admission ban was lifted in 1952. Many of these brides experienced prejudice, jealousy and resentment by Australian women who were enraged that their soldiers had chosen foreign girls as wives. Some 7,000 Australian women married their American GI boy friends and travelled to the USA as war brides. Between 1946 and 1949 some 20,000 German women immigrated to the USA to start a new life with their American husbands or boy friends. Most found that they were anything but welcome. (The first US troops arrived in Brisbane, Queensland, on Christmas Eve, 1941).

MEMORIALS

In 1989, in Britain, the UK National Inventory of War Memorials was established. Its database lists around 45,000 memorials to those who gave their lives during World Wars 1 and 11. The best known is the Cenotaph in London, erected in 1919 and rebuilt on the same spot on Armistice Day in 1920. There are 222 memorials marking the site of plane crashes, both RAF and Luftwaffe aircraft.

ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

America's most famous military cemetery, comprising 657 acres, is situated on a hillside overlooking the Potomac River in Washing DC. In this beautifully landscaped area the focal point is Arlington House where Robert E Lee, of Confederate Army fame, lived for thirty years of his life. Requisitioned by the Union Army for a military cemetery during the American Civil War the cemetery now contains over 240,000 graves. The first burial took place on May 13, 1864, when Private William Christman, a soldier of the 67th Pennsylvania Infantry, was laid to rest. In the Memorial Amphitheatre is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War 1. In front of the tomb are two sunken crypts, one containing the remains of an Unknown Soldier from World War 11, the other containing the remains of an Unknown Soldier from the Korean War. There is no Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from the Vietnam War as each soldier who fought and died in that conflict has been identified. Instead a special plaque dedicated to those who died was unveiled on November 11, 1978, by President Jimmy Carter. Also here, lie the remains of 364 Congressional Medal of Honor recipients including America's most decorated soldier, Audie L. Murphy.

KRANJI WAR CEMETERY

Situated near the Naval Base on Singapore Island 22 kilometres north of Singapore City, the former military camp became a military cemetery containing the graves of around 6,000 servicemen who died fighting in the Far East. These include 4,461 British Commonwealth graves, 850 of which are unidentified. From 1936 to 1941 the site became the largest ammunition dump in Asia. Just before the capitulation the British blew up the dump to prevent it falling into the hands of the approaching Japanese forces. When Singapore fell, the Japanese established a POW camp on the site and after reoccupation the prisoners developed a small cemetery in the camp which was later enlarged by the Army Grave Service. At the rear of the cemetery are twelve large columns on which are inscribed the names of around 56,000 servicemen and women who have no known grave. These include the names of those who met their deaths on the Japanese Hell Ships.

N.I.M.T.

The Nürnberg International Military Tribunal began on November 20, 1945. It was conducted in four languages, English. French, Russian and German. The trials lasted ten months in which it held a total of 403 sessions. Twenty surviving leaders of the Third Reich were arraigned before the Allied judges as major war criminals. All pleaded 'Not Guilty'. Ten were hanged on 16th October, 1946, seven were given prison sentences and three were acquitted. Two, Herman Göring and Robert Ley committed suicide during the trial. It is doubtful that Goring would have taken his own life if the Tribunal had granted him his most cherished wish, to die like a soldier in front of a firing squad. Forty Allied officers, including four Genrals witnessed the executions. Thirty-three witnesses gave oral evidence for the prosecution against the defendants and sixty-one witnesses gave evidence for the defence. Written evidence was given by 143 witnesses for the defence. A total of 1,809 affidavits from other witnesses were also submitted. Everything said at the trial was stenographically and electrically recorded. The United Nations War Crimes Commission was established in London on October 7, 1942, with the support of seventeen other Allied governments. On August 8, 1945, Britain, America, France and Russia signed the London Agreement setting up the N.I.M.T. to bring the top leaders of Hitler's Germany to trial.

The evidence against the defendants were, in most cases,documents of their own making on which their own signatures were proved authentic. Some historians believe that the hanging of General Jodl was a miscarriage of justice but by signing Hitler's order to have fifty prisoners of war shot for escaping from Sagan, sealed his fate.

PRISON FOR SEVEN

On July 18, 1947, a DC-3 landed at the RAF Gatow airfield, Berlin, formally Kladow Airfield, in the late afternoon. In the plane were seven high ranking Nazis convicted to terms of imprisonment at Nuremberg. The seven were Baldur von Schirach, Gross Admiral Karl Donitz, Konstantin von Neurath, Admiral Erich Raeder, Albert Speer, Walter Funk and Rudolf Hess. They were then driven in a bus with blacked out windows to No. 23 Wilhelmstrasse in Spandau, better known as Spandau Prison. Built to hold 600 prisoners it now contained only seven prisoners guarded by 78 persons including 32 armed guards, 18 warders and 28 ancillary staff. Prisoners were given the same rations as German civilians. Talking to each other was forbidden, except in the garden. German newspapers were only allowed after May, 1954. Reveille was at 6am and lights out at 10pm. Albert Speer has calculated that he has walked a distance of 31,936 kilometres round the garden in his effort to keep fit during the twenty years he spent in Spandau. After the longest serving prisoner, Rudolf Hess, died in August 1987, the prison complex was demolished, the thousands of tons of rubble buried in the shooting range at RAF Gatow. The site was redeveloped as the Britannia Centre, a community centre for British garrison troops in Berlin. It contained a NAAFI superstore and a picture theatre named Jerboa Cinema, the name taken from the Jerboa Cinema that was situated next to the former NAAFI Club on the Reichskanzler Platz. (Now Theodor Heuss Platz).

TOKYO INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL

Held in the old Japanese War Ministry building at the Ichigaya Garrison on May 3, 1946. Among the twenty-eight defendants there was one Field Marshal, nine full Generals, four Lt. Generals, one Colonel and three Admirals. President of the Tribunal was Sir William Webb of Australia. The trial lasted two years and ninety days. It adjourned at 4.12pm on November 12, 1948. Altogether, 314 cases were heard. There were 207 verdicts and 419 witnesses were called before eleven Judges from eleven countries.

DEATH SENTENCES

In the US Zone of Germany, 462 major war criminals were sentenced to death in 1945. In the British Zone, 240 received the death penalty and in the French Zone the number was 104. Of the 806 death sentences imposed by the western allies only about 400 were actually carried out. In the forty years since 1945, around 5,000 war criminals were hunted down, tried and executed. The search continues to this day.

RE-ENACTMENT

One evening in the summer of 1946, some members of the Chancellery Group, those who were captured in May, 1945 by the Russians in and around Hitler's bunker in the grounds of the Reich Chancellery, were flown back to Berlin from their prisons in the Soviet Union. In Berlin they were made to re-enact the events of the last day in the Bunker for a Russian film company. They were in Berlin for some twenty-four hours before being flown back to Moscow, there to remain in various prisons for the next ten years. The film 'actors' that day included Hans Baur, Heinz Lange, Major Guenche, General Mohnke and Sergeant Rochus Misch the SS telephonist. (For the first time, an information panel, with maps and images, has now been erected on the site of the former bunker to show visitors the exact location).

P.O.W. DEATH RATE

A total of 7,310 British prisoners of war died while in German captivity and 12,443 died while in Japanese captivity. Of an estimated 350,000 prisoners captured by the Japanese in WW11, 35,756 died, a death rate of 10.2%. Of the 235,473 prisoners interned by Germany and Italy, 9,348 died, a death rate of 4%. At midnight on August 14/15, 1945, the unconditional surrender of Japan is announced by the American President Truman and the British Prime Minister Atlee. World War 11 was over.

KILLED BY THEIR OWN COUNTRYMEN

Twelve French volunteers in the German Waffen SS (33rd SS Grenadier Division 'Charlemagne') who had fought on the Eastern Front were in a hospital in Bavaria when the war ended. They surrendered to French soldiers under the command of General Philippe Leclerc, the liberator of Paris. Accusing them of being traitors to France, Leclerc ordered them shot, their bodies left lying on the ground to be discovered some days later by US troops and buried. Years later their bodies were recovered and reinterred in the local cemetery. Inscribed on a memorial above the graves are the words 'To The Twelve Brave Sons Of France, Prisoners Of The Victors, Who Were Executed Without Judgement'.

CUT-OFF DATE
Although the war officially ended on August 14, 1945, Britain extended this date to December 31, 1947, as a cut-off date. This extension was introduced to make allowance for the many casualties who died from wounds received during the true war period to be classified as war dead.

GERMANIA

In 2002, on an island in the middle of the 115 square kilometer Mueritzsee Lake, the largest in Mecklenburg and sixty miles from Berlin, amateur historians discovered the only building Hitler ever saw completed for Germania, the name he would have given Berlin after it was rebuilt. This was a prototype of the bomb-proof apartments he wanted to construct for the workers building the new capitol that would rule Europe. Known as the 'White House' or Festwork-T, it is the only surviving example of the type of architecture that the German Führer would have dominated the new capitol with after the 'final victory'.

POST WAR

When the European war ended, the great debate began. What had turned young men into unthinking slaves of evil? What happened to make them susceptible to the lust for power, to loose all sense of right and wrong, to commit acts of such unspeakable bestiality, to fight with such fanatical courage and without question to carry out the orders of their unscrupulous leaders? After the war, hundreds of non-Nazi priests, doctors, and psychiatrists were interviewed and not one could report a single instance of confession to the criminal acts in which they, the perpetrators, participated. When, on May 23, 1945, SS Führer and Gestapo Police Chief, Heinrich Himmler, gave himself up to British Military Police at Bremervörde and then committed suicide by biting on a phial of cyanide hidden between his teeth, the terrifying bloody history of Hitler's SS came to an end. But its evil deeds will for ever stand as a warning to all nations and in particular to the new generations growing up in Germany.

It was here in the octagonal shaped downstairs room of the villa at 31a Uelzener Strasse, Luneburg,that Himmler committed suicide while being searched. This interrogation centre was set up by the British Second Army HQ Defence Company and it was here also that Mrs Margaret Joyce, wife of William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw) was interrogated by MI5 and held for six days after her arrest.
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All text researched and compiled by George Duncan. Website by Columbus.

LESSER KNOWN FACTS OF WORLD ll PART TWO

* Dedicated to all those who took part in World War II *
Lesser-Known Facts of World War II - page 6 of 6.

This 6 page series provides some of these facts and stories:



More Lesser-Known Facts of WWII
LEBENSBORN SOCIETY

This was one of the most bizarre experiments of the SS. Sponsored by the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, his idea was to breed a race of super pure blooded Nordics. Tall, fair haired and blue eyed men and women, who were near perfect physical specimens, were chosen. Nursing homes were set up (mostly properties confiscated from Jews and maintained with the money from their bank accounts) to accommodate the mothers until their babies were born. They could then keep their babies or put the child up for adoption in a one hundred per cent Nazi non-Catholic family. The first home opened was at STEINHORING near Munich, on December 12, 1935. It was a place that offered an attractive alternative to a hospital birth to many women, especially single ones. The Lebensborn homes offered unwed mothers a place to go have their baby in secret, in pleasant surroundings, with top-notch pre-natal care. "We were treated like princesses," remarked one girl who brought her baby into the world at one of these homes. About 75 per cent of these girls came from the BDM or the Reich Labour Service. A number of children were born disabled and were dispatched to euthanasia clinics where they were either poisoned or gassed.
Later, other homes were established at WERNIGERODE, at ACHERN (Baden) at KLOSTERHEIDE (Berlin) at BAD POLZIN (Pomerania) at WEINERWALD (Vienna) at VEGIMONT (Belgium) and in February, 1944, the home at LAMORLAYE, near Chantilly, was opened and reserved for the children of German officers and French mothers. The number of children born in these homes is not known, as records were destroyed at the end of the war. However, one set of registers was found intact and showed that more than 2,000 births were registered at Steinhoring. In the ten homes set up in Germany and other countries in Europe, it is now estimated that between six and seven thousand babies were delivered. After the D-day landings all the children born in these homes were evacuated to Bavaria to the Steinhoring Home. In an atmosphere of total panic the Lebensborn homes in Belgium, Holland, France and Luxembourg were abandoned. By 1946 these 'orphans of shame' were left to their fate and entrusted to anyone willing to take care of them.

KIDNAPPINGS OF CHILDREN

Initiated as early as 1940, a number of Nazi agencies became responsible for the selection of children in occupied countries whom they thought could be 'Germanized' by placing them in German homes. In Poland these children were simply kidnapped from their homes and orphanages or torn from the arms of their mothers on the street, their only crime being that they had fair hair, blue eyes, or they just 'looked Aryan'. The main reception centres for selection and racial testing of these children were set up at POZNAN, PUSHKAU, BROCKAU, POTULICE and the special home in the monastery at KALISZ in Poland, and in the Lebensborn home at BAD POLZIN. Once in these homes the children were forbidden to speak Polish, instead were drilled in rudimentary German before being sent to Germany already bearing the names of their designated foster parents. In Poland, over 200,000 children were kidnapped by the SS and the NSV (the female counterpart of the SA, known as the Brown Sisters) This is a rough estimate and includes children born of parents deported for slave labour to Germany.

Between 40 and 50 thousand children were kidnapped in Russia and in the Hungarian Ukraine another 50,000 were kidnapped. Children under six years of age were adopted out to German families who were told that their parents were killed in air raids. Children from seven to twelve were placed in special institutions such as State Boarding Schools, Reich Schools, in Napolas Schools (Nazi Political Training Schools) or put in the B.D.M. (League of German Girls). This deliberate perversion of children's minds was one of the most monstrous characteristics of Hitler's Germany. Children who failed to pass the selection tests were simply put on trains leaving for Kalisz or Auschwitz, to disappear without trace. After the war, the International Refugee Organization and the International Search Service at Arolsen under the supervision of the International Red Cross, searched for these children who were put up for adoption.

Only between 15 and 20 per cent, about 25,000, were traced and returned to their families.

COMPULSORY STERILIZATION

This was definitely not a Nazi idea. It was practiced in quite a few countries in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The United States enacted laws as early as 1907, the first state to adopt these laws was Indiana. In all, close to 64,000 individuals underwent the procedure in the US. In Sweden, some 62,000 persons were sterilized over a forty year period. In Germany, inspired by the United States programme, Hitler passed a 'Law For The Protection Of Genetically Deformed Offspring' in 1933. This was not specifically directed at Jews but at retarded and mentally ill or crippled Aryan children and adults. In the first four years of the Law being enacted, around 300,000 individuals were sterilized, the intention being the biological purification of the German race in the hope of creating a master race of disease free Germans. Realizing that sterilization would probably take generations to complete, the Nazi's expanded the programme by introducing the infamous T-4 euthanasia programme designed to rid Germany of its 'useless mouths', in other words a state sanctioned murder plan to include Jews, homosexuals, alcoholics, those suffering from Huntington's Disease and enemy prisoners of war, i.e. Russians.

OSTRACIZED

In Norway there were around 10,000 children born of parents who were members of Vidkum Quisling's pro-Nazi party and of love affairs between Norwegian girls and German soldiers stationed there. For these children the post-war period was a nightmare. They were rejected as so-called 'German kids', maltreated and despised, treated with contempt, in fact refugees in their own country. Considered social misfits, few have received a proper education. To relieve Norway of this embarrassing problem, Sweden adopted a few hundred of these children and around 250 were sent to homes in Germany. Many of these children had fathers who were in the SS and were classified as war criminals. One of the children, now an adult, remarked 'My mother talked to me about my father, but other mother's didn't want to admit to anything. We were their shame.' One of the most famous of these children is Anni-Frid Lyngstad better known as Frida of the Swedish singing group ABBA. By pure chance she found her father in 1975 but later said "I can't really connect to him and love him the way I would have if he'd been around when I grew up''

Since the war, many have tried to get their Norwegian citizenship back but in each case their application has been refused. Up until 1963, any German male who wanted to visit Norway had first to prove that he had not been in the country between 1940 and 1945. In 1986, The 'League of Norwegian War Children Lebensborn' was established. Through its efforts, many of these children have found their unknown fathers. Now, 50 years later, these war children only wish 'integration and acceptance with following freedom from anguish'. Today, the League maintains contact with around two hundred former NS children. About ten Lebensborn homes were in use in Norway during the German occupation and today these former homes are among the best tourist hotels. At war's end there were 500 children still living in these homes. Vidkum Quisling surrendered to Norwegian police in Oslo on May 9. On October 24, 1945, he was executed by firing squad.

AIR RAID SHELTERS

During the war, a total of 2,250,000 Anderson air raid shelters were erected in Britain. Named after its designer, Dr David A. Anderson, they cost seven pounds for those earning over 250 Pounds Sterling per year, free for those earning less. The Ministry of Home Security ordered that these shelters must be up by June 11, 1940, and that they be covered by earth to a depth of 15 inches on top and 30 inches on sides and back. These shelters, designed to hold six people, were 1.8 metres high, 1.4 metres wide and 2 metres long. In the spring of 1941, the Morison shelter was introduced, a low steel cage for use indoors. Cost was the same as for the Anderson shelter. When the sides were folded down the steel top could be used as a table. A total of 38 million gas-masks were also distributed. By 1941, public air raid shelters in London were fitted with 4,000 bunks for adults and 11,000 for children. Bunks were also provided in 46 of London's Tube Stations. Stacked in warehouses were millions of cardboard coffins in expectations of many dead from air raids.

BOMB SHELTERS

After the German Luftwaffe was defeated in the Battle of Britain and the cancellation of 'Operation Seelowe' the planed invasion of Britain in late 1940, Germany set about protecting its own citizens from attack by enemy bombers. In October 1940, Hitler ordered the construction of bomb shelters and flak towers in all the major cities. The cost was enormous. Around 120 thousand million Reichsmarks and 200 million cubic metres of reinforced concrete was the estimate given prior to the work proceeding. Thirty major cities were included in the programme which employed some 80,000 workers and aimed at 3,000 shelters being built. In addition to this, thousands of smaller shelters were built into tunnels, caves and mines. In late 1941, construction was somewhat delayed by the building of the Atlantic Wall and construction of U-boat pens in France. After the war many of these shelters and bunkers were blown up by the Allied authorities but were used first as emergency accommodation for Displaced Persons. By the end of the war, 131 cities and towns in Germany had been bombed. (Air raid deaths in Germany has been calculated at 443,000) One may ask where is the moral justification in killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in the hope that doing so will force a military surrender?

HOME TO THE REICH

This was the motto on the party badge of the Luxembourg VDB party formed in July, 1940, after the German occupation. The VDB (Volksdeutsche Bewegung) was a movement whose avowed aim was to bring Luxembourg into partnership with Hitler's Third Reich. Founded by 62 year old Professor Damian Kratzenberg, son of a German father and Luxembourg mother, its membership grew to around 69,000 by the end of 1942. Most members were blackmailed into joining with the threat of losing their jobs if they refused. After the war hundreds of Luxembourgers were brought before the courts on charges of collaboration with the enemy. Eight death sentences were actually carried out, among them Professor Kratzenberg.

A FAMOUS CHURCHILL SPEECH

In a memorable speech, Churchill asked America "Give us the tools and we will finish the job." But America wouldn't 'give' anything without payment. After two years of war, Roosevelt had drained Britain dry, stripping her of all her assets in the USA, including real estate and property. The British owned Viscose Company, worth £125 million was liquidated, Britain receiving only £87 million. Britain's £1,924 million investments in Canada were sold off to pay for raw materials bought in the United States. To make sure that Roosevelt got his money, he dispatched the American cruiser USS Louisville to the South African naval base of Simonstown to pick up £42 million worth of British gold, Britain's last negotiable asset, to help pay for American guns and ammunition. Not content with stripping Britain of her gold and assets, in return for 50 old World War I destroyers, (desperately needed by Britain as escort vessels) he demanded that Britain transfer all her scientific and technological secrets to the USA. Also, he demanded 99 year leases on the islands of Newfoundland, Jamaica, Trinidad and Bermuda for the setting up of American military and naval bases in case Britain should fall.

Of the 50 lend-lease destroyers supplied to Britain, seven were lost during the war. The first was taken over by a British crew on September 9, 1940. After 1943, when no longer useful, eight were sent to Russia, while the others were manned by French, Polish and Norwegian crews. These destroyers were renamed when they arrived in Britain. All were given the name of a town or city, hence the term 'Town Class' destroyer. During the course of the war, Britain had received 12 Billion, 775 million dollars worth of goods under the Lend-Lease program.

QUOTE

Lord Beaverbrook was later to exclaim "The Japanese are our relentless enemies, and the Americans our un-relenting creditors."

LORD HAW HAW

Born in New York of an Irish father and an English mother, William Joyce lived in England from 1921. In 1933 he joined the British Union of Fascists led by Sir Oswald Mosley. Joyce made no effort to hide his admiration for Adolf Hitler and attracted by Hitler's ideology he and his wife Margaret moved to Germany in 1939 and began broadcasting Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda from a Berlin radio station in Charlottenburg. They lived in an apartment at 29, Kastanienalle, near the radio station. British troops dubbed him Lord Haw Haw after a statement by Professor Arthur Lloyd James of London University, an authority on English language pronunciation, who said that he thought some BBC announcers were too "haw, haw" in their diction. His broadcasts later from the Hamburg studios were listened to by millions in the UK. On September 1, 1944, Joyce was awarded the German War Cross of Merit by Dr Werner Naumann on behalf of Hitler whom the Joyce's had never met face to face.

William Joyce was arrested on the Danish border and charged with high treason. Convicted at the Old Bailey in London he was hanged in Wandsworth Prison on January 3, 1946 and buried in an unmarked grave. His wife, Margaret, was never convicted and settled in Hamburg until 1962 then moved to London where she died an alcoholic in 1972 aged 60. Joyce's eldest daughter, Heather, finally secured permission from the Home Office to have her father's remains exhumed and flown to Ireland for burial in the New Cemetery at Bohermere Road in Galway.

SALON KITTY

Although brothels were officially outlawed in Hitler's Third Reich, Berlin's top brothel the 'Pension Schmidt' was allowed to flourish. Situated on the third floor of 11, Giesebrecht Strasse, in Charlottenburg, right next door to the apartment of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, head of the Reich Security Service, it employed sixteen hand picked girls from all over Europe, specially trained in the art of seduction and intelligence gathering and inducted into the SD. All were forbidden on pain of death to reveal what their duties were.

After renovations, the new Pension Schmidt was open for business in April, 1940. Visitors to this high-class brothel were mostly foreign diplomats, high ranking military officers and Nazi party big-wigs. Cameras and microphones were carefully concealed in walls and bedheads and every whisper was recorded through a monitoring system set up in the basement of No 10, Meinecke Strasse, just a short distance away. In January, 1941, the whole monitoring system was transferred to the Gestapo headquarters in the Prinz Albrechtstrasse. When the Pension Schmidt was damaged during an air-raid on July 17, 1942, it was moved down to the first floor of the building and renamed 'Salon Kitty' after its owner, Kitty Schmidt. (In 1988, the former Salon Kitty was in use as a guitar studio! Kitty Schmidt, born in 1882, died in Berlin in 1954).

S.O.E. ('Special Operations Executive')

The S.O.E. was formed in July, 1940, on Churchill's orders to "Set Europe Ablaze." With headquarters at 64, Baker Street, London, it was divided into three departments, SOE-1 dealt with propaganda, SO-2 with active operations and S0-3 dealt with administration. Its first recruits were originally from the armed forces but later both men and women were recruited from the civilian sector. Speaking a foreign language, especially French, was essential before being passed on to Military Intelligence for a security check. Training courses included Parachute and First Aid training at Ringwood airfield near Manchester followed by four weeks Radio and Cipher training. Physical Fitness, small arms and map reading, were conducted in the Western Highlands of Scotland where all forms of Commando and clandestine warfare were also taught. The airfields at Harrington and Temsford were chosen as bases on which to fly out agents on their secret missions. Among many of its famous secret agents were Violet Szabo and Odette Sansom. Of the 418 SOE agents sent to Europe, 118 failed to return. Only one plane, a Lysander of 161 squadron and its pilot, F/O James Bathgate of New Zealand, were lost. In the town of Valencay, 50 kms south of Blois in central France, a memorial bearing the names of 91 men and 13 women agents of S.O.Es 'F' Section under Major Maurice Buckmaster, who from 1932 to 1936 had been General Manager of the French Ford Motor Company, are commemorated. It was inaugurated on May 6, 1991, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. In 1946 the SOE was dissolved, its wartime role completed.

K.G.B.

The largest secret service in the world, at its peak employing around 200,000 staff. Founded by the Tsars it was then known as Okhrana and in 1917 changed its name to Cheka. In 1922 it again changed its name to O.G.P.U. then to N.K.V.D. and later to M.V.D. In 1943 another name change took place, this time to N.K.G.B and finally, in 1953, to K.G.B. Under its dreaded chief, Lavrenti Beria, it was responsible for the deaths of some 30,000 Red Army officers during the Stalin purges of the late 1930s. Soon after the death of Stalin the army arrested Beria and executed him in 1953.

EDDIE CHAPMAN

A deserter from the Coldstream Guards in the 1930s he then turned to crime. A safecracker by profession and serving fourteen years in jail on Jersey in the Channel Islands, at that time under German occupation, he volunteered to spy for the Germans in England. He was trained at the Abwehr sabotage school at Nantes in France and then was parachuted into England on December 20, 1942, with a mission to blow up the De Havilland aircraft factory at Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, which was producing the new fighter-bomber, the Mosquito.

After landing, he contacted British Intelligence who contrived a plan to blow up part of the factory not in use, giving the Germans the impression that the mission had succeeded. On returning to Jersey for more work, Eddie Chapman (Code Name 'Zigzag') was decorated with the German Iron Cross, the only Englishman thus awarded. After the war, Chapman was also given a British decoration. Later he set up a health farm and died aged 83 in 1997 leaving a wife and daughter.

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

There were 6,034 Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany when Hitler assumed power in 1933. Between 1933 and 1935, a total of 5,911 Witnesses were arrested as 'Enemies of the State'. Forced to wear a purple armband they were considered traitors because they refused to sign a pledge of loyalty to the Third Reich. Over 2,000 died of ill treatment in the concentration camps. Of these, around 200 were executed under the Nazi dictatorship. Jehovah's Witnesses were among the first to be persecuted. On September 15, 1939, the first conscientious objector, August Dickman, a Jehovah's Witness, who had refused military service, was publicly shot. This execution was supposed to set an example to others who would refuse to serve in the German armed forces. In May of that year, the first transport of prisoners to the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp was made up of female Jehovah's Witnesses.

It was here in the narrow passageway that prisoners in Ravensbrück were murdered by a shot in the neck as they were forced to walk through. One of the victims was S.O.E. agent Violette Szabo. Her daughter, Tania, accepted the award of the George Cross on behalf of her mother, from King George V1 at Buckingham Palace on January 28, 1947.
HERMANN HOMMEL

Hermann, the uncle of Albert Speer (Hitler's personal architect) was once engaged to Anneliesse Henkell of the famous Champagne family. She later married Joachim von Ribbentrop who became German Ambassador to London. Ribbentrop was arrested by the British on June 14, 1945, and at the Nuremberg Trials was sentenced to death and hanged at eleven minutes past one on the morning of October 16, 1946, the first of the major Nazis to be executed.

I.S.K. (Internationalen Sozialistischen Kampfbundes)

Composed of ex-members of the German Socialist Party who were expelled from the Party and fled to England in 1928. In England, they formed their own Party, the ISK. It was led by Willi Eicher and from its ranks came many volunteers for secret service work in the Reich.

DEATH SENTENCES

Between 1933 and 1944, a total of 13,405 death sentences were passed in Germany. Of these, 11,881 were carried out. In the first few months of 1945 another 800 were executed, over half of them German nationals. By the end of the war there were 46 offences that were punishable by death.

THE ADOLF HITLER FUND

Steel Baron Gustav Krupp, proposed that all employers contribute a quarterly sum based on their payroll. Called the 'German Industry's Adolf Hitler Fund', it was administrated by Martin Bormann and added many millions to Hitler's coffers. In the twelve years of his dictatorship Hitler disposed of over 305 million Reichsmarks. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was unable to stand trial for war crimes because of his senility and died at Blühnbach near Salzburg on January 16, 1950. However, his son Alfred was tried as a war criminal because large numbers of concentration camp inmates were used as slave labourers in the Krupp factories. He was sentenced to twelve years in prison but was released three years later in 1951 and allowed to return to his position as head of the Krupp Steel Works. Towards the end of the war, the Krupp factories were producing more tanks than it did in previous years, proof that Allied bombing had failed. However, production had to stop because of the bombing of the German rail network. There were simply not enough trains to transport the tanks to the fronts. (Gustav Krupp is buried in the Meysenburg Cemetery at Essen-Bredeney)

THE BERGHOF

Three thousand two hundred and eighty one feet above Berchtesgaden, a lawyer named Winter from Buxtehude near Hamburg, built the Bavarian style house called 'Haus Wachenfeld' (the maiden name of his wife was Wachenfeld). The house was rented to Hitler in 1928 for 100 marks per month. When he finally bought the property, after becoming Chancellor, it was shown on picture postcards as 'The little cottage of the People's Chancellor'. The architect, Alois Delgado, was called in to rebuild and enlarge the house which was then renamed 'The Berghof'.

THE DEMISE OF THE BERGHOF

In the vicinity of Hitler's chalet, houses were built for Göring, Goebbels and Bormann and a special road was constructed from Berchtesgaden to the Berghof. On April 25, 1945, a force of 318 RAF Lancaster bombers unloaded a total of 1,232 tons of bombs on the area scoring three direct hits on one wing of the Berghof and damaged nearly every other building. Of the hundreds of workers and residents who had taken shelter in the underground bunkers only six were killed.

A magnetic attraction for vandals, looters, souvenir hunters and the thousands of servicemen searching for personal mementos, they moved in to ransack the place. Even the badly damaged carpets were cut up into strips and carried away. Shortly before the American troops arrived on May 4, the SS set fire to the house with gasoline. At 5.05 PM on April 30, 1952, the ruins of the Berghof were blown sky-high on orders of the Bavarian government. The ruins were removed and the area seeded and reforested. (The former site is now a level sports field and golf course with a new ultra modern hotel the 'Intercontinental Resort' built on the former site of Göring's house)

April 30, 1952
THE EAGLE'S NEST

This masterpiece of construction was built on the summit of the 6,017 ft wooded Kehlstein mountain high above Berchtesgaden. Officially known as the Kehlsteinhaus, the hexagon-shaped building was built as a conference and entertainment centre for visiting diplomats at the request of Martin Bormann and presented to Hitler on his 50th birthday. The mountain road to the Eagle's Nest is about four miles long and 13ft.4ins wide and passes through five tunnels ending up at a spacious parking-place. From here, a long tunnel carved into the rock, takes one to the elaborate elevator rising 370 feet to the Kehlsteinhaus. Today the mountain road is closed to ordinary traffic, the only vehicles using it are special busses carrying tourists. The name 'Eagle's Nest' was coined by Francois Poncet the French ambassador after a visit there in 1938. It was never known as a Teahouse but today gets confused with the actual teahouse Hitler used, the Mooslahnerkopf Teehaus, situated not far from his residence, the Berghof.


The Kelteinhaus
POLAND

After the fall of Poland, Himmler issued a top secret document to all eastern Gauleiters. In it he proposed that 'racially valuable people from Poland be removed and Germanized'. The masses were to become a 'leaderless nation of common labour'. They were not to be taught anything more than simple arithmetic and how to write their own name. They could earn enough for simple living needs but the lowest German peasant must still be ten percent better off than any Pole. They could keep their Catholic priests so they would for ever remain 'dull and stupid'. All intellectuals were to be exterminated.

It was Hitler's intention to obliterate all traces of Polish history and culture. Even towns and villages were renamed in German.

MERCY KILLINGS

The first discussion on 'mercy killing' took place in the Kasino Hotel in Zoppot, near Danzig, where Hitler was celebrating his victory over Poland. At this time about a quarter of a million hospital beds were being used in Germany's mental institutions, beds that were more urgently needed for the treatment of wounded soldiers. Hitler confided to his personal surgeon, Dr. Karl Brandt, that half of the permanently hospitalized insane patients could be put away, adding that "under no circumstances was the real cause of death to be divulged to the next of kin."

DEPORTEES

Around 400,000 Polish women were deported to Germany to work in factories or placed in German households as servants. Holland and Belgium hold the sad distinction in Western Europe of having the smallest percentage of deportees to return to their homeland. Out of 126,000 Dutch deportees only 11,000 were repatriated. Of the 25,631 Jews deported from Belgium only 1,244 survived the war. One hundred and forty died fighting with the partisans.

GYPSIES

Another group singled out for deportation were the Gypsies. Defined as non-Aryan, as were the Jews, both groups were forbidden to marry Germans. Those already married to Germans were exempted from deportation but were sterilized as were their children when they reached the age of twelve. Before the war, 1,500 Gypsies were rounded up in Germany and sent to Dachau, another 440 Gypsy women were sent to Ravensbruck. In 1940, around 30,000 Gypsies were deported to Poland and in Austria, around 4,300 were transported to the death camp at Chelmno and gassed. In 1942, a special camp for Gypsies was constructed in Auschwitz called Section B11e. During World War II about 231,800 Gypsies were put to death.

W.A.S.P. (WOMEN'S AIRFORCE SERVICE PILOT)

Originally named 'Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron', an organization responsible for ferrying planes from the factories to airfields across the USA and Canada. Disbanded on December 20, 1944, after having delivered 12,650 planes of 77 different types. Of the 1,074 women who graduated, thirty eight lost their lives during the war. This was equal to one fatality in every 16,000 hours of flying. Eleven were killed while training. The first casualty was pilot Cornelia Fort, killed on March 21, 1943, in a mid-air collision near Abilene, Texas, while ferrying a Vultee BT-13 trainer. As of December 1, 2006, only about 350 of the 1,074 are still alive.

These brave women, who gave their lives for their country, were deemed ineligible for burial with military honours. They were given a second class funeral without the American flag.

TUSKEGEE AIRMEN

The name given to a group of black Americans who formed the 332nd Fighter Group as part of the US Army Air Corps. Around 1,000 volunteered for pilot training at the Tuskegee and Maxwell Army Air Fields and at Moton Field in Alabama. About half of them were then sent to Italy and there escorted all-white bomber crews on raids into Austria, Hungary and Germany. They also participated in the invasion of Sicily while flying their P-51 Mustang fighters. By the end of the war, the 332nd had claimed 113 Luftwaffe planes shot down on 15,533 sorties over Europe and North Africa while at the same time fighting segregation and blatant racism at home and overseas. About 150 lost their lives during training and in combat but the Group accumulated 744 War Medals, 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses and 14 Bronze Stars as well as a few Silver Stars. For every pilot there were ten Afro-American men and women supporting them on he ground. In 2006, these little known but gallant airmen were collectively awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of their service to their country during World War 11.

W.A.A.F. (WOMEN'S AUXILIARY AIR FORCE)

The women's branch of the Royal Air Force was formed on June 28, 1939. Their tasks were: general duties, office clerks, operation room plotters, radar operators, telephonists etc. To the control room they became known as 'Boarding School Girls' while many pilots referred to them as the 'Beauty Chorus'. In September of that year it comprised 230 officers and 7,460 airwomen. By 1945 its ranks numbered around 170,000.

During the war 187 WAAFs were killed and 4 listed as missing.

HIDING BRITAIN'S TREASURES

Between August 23 and September 2, 1939, Britain's art treasures and other historical artefacts were removed from the National Gallery and transported to Wales for safe keeping. They were eventually housed, 1,750 feet above sea level, in the tunnels of the slate quarry at Manod, near Festiniog in North Wales. Atmosphere was maintained at a steady 65 degrees F. with 40 degrees of humidity. All were returned safely to London in 1945. Contents of the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum were stored in a deep stone quarry at Westwood in Wiltshire. But the best kept secret of all, was the destination of the Crown Jewels. To this day, the hiding place has never been revealed.

In the biggest financial traction in history, part of Britain's gold reserves, bonds and stock, valued at 7 billion US dollars, were shipped to Canada on the British light cruiser, the 7,500 ton HMS Emerald. Other ships followed with their cargo of 'fish' as it was then called. This consignment of 'fish' was stored in the specially constructed vaults of Montreal's Sun Life of Canada insurance building on what was then Dominion Square. The vaults were guarded for the next five years by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Some sources state that the Crown Jewels were also stored here but this has not been confirmed. S.L.O.Cs strongest vaults were in their building in New York but as the USA was not in the war at this time it was considered politically incorrect to have the gold stored there.

JEWISH REFUGEES FOR CUBA?

On May 13, 1939 the 16,732 ton Hamburg American luxury liner St Louis set sail from Hamburg with 937 German Jewish refugees on board. They believed they had bought visas to enter Cuba. Arriving in Havana they were told that their visas were worthless, in fact, a confidence trick of some Cuban politicians out to make money. Not allowed to disembark, quite a few passengers committed suicide rather than return to Germany.

The ship, under the cammand of Captain Gustav Shroeder, then set sail for Miami in the hope that the US would accept them. This was not to be, the opposition too great as the country already had two million unemployed. Negotiations then took place between Britain, France, Holland and Belgium. England agreed to take 287, France 224, Holland 181 and Belgium 214. On June 17, the St. Louis docked in Antwerp and disembarkation began. It marked not the end of their journey but the beginning of an even more tragic episode in their lives. Those accepted by Britain survived the war but those who settled in France, Holland and Belgium, were overtaken by the Holocaust when Germany invaded these countries. By the summer of 1941 only 167,245 Jews remained in Germany.

The St Louis survived the war and in 1946 was converted to a floating hospital ship at Hamburg.

JEWISH REFUGEES FOR JAPAN

After the German takeover of Poland, close to 15,000 Polish Jews trudged the wet and muddy roads of Poland in an attempt to escape the Nazi holocaust and reach the relative safety of Vilna in the Baltic state of Lithuania. When Russia formally annexed Lithuania in June, these desperate refugees were once again trapped. Russia didn't want its Jews, Britain was unwilling to let them into Palestine, in fact the rest of the world turned its back on these unfortunate people. In Lithuania the Soviets tried to create a communist utopia and anyone wanting to leave was considered mad or a traitor to the cause. Those who applied for permission to leave ended up in the slave labour camps of Siberia. Finally, when 2,140 visas were issued by the Japanese ambassador, Chiune Sugihara, the Intourist Office demanded 200 American dollars from each for their trip across Russia to Japan.

The first group of 72 Jews were then on their way to the Russian port of Vladivostok. From there it would be a short hop, skip and jump to Japan where it was hoped a visa for the USA would be issued. After crossing the Sea of Japan their ship docked at Tsuruga in Japan, the only country willing to welcome them. As more refugees began to arrive they found accommodation in Kobe and in Japanese controlled Shanghai where a one square mile area was set aside for them. This in effect was the creation of the first Jewish Ghetto in Asia. Before the harsh winter of 1943/44 ended around 300 Jews had died from Typhus and other diseases. Worse was to come. A Japanese radio station within the camp was targeted by US bombers. The raid killed 250 people including 31 Jews.

THE FUGU PLAN

As the war situation for Japan grew more hopeless, the big fear was what would the Japanese response be to losing the war. Japan had signed a pact of neutrality with Germany and Italy and Germany was demanding that Japan stop treating the Jews with kid gloves. Would they all be executed as a final show of loyalty to Nazi Germany? It was then decided to reincarnate the Fugu Plan formulated in 1939 to settle the Jews in a new Jewish state in Manchukuo in Manchuria where the Japanese would co-operate with the Jews to build a better society after the war. With Japan's surrender, the Shanghai Jews were lucky to survive the war. In 1948, the state of Israel was created and here the last remaining Jews of Shanghai were resettled.

KIDNAP PLANS

Believing that the Duke of Windsor was pro-German, Hitler sent his SS Intelligence Chief, Walter Schellenberg, to Spain where the Duke was on holiday. His mission, to lure the Duke back to Germany with a promise of 50 million Swiss francs. If this failed, he was to be kidnapped. Schellenberg, thinking that the whole operation was too difficult, hesitated. In the meantime, Britain got wind of the plot and on August 1, 1940 had the Duke and his wife moved, on board the SS Excalibur, to a more secure haven in the Bahamas, where he spent the rest of the war as Governor.

LILI MARLENE

The famous tune was composed by Norbert Schultz in only twenty minutes in 1938. Originally called 'Song of the Sentry' it was first sung by Lale Andersen, born Liselotte Bunnenberg in Bremerhaven, a little known German singer and then forgotten until 1941. German troops had taken over the Belgrade radio station and found they had only a few records to play to their troops in the Balkans. One was 'Lili Marlene' and it was played twice nightly for the next eighteen months. The broadcasts were picked up by Rommel's troops in North Africa and also by the British 8th Army. A British lyric writer, Tommy O'Connor, then gave the song a more sentimental wording for the British troops.

Norbert Schultz survived the war and was congratulated by General Montgomery at an El Alamein reunion. He died on October 16, 2002, age 91, at Bad Tölz, Bavaria. Poor Lale Andersen (she used this name as her stage name while performing in Berlin) spent a short time in prison because she was overheard to say "All I want is to get out of this horrible country". The poem 'Song of the Sentry' was first written by Hans Leip of Hamburg in 1923. In the latter part of the war the Germans had their own version:

An der Laterne, vor der Reichskanzlie, Hängen unsere Bonzen, der Führer ist dabai , Da wollen wir bieeinander stehn, Wir wollen unsern Führer sehen, Wie einst am ersten Mai, Wie einst am ersten Mai.

THE MOTHERHOOD CROSS

This award was first presented on the 12th of August (the birthday of Hitler's mother) to all German mothers of large families. This was repeated annually on the second Sunday (Mothering Sunday) in May. Miniature replicas were issued for everyday use, the originals kept for ceremonial occasions.

The Motherhood Cross of Iron (Bronze) was given to mothers with four children.
The Silver Cross to mothers of six.
The Gold Cross to a mother of eight.
The Cross in Gold and Diamonds for ten., plus Hitler always acted as honorary godfather.
This was a continuation of the practice initiated by President Hindenburg. Hitler Youth organizations were expected to salute mothers wearing the Cross. By 1939 around three million German mothers had been so decorated by what the ordinary man in the street called the 'Order of the Rabbit' (Kaninchenorden).

The Bronze Honour Cross of the German Mother
INTERNED

When the French 45th Army Corps was encircled by General Guderian's armour in France in 1940, the Corps, consisting of 45,000 men was forced to seek refuge in neutral Switzerland. The 12,000 Poles who had enlisted in the Corps, remained interned until the end of the war. All the others, including 29,000 Frenchmen and Moroccans were repatriated in 1941 under an agreement between Germany and Vichy France.

SECOND CHANCE

Just before the 'Fall of France' around 400 German Air Force personnel were held in French POW camps. The majority were pilots who had been shot down by British fighters. Churchill was concerned at the prospect of their being liberated by the German armies as they advanced through northern France. He requested that they be sent immediately to a POW camp in England. The transfer was never carried out owing to the speed of German advance, and so the Luftwaffe pilots were liberated to become available once more, this time for the forthcoming 'Battle of Britain'.

Later, Churchill remarked "We had to shoot them down a second time".

GERMAN AIRCRAFT CARRIER

The building of the first German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin was begun in the Deutsche Werk shipyard at Kiel on Dec 28, 1936. With a displacement of 28,000 tons, it was launched on Dec. 8, 1938 by Countess Hella von Brandenstein-Zeppelin in honour of her father. Further construction of the ship was suspended in 1939 and again in 1942 because of the failure to produce an acceptable combat aircraft to operate from its deck. Work on the ship progressed slowly throughout the war but it never saw action.

At the end of the war the ship was scuttled in the Baltic Sea to prevent it falling into the hands of the Russians. However, the Russians raised the ship and loaded it with war booty. It was then towed to Leningrad in August 1947. Renamed by the Russians as the PO-101 it was then further towed to an area off Swinemünde and anchored as a training target for Russian dive bombers and torpedo ships. The carrier withstood a total of twenty-four hits including two torpedo strikes before sinking. The wreck of the Graf Zeppelin was found in August, 2006, by the crew of a Polish oil research ship belonging to Petrobaltic.

FORT BREENDONK

Situated some twelve miles south of Antwerp, the fort was part of an six mile long belt of defence fortifications protecting Belgian's largest port. Built before the outbreak of World War I it became a notorious Gestapo prison and torture chamber when taken over by the Germans after they invaded the Netherlands in May, 1940. Prisoners included resistance fighters, civilian criminals, Jews and anti-Fascists as well as hostages. For every German soldier killed, ten prisoners were executed tied to posts embedded before a mound of earth. The old powder magazine in the cellar was transformed into a torture chamber where interrogations took place in the most cruellest way. Altogether, 187 prisoners have been identified as having been murdered at Breendonk. Another sixty prisoners died from hardship and malnutrition just weeks before liberation. The commandant at Breendonk, SS Sturmbannführer Philip Johann-Adolf Schmitt, was arrested and tried for inhuman behaviour at the fort. He was found guilty and received the death sentence. He was the only German war criminal to be executed by the Belgians. (Today, Fort Breendonk remains practically unchanged. In 1947, the fort was renamed the Fort Breendonk National Memorial in memory of all those who suffered and lost their lives there.)

LOSSES

The Norwegian Campaign cost Britain 4,400 killed. Norway lost 1,335 men and the French and Polish troops together lost 530. German casualties were 1,317 killed.

GUN ACCIDENTS

Copenhagen, in German occupied Denmark, was a favourite spot for German officers on R & R. In an effort to 'get their own back' members of a Danish resistance group opened up an Arts and Craft shop specializing in scroll work. They offered to personalize the officers side weapons by fitting ivory handles to their Lugers and cover the gun with artful designs and scroll work. Some were customized as gifts for fellow officers serving on other fronts. Trade was brisk, but what was not explained was that the barrels were being modified by reducing the diameter inside and weakening the breach of the gun, which, when fired for the first time would blow up in the officers face. Of course these guns were never fired while the officer was on leave and any 'accidents' at the front were put down to 'casualties of war'. According to Harry Jensen, the only survivor of the resistance group, hundreds of these Lugers were modified this way before they closed shop and fled.

NEUTRAL IRELAND

Although a member of the British Commonwealth, Ireland (Eire) remained neutral throughout the war. The Prime Minister, Eamonn De Valera, refused repeated requests by Britain for the use of port facilities at Cobh, Berehaven and Lough Swilly on the west coast of Ireland during the Battle of the Atlantic, ports that Britain considered essential to her survival. (These ports were closed to the Royal Navy in 1939 just as Britain was preparing to go to war). When De Valera refused to order all German and Japanese diplomats out of the country London cancelled all travel between the Irish Republic and Britain on March 12, 1944. In December, 1941, Hitler had considered invading Ireland and using it as a platform for the assault on the British mainland. If this had proceeded it would have marked the end for Britain. It was Admiral Raeder who changed Hitler's mind, pointing out that in the face of Britain's huge naval superiority it was quite out of the question. The help De Valera gave the Germans was to refuse Britain the use of airfields and submarine bases in Ireland which would have set back the U-boat operations in the Atlantic.

The use of the Berehaven port for instance would have enabled our anti-submarine escorts to operate a further 180 miles out into the Atlantic. How many ships and seamen's lives this would have saved is a matter of conjecture. During the 'Emergency' enlistment in the British Army however, was popular and around 42,000 Irishmen joined the armed forces or went to sea in the Merchant Navy. Eight won the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest award. These servicemen, when returning home on leave had to wear civilian clothes to avoid any political embarrassment should they come home in a British uniform. Thousands more went to England to work in British munitions factories during the war. Whenever an Irishman died in battle he was reported in De Valera's press as having died while working in Britain. (On May 2, 1945, de Valera called at the German legation in Dublin and expressed his condolences for the death of Hitler. In neutral Portugal flags were flown at half mast after the government ordered two days of national mourning).

THE BOMBING OF BELFAST

Northern Ireland was totally unprepared for enemy air attack during the initial stages of the war. Who on earth would want to bomb Belfast? was the thought running through the minds of its citizens at the time. However, this complacency was shattered when late on April 15, 1941, over 150 German bombers rained bombs, incendiaries and parachute mines onto the streets of the city. Panic reigned as thousands of people fled to the surrounding countryside inundating small towns and villages with terrified refugees. At 1.30AM on the 16th, John MacDermott, Northern Ireland's Minister of Public Security, then did something that no government minister had ever done before nor would ever do again, he telephoned Dublin in neutral Ireland and pleaded for help. Fifteen minutes later the city's central telephone exchange received a direct hit which served all local and trunk lines out of Belfast. Back in Dublin, in a technical breach of neutrality, de Valera immediately ordered thirteen fire trucks to be sent north to help fight the devastating fires that spread around the city. Dead animals and human corpses lay sprawled all over the place.

It is doubtful whether the Luftwaffe intended to target the civilian population. The first target flares were dropped to illuminate the harbour and factory areas but had drifted in a light wind across the city and away from the intended targets. This seems to have been the case when on Sunday May 4/5 a total of 204 enemy bombers returned to finish the job on the docks and industrial area. In the first raid 745 persons were killed, in the second raid 164 persons lost their lives. This was worse than the much publicized raid on Coventry where 554 lives were lost. Northern Ireland fielded some 156,000 volunteers to the Allied cause and of these about twelve or thirteen were awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery.

COOL WELCOME

When British troops occupied Iceland on May 10, 1940, to deny the use of the island to the Germans after their occupation of Denmark, the islanders gave the 'Tommies' a cool and icy welcome. Later, Canadian troops joined the British forces and in 1942, when the Americans arrived, at Churchill's request, to relieve the British and Canadians, their welcome was no less frigid. In fact everything was done to prevent them meeting the local girls. When a black sailor from one of the visiting ships was seen strolling around Reykjavik, headlines in the local newspaper screamed 'Black Icelander?'. Does this mean, the report asked, 'that one of our girls will bring forth a black Icelander, despoiling our traditions? The Americans took the hint and from then on, no black American was ever seen again on Icelandic soil during the war. At the other side of the world, Australia had a similar problem when at the end of January 1942, an American troopship arrived in Melbourne to face the ludicrous situation of its black troops being refused permission to come ashore. At this time Australia was zealously enforcing its White Australia Policy. It took another decision of the Australian War Cabinet to have this officious ban overturned. A company of these black troops were then stationed at Mount Isa and took over Hilton Hall which was owned by Mount Isa Mines. It later became the 17th Station Hospital.

A tragedy occurred soon after when 73 black soldiers died after drinking a home brew they had made in empty drums that had preciously contained cyanide which was used in the mines. After the capitulation of Italy, the Pope, Pius 12th, asked that black US soldiers were not to guard the Vatican. In France, Allied commanders decided before D-day that only white French troops could take part in the liberation of Paris. Most French units at that time were two thirds or more North Africans. General Philippe Lederc's armoured division was chosen to be the first to enter the French capitol. It is a sad fact that black soldiers were said to be fighting two wars, one against Nazi Germany and the other war against racist commanders.

DEUTSCHE BANK

Under the direction of Dr Herman Josef Abs (who never became a Nazi) the bank was responsible for financing the slave labour used by business giants such as Siemens, BMW, Volkswagen, I.G. Farben, Daimler Benz and others. The banks wealth quadrupled during the twelve years of Hitler's rule. Arrested by the British after the war for war crimes, he was quietly released after the intervention of the Bank of England to help restore the German banking industry in the British zone. This caused much dissension between the British and the Americans who wanted the German economy crushed. Later, he became financial advisor to the first West German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. Herman Abs died in 1994.

THE VICTORIA CROSS

Instituted in 1856 by Queen Victoria, it has been awarded 1,351 times.

In World War II only 182 were awarded, 88 of them posthumously:

British - 109
Australian - 19 (A VC was awarded twice, to New Zealander, Charles Upham)
Indian - 17
Danish - 1
Ghurkha - 10
Canada - 8
South Africa - 3
Fijian - 1
The first VC of WW1 was awarded posthumously to Lieutenant Dease of the 4th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers for an act of bravery at Mons, Belgium, on August 23, 1914.

THE IRON CROSS

Germany's highest military award for heroism came in eight different classes:

Great Cross to the Iron Cross. Only one awarded, to Herman Göring.
Knights Cross (Ritterkreuz) with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. Only one awarded, to the famed Stuka pilot, Hans Ulrich Rudel.
Knights Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. 27 awarded.
Knights Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords. 154 awarded.
Knights Cross with Oak Leaves. 853 awarded.
Knights Cross to the Iron Cross. 7,361 awarded.
Iron Cross, First Class. In WW11, 6,973 were awarded.
Iron Cross, 2nd Class. Around 3 million were awarded including those to Germany's Allies.
The only decoration Hitler ever wore was the Iron Cross (First Class) awarded to him on August 4, 1918.
It is not generally known, but another decoration was the "Goldenes Parteiabzeichen (Party Golden Badge of Honour) presented by Hitler personally to those who had given outstanding service to the Party. Recipients included Albert Speer, Admiral Erich Raeder and Reichsbank president, Hjalmar Schacht.
GREAT TROPHIES!

The 7.65mm Walther pistol presented to Adolf Hitler on his 50th birthday by the Walther Waffenfabrik Weapon Factory is now owned by Andrew Wright of the Wright Historical Museum at Swift Current in Canada.
This is not the gun used when Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. It has been established that this gun now belongs to a German citizen who was present in the Bunker on that fateful day. However, he refuses to be identified or photographed.
The .38 Smith & Wessen model K Military Police revolver used by Herman Göring is now in the West Point Museum, as is the .380 Colt semi-automatic pistol once owned by General Eisenhower.
Reich Marshal Herman Göring's jewel encrusted baton, valued at $35,000, is on permanent display in the US Military Academy at West Point.
The naval baton of Grand Admiral Karl Donitz is on display at the Shropshire Regimental Museum at The Castle in Shrewsbury, England. Two pennants, the Admiral's pennant and the Reichsfuher's flag, taken from Donitzs' car, are displayed in the Herefordshire Regimental Museum at the Hereford TA Centre.
General Paton's car, a 1939 French assembled Cadillac, in which he was riding when he sustained his fatal injury, can be seen in the Patton Museum of Cavalry and Armour at Fort Knox, Kentucky. The car was repaired after the accident and returned to service until the late 40s. His specially converted jeep is preserved at the Fort Lee Quartermaster Museum in Virginia. His two ivory-handed revolvers, not a matched pair, are also at Fort Knox.
The three caravans used by General Montgomery during the North Africa and European campaigns, previously on view in the Imperial War Museum in London, have now been moved to the IWM at Duxford, Cambridgeshire. His staff car, a Humber, is displayed in the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu.
The leather greatcoat worn by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is displayed in the Rommel Museum at Merse Matruh, Egypt, one hundred miles west of El Alamein
The brass container, made out of a spent cartridge case in which held the phial of poison that Goring used to commit suicide is now held in the private collection of author Ben E. Swearingen of Lewisville, Texas.
A pair of jack-boots, dinner jacket and personal VIP guest book belonging to Adolf Hitler are displayed in the Russian Military Museum in Moscow. These were only revealed after the fall of communism in the former Soviet Union.
HITLER'S CAR

On July 8, 1940, a brand new Mercedes-Benz convertible was driven from the Daimler-Benz AG factory in Stuttgart and delivered to the Reichs Chancellery car pool in Berlin. On July 19, Hitler used the car, a 7.7 litre straight eight engine with the registration number 1A 148697, for the first time when he was driven from the Kroll Opera House where he had addressed the Reichstag. On May 5th or 6th, 1945, Technical Sergeant Joe Azara of the 20th US Armoured Division, which was fighting its way towards Salzburg, noticed a large car secured by wire ropes on a flat-bed railway wagon standing on a siding near the town of Laufen. With the help from his buddies he soon had the car on the ground and drove away. In July, 1945, the car was transported to the USA on the liberty ship George Shiras. From then on the car criss-crossed the US and Canada and exhibited as Hermann Göring's Personal Car. It was not until 1982 that the car was proved not to be Görings but actually one of Hitler's staff cars. In 1956, the car was sold to a car dealer in Toronto and after a time and a couple of more owners, it finally ended up in the Canadian War Museum on exhibit to the public since 1971. Another of Hitler's Mercedes Benz cars (1A 148461) is on permanent display in the Imperial Palace Casino and Museum in Las Vegas. Many other 'Hitler cars' are in the hands of private collectors around the world including the one he rode in (License plate WH-32288) when he crossed the frontier into the Czech Sudetenland on October 3, 1938. The car he rode in when he visited his hometown Braunau after the Anschluss on March, 14, 1938, had a number plate WN 32290.

COLOURS OF NAZISM

Two hundred hated symbols of Nazism, the standards and flags of the German armed forces which were captured by the Red Army, were thrown down on the red marble steps of Lenin's Mausoleum on Red Square during the official celebration of the victory over Fascism on June 24, 1945. The most prized trophy was the Adolf Hitler standard found in the SS Leibstandarte 'Adolf Hitler' Barracks in Berlin-Lichterfelde. Later named 'Andrews Barracks' after Lt. General Frank Andrews, commander of the US European Theatre of Operations. (General Andrews was killed in a plane crash in May, 1943.) Today, the standard lies on top of the huge bronze eagle which once adorned Hitler's Reich Chancellery in Berlin.

The display of captured colours is open for public inspection in the Central Museum of the Soviet Armed Forces in Moscow.

COMFORT WOMEN

The name given to over 130,000 women and young girls, many not even thirteen years old, who were forcibly taken from their homelands to serve as prostitutes for Japanese troops. About 80 percent were recruited from Korea, at that time a Japanese colony. Others were from Taiwan, Burma, the Philippines, Indonesia and China. Far from home and family these poor women, often beaten and tortured, lived a life of fear and desperation and often exposed to the dangers of daily artillery fire and bombing. The statistics are terrifying. At any point in time these 'comfort women' were often raped ten times per day over a period of three years. This meant that the 'comfort girl' would have experienced around 2,500 rapes in a single year. In some war zones these women were expected to service their menfolk thirty or forty times per day. Hundreds committed suicide rather than continue the indignity of being raped. In Shanghai, eighty-three brothels were set up each employing hundreds of women. Many Japanese prostitutes, who volunteered their services to their own countrymen (mainly higher ranking officers and generals) were then murdered to prevent them from being captured by Allied troops. Sadly, thousands of these 'Jig-a-Jig' girls died a horrible death when their ships, bringing them to the front lines, were torpedoed by Allied submarines.China, the first nation to resist Japanese aggression, suffered the greatest harm from the sex slave trade, over 200,000 women were kidnapped and forced to serve the invading troops. Today, these women are in their 80s and 90s, many are lonely, childless and living in poverty after their marriages failed because they could not produce children. They yearn strongly for some sort of justice. The Hague Convention requires that victims of war rape should be compensated.

Only in 1992 did Japan admit that her Imperial Army was involved in the prostitution of women but no apology has been forthcoming. It seems that Japan is waiting for the surviving sex slaves to die. The oldest Chinese sex slave died on February 25, 2005, aged 94. 'The names of Japanese soldiers enshrined at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo are the very ones who did the raping' she said. Designed in the late 1800s the Yasukuni Shrine is a place to pray for the souls of those who died in wars. The Shrine lists 2,325,128 war dead from 1937 to 1945. This includes civilians employed by the government and also Taiwanese and Koreans who served in the Japanese Military forces. (According to the Shinto religion it does not honour war criminals).

CAPTURE OF THE REICHSTAG (APRIL 30, 1945)

At 10.40 pm on April 30 a Soviet victory flag was raised over the German Reichstag building in Berlin. It was not a real flag but a large piece of red cloth. The soldier who performed this act was Private Mikhail Petrovich Minin of the Soviet 3rd Army. There was no camera-man present. The Soviet propaganda photograph we see today was actually taken later on the 2nd of May. It shows a Ukrainian soldier posing for the propaganda picture. This soldier had taken no part in the storming of the Reichstag. Private Minin and a small group of five men (with a promise of the decoration 'Hero of the Soviet Union') were ordered to storm the building using a fallen tree trunk to smash down the front door. Sixty years later, Private Minin, now well into his 80s, returned to the Reichstag for a visit and while there met up with Ernest Bietscher an ex German soldier and one of the defenders of the Reichstag on that fateful day. Any animosity between the two was completely forgotten as they hugged each other and shook hands. The Soviet Medal for the capture of Berlin was awarded to 1,082,000 military persons.

THE REICHSTAG - 1945
The Battle Of Berlin took the lives of 22,349 Berlin residents. In bombing raids a total of 33,420 Berlin registered civilians lost their lives during he war.

STRATEGY

The Soviet strategy for the capture of Berlin was to surround the city first in order to warn off the British and American forces now only less than 100 kilometres from the city. A most vital target for the Soviets was the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics situated off the Boltzmannstrasse, an important centre for German atomic research, in the suburb of Dahlem. Reaching the centre on April 25, 1945, all the laboratory equipment and materials were hastily packed up and transported back to the USSR as Dahlem would be in the future American Zone of Berlin. Only a small amount of Atomic material was found including 250 kilos of metallic uranium, three tons of uranium oxide and about twenty litres of heavy water. Fortunately, some weeks before, most of the Institutes equipment and its scientists, had been evacuated to Haigerloch in the Black Forest.

THE FOURTH SECTOR

When French occupation troops arrived in Berlin in July, 1945, they were without a sector. The Soviets and the Americans refused to budge to accommodate them. It was up to the British to break the deadlock by giving up their two boroughs of Reinickendorf and Wedding to create a French Sector in the city.

THE LAST ACT

During a reconnaissance mission over Tokyo on August 18, 1945, two Consolidated B-32 Dominators No,s 42-108532 and 42-108578 were attacked by Japanese fighters. The American gunners claimed two kills and one probable but 42-108578 was badly shot up and one of its crew killed and two injured. This was to prove to be the last combat action of World War 11.

GRUESOME DISCOVERY

In February, 2006, the remains of around 4,000 German soldiers were discovered in a disused factory building in the Czech town of Ústì-nad-Labem. (Aussig an der Elbe). The remains were found piled high in numbered cardboard boxes which had been stored in the building for over sixty years. These Wehrmacht soldiers had fought and died on Czech soil during World War 11 but were never given a dignified burial. A cemetery in the northern town of Hlucin was chosen as their final resting place, the local council agreeing to purchase land to extend the cemetery.


TRAGIC ENDINGS

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ...

MAJOR RICHARD BONG (1903-1945)

America's leading air ace with 40 kills in the Pacific theatre. In 1942 he served in New Guinea with the 'Flying Knights' Fighter Squadron. A Congressional Medal of Honor winner, he was killed on August 6, 1945 when his P-80 Shooting Star suffered a flame-out on take off and crashed. Major Richard Ira Bong is buried in the Poplar Cemetery in Wisconsin.

COLONEL DAVID SCHILLING (1918-1956)

American pilot with 25 kills in the European theatre. He survived the war and returned to the USA. In 1948 he returned to England with the 56th Fighter Group. Whilst in England, he was killed on August 14, 1956, near Eriswell in Suffolk, when his sports car hit a concrete bridge-post.

SQD. LDR. THOMAS PATTLE (1914-1941)

South African. His score of 41 kills made him the highest scoring RAF pilot. On April 20, 1941, while covering the Allied withdrawal from Greece, he shot down two German fighters before being shot down himself, his Hurricane diving into the waters of Eleusis Bay

HANS-JOACHIM MARSEILLE(Luftwaffe)(1909-1942)

Top scoring pilot against the Allies, with a score of 158 (including Russia). Born in Charlottenburg, Berlin, he achieved fame in North Africa when he shot down 17 RAF planes in one day. Returning from a patrol near Cairo on September 30, 1942. his engine caught fire. Baling out, he was hit in the chest by the planes rudder. Unable to deploy his parachute, he fell to his death about three miles south of Sidi Abdul Rahman. (He now lies buried in the Dorf-Kirche Cemetery in Schöneberg, Berlin). Germany's and the world's top scoring fighter pilot was Erich Hartmann with a score of 352 mostly on the Russian front.

F/O 'COBBER' KAIN (1918-1940)

A New Zealander and the RAF's first 'ace'. By 1940 he had scored 17 kills. Ordered back to England for a rest, he took off in his Hurricane from Bois airfield and as a farewell to his unit, he attempted to 'beat up' the airfield. Misjudging his roll, his plane cart wheeled into the ground and he was killed. (Edgar James Kain is buried in the Choloy War Cemetery at Meurthe-et-Moselle).

HEINZ BÄR (Luftwaffe) (1913-1957)

German ace with 220 kills including 16 Allied aircraft with his Jet ME 262. On the Western Front he was the highest scorer with 124 kills. Achieving 9th place in the listings of top German aces, Heinz Bar died in a light plane crash in April, 1957.

PADDY FINUCANE (1920-1942)

Born in Dublin 1920, at the age of 21 he became the youngest Wing Commander in the RAF. Returning from a sweep across France, his Spitfire was hit by machine-gun fire from the sand dunes near Pointe au Touquet. With the engine overheating, he was forced to ditch in the sea but the plane sank before he could get out and he drowned. His score stood at 32.

HELMUT LENT (Luftwaffe)

Night fighter ace with 94 kills. Co-inventor of the vertically firing cannon. His BF 110 hit a power line when landing at Paderborn killing his crew. Lent survived two more days before dying of his injuries. (Helmut Lent is buried in the Old Garrison Cemetery at Stade, Germany)

FLT. LT. GEFFREY ALLARD

Twenty-five victories to his credit. On March 13, 1941, he and two companions arrived at RAF Debden to collect a new Douglas Havoc night fighter. On take off, a nose panel flew off and jammed the rudder. The Havoc flicked over and ploughed upside down into the ground, killing all occupants.

WING COMMANDER GUY GIBSON (1918-1944)

Hero of the Ruhr Dams raid and VC winner. Taken off operational duties he toured the United States with Winston Churchill on a promotional visit. He finally persuaded his superiors to let him fly just one more mission and on September 19, 1944 he flew Mosquito KB-267 on a raid on the communications centre at Rheydt. Returning home, his plane caught fire and crashed in Holland. The bodies of Gibson and his navigator, Squadron Leader J. B. Warwick, were buried together in the Roman Catholic Cemetery at Steenbergen by the townspeople.

LIEUTENANT AUDIE MURPHY (1924-1971)

American war hero and star of over forty Hollywood Films, he first saw action in Sicily when his Infantry Company landed there. Following the landings in Southern France, his unit finally reached Strasbourg. During a fierce action at Holtzwihr he won the Congressional Medal Of Honor. Returning to the USA he was awarded 23 other decorations, including five from France and Belgium, making him the most decorated soldier in the US Army. Introduced to film acting by James Cagney, he left the film business in in the late 60s to go into business. On May 28, 1971, he and four others were flying from Atlanta to Virginia when the plane, an Aero Commander, crashed near Roanoke. Audie Murphy was buried with full military honours in the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington.

LORD LOUIS MOUNTBATTEN (1900-1979)

Appointed Chief of Operations on March 18, 1942 and on August 25, 1943, appointed Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia. Post war he became Viceroy of India and later Governor General in 1947/48. Admiral of the Fleet, Earl Mountbatten of Burma as he was now known, was assassinated by an IRA bomb placed on board his boat as he prepared to go fishing in Donegal Bay, County Sligo, in Ireland. (His grave can be seen in the Abbey Church, Romsey, Hampshire).

H.R.H. THE DUKE OF KENT (1903-1942)

Gave up his rank of honorary Air Vice Marshal to accept a post as Group Captain in the RAF Welfare Branch. His last assignment was a tour of RAF bases in Iceland. On August 24, 1942, the Duke and his party took off from Alness near Invergordon in Scotland for the 900 mile flight to Iceland. AS the plane flew up the east coast of northern Scotland it flew into a heavy mist and crashed into a hillside near Berriedale. Of the fifteen passengers and crew, only one survived, the tail gunner. (The Duke of Kent is buried in the Royal Burial Ground at Frogmore in Berkshire).

AIR MARSHALL SIR ARTHUR CONINGHAM (1895-1948)

Former Commander-in-Chief of the RAFs 2nd Tactical Air Force in Europe, previously commander of the Western Desert Air Force and later C-in-C Flying Training Command. His plane, a Tudor IV named 'Star Tiger' flying from the Azores to Bermuda, disappeared completely in the so-called Bermuda Triangle on January 29, 1948. No trace of the plane has ever been found.

MAJOR-GENERAL ORDE WINGATE (1903-1944)

Commander of the guerrilla forces known as the 'Chindits', a unit comprising the 77th Indian Brigade and trained to operate behind enemy lines in the Burmese jungles. After a conference in Imphal with Air Marshal Sir John Baldwin, commander of the 3rd Tactical Air Force, he was returning to his H/Q when his plane, an American Mitchell B-25H bomber, with an American crew of five, crashed into the slopes of the Silchar Plain in Assam, north-east India, (now Bangladesh) on March 24, 1944, killing Wingate and all eight others on board. When found, the nine bodies were unidentifiable and were buried in Burma. After the war the remains were disinterred and reburied in a common grave in the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, USA, on November 10, 1950. (In April, 1996, the ten war medals of General Wingate was sold at Sotheby's for £56,500).

GENERAL GEORGE S. PATTON (1885-1945)

Commander of the US 3rd Army and later the US 7th Army in the invasion of Sicily. On Sunday, December 9, 1945, he was being driven by twenty-three old Private Horace Woodring in a 1939 Cadillac for an afternoon of pheasant shooting on the estate of a German friend. At 11.45am they were passing through the outskirts of Mannheim when a US Army truck turned left in front of the Cadillac to enter the Quartermaster Corps camp. It appeared to be a minor accident but the collision broke the neck of the flamboyant General who died a few days later at the US Military Hospital in Heidelberg from a pulmonary embolism in the left lung. (Patton's grave can be seen in the American War Cemetery at Hamm. outside Luxembourg).

FIELD MARSHAL ERWIN ROMMEL (1891-1944)

German commander of Army Group B. The famous 'Desert Fox' was recuperating at his home in Herrlingen, from wounds received when his car was strafed on a road in France, when he was visited by three high ranking officers from Berlin. Accusing him of complicity in the July 20 plot against Hitler he was given a choice, suicide by poison or court martial. Bidding his wife Lucie and son Manfried a fond farewell, he drove off with the three officers. On the road to Wippingen, the car stopped and the three officers walked up the road for some distance. When they returned to the car, Field Marshal Rommel was slumped, dead on the back seat. He was given a state funeral with all the trimmings, the German radio announcing that he had died from his wounds. (Erwin Rommel is buried in the local cemetery at Herrlingen near Ulm).

ADMIRAL SIR BERTRAM RAMSAY (1883-1945)

Allied Naval C-in-C for liberation of Europe. On January 2, 1945, he was due to fly from his H/Q near Paris to a meeting with General Montgomery in Brussels. At 11.30, he and four others took off from Toussus-le-Noble airfield in his private plane, a Hudson bomber. The plane climbed slowly as if the engines were labouring, then banked sharply to the left and crashed straight into the ground killing all on board. (Admiral Ramsay, the mastermind behind the Dunkirk evacuation, is buried in the Nouveau Cemetery at St. Germain-en-Laye).

AIR CHIEF MARSHAL SIR TRAFFORD LEIGH-MALLORY (1892-1944)

Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Expeditionary Air Forces in Europe and the highest ranking officer to serve in the Royal Air Force during WWII, was killed when his aircraft, an Avro York, crashed into the rock face of a mountain in the French Alps on November 14, 1944. Sir Trafford was on his way to Ceylon to take up his new appointment as Air Commander for South-East Asia. His wife, Lady Mallory and all crew died in the crash. Buried in snow, the wreck was not found until June, 1945. (Leigh-Mallory's brother, George Mallory, also died on a mountain in 1924 while attempting to climb Mt. Everest).

GENERAL FRANK MAXWELL ANDREWS (1884-1943)

Often referred to as the 'father of the United States Air Force'. In February, 1943, he took over from General Eisenhower as Commanding-General of the European Theatre of Operations. Iceland was part of the ETO and an inspection of the bases there was scheduled for April. A Liberator B-24 bomber named 'Hot Stuff' was put at his disposal for the flight to Iceland. The plane and crew had completed 29 of its 30 missions and was due to return to the US for a triumphant tour. The crew were disappointed that their last mission was not to be a bombing raid over Germany. At 8 PM on Monday May 3, 1943, General Andrews and staff took off from Bovington airfield. Over Iceland they encountered foul weather, low cloud, mist and rain. The aircraft crashed into the slope of a 1,600-foot mountain. Of the 15 persons on the plane, there was only one survivor, Flight Sergeant George Eisel, the tail gunner.

GENERAL EBERHARD KINZEL

German Chief-of-Staff of OKW-Führungsstab Nord (Operational Staff North) and member of the German delegation at the signing of the unconditional surrender instrument at Montgomery's headquarters on Luneburg Heath on May 4, 1945. Kinzel, married with two children but separated from his wife and family, was living with his long time girl friend, Erika von Ashoff, in Glucksburg Castle near Flensburg. When on June 24, he was ordered to report to an Allied internment camp within two days, he requested that his car, a BMW, be brought to him. He then drove off with Ericka, whom he always introduced as his wife. In a letter left behind with his landlady he had written 'I cannot admit being separated from my wife, to go into endless British captivity'. Included in the letter were instructions as to where to find his car. That evening the car was found on the right hand side of the road coming from Idstedt along the north bank of the Lake Langsee. Just outside the car were two bodies, both showed gunshot wounds in the head. In the car was another letter, 'I have committed suicide together with my wife by my own will'. General Kinzel is buried in the German War Cemetery at Karberg and Erika von Aschoff is buried in Plot 32 in the Friedenshugel Cemetery in Flensburg.

GENERAL ADMIRAL HANS-GEORG VON FRIEDEBURG (1895-1945)

Member of the short-lived Donitz Government at Flensburg he was arrested by the British along with around 6,000 other German officials and officers of the armed forces. After having his identity documents examined he asked permission to collect his belongings from his billet. When permission was granted he returned to his quarters accompanied by a small detachment from the Cheshire regiment. Escorted up to his room on the first floor he then asked permission to use the toilet in the corridor. About 45 seconds later the escorts heard the sound of groaning but finding the door locked succeeded in breaking in only to find Friedeburg lying on the floor. He had crushed a phial of cyanide between his teeth and seconds later he died.

LIEUTENANT GENERAL W.H.E. GOTT (1897-1942)

Killed when his plane was attacked and shot down by Luftwaffe fighters on August 8, 1942. He was about to take command of the British 8th Army in North Africa, to replace General Auchenleck. The command was now given to General Montgomery who assumed command on August 15, 1942. On August 19, Monty was directed by General Alexander to hold the line at El Alamein until his manpower build-up was completed.

CARLO EMANUELE BUSCAGLIA (1915-1944)

Italian air ace and Commander of the 132nd Autonomous Torpedo Group was born in Novara on November 29, 1915. He was the youngest and most decorated officer in the Royal Italian Air Force. In 1942 his aircraft was shot down in flames by RAF Spitfires during a raid over Bougie Bay in Algeria. Badly burned, he was rescued by a British ship which took him to the USA for internment at Fort Meade. In 1944 he choose to fight on the Allied side and was freed. He became commander of the 28th Bomber Group of the Italian Co-belligerent Air Force now fighting on the Allied side. On August 23, 1944, at Campo Vesuvio Air Base, he entered a Martin Baltimore bomber and started the engines while his friends watched from the canteen. He took off from the landing strip, zoomed and fell back to the ground and caught fire. He survived only one day before he died. He probably wanted to show his companions, or to prove to himself, that he was still able to fly.

INCIDENTS OF FRIENDLY FIRE
FRIENDLY FIRE (Disaster off Norway)

Only a week after the war broke out, the British submarine Oxley was patrolling off the coast of Norway along with her sister ship HMS Triton. Somehow the Oxley had sailed into the sector patrolled by Triton. The Commander of the Triton, Lt. Cdmr. Steel, sighted an unidentified submarine on the surface and when challenged received no reply. Assuming the other submarine to be hostile, he ordered two torpedoes to be fired. The unidentified submarine disappeared, leaving three survivors swimming towards the Triton but one of the swimmers was seen to sink below the water and disappear. One can only imagine the shock the Triton's crew experienced when they pulled the Oxley's Commander, Lt. Cdmr. Bowerman and one other survivor, Able Seaman Gluckes, out of the water. They happened to be standing on the bridge when the torpedo hit. Fifty-three of Oxley's crew perished. Apparently the Oxley's signal answering apparatus had malfunctioned and failed to answer in time. Families were notified that the Oxley was accidentally rammed by the Triton and it was not until the 1950s that they were informed that the loss was due to friendly fire. Its a sad fact that the first British submarine torpedo to explode on target, sank a sister ship. The Oxley was the first submarine to be lost in the war.

FRIENDLY FIRE (Greenock, Scotland)

On April 28, 1940, the 2,400 ton French destroyer Maillé Brézé, became a victim of its own weaponry when one of its own torpedoes accidentally fired and slithered along the main deck exploding under the bridge structure and completely wrecking the forepart of the ship. The British destroyer HMS Firedrake, rushed to the scene and rescued fifteen men who had slid down the hawse pipe. Other mangled bodies were recovered but those on the mess deck were doomed as the ship slowly sank taking with her 38 of her crew still trapped below.

FRIENDLY FIRE (Pearl Harbor)

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, US army personnel started digging trenches along the beaches in anticipation of a seaborne invasion. Every fifty feet or so along the beach, a gun crew with 30 calibre machine guns took up their positions. At around 8pm on December 7th, seven planes were seen trying to land on an airstrip on Ford Island. Misjudging the length of the runway the pilots decided to go around again for a second try. As the planes came around again the gunners, thinking they were Japanese, opened fire and shot down all seven. The planes were their own aircraft from the carrier USS Enterprise out at sea.

FRIENDLY FIRE (Italy)

The first major 'Friendly Fire' incident in the European Theatre was on March 15, 1944, when 435 Allied bombers attacked the area around the town of Cassino in Italy. Bombs fell short on Allied troops and Italian civilians, killing 28 and wounding 114. At the same time, some ten miles away, in the town of Venafro, 28 Allied soldiers and civilians were killed and 179 wounded by misplaced bombs.

FRIENDLY FIRE (D Day-June 6, 1944)

At sunset on D-Day, forty DC3s from 233 Squadron RAF, crossed the English Channel carrying 116 tons of ammunition, spares and petrol for the 6th Airborne Division. As the planes passed over the warships off the mouth of the Oren river, trigger happy gunners on the ships opened fire. Two planes were forced to turn back with severe damage, one ditched in the sea and five went missing believed shot down. Fourteen others were damaged. The end result was that only twenty-five tons of supplies were recovered. In future, all operations of this nature were carried out only during daylight hours.

FRIENDLY FIRE (Sicily)

On July 11, 1943, on the American held airfield at Farrell, three miles east of Gela in Sicily, preparations were under way for the reception of reinforcements from Colonel Reuben H. Tucker's 504th Parachute Regiment. As the C-47 transports approached the bridgehead and headed for the drop zone, an American machine-gun down below fired a stream of tracers upward at the C-47s. A second machine-gun opened up followed by another and still another. Directly into this storm of 'friendly fire' flew the C-47s. As plane after plane was hit, the paratroopers jumped only to be shot in mid-air or just before they landed. The trigger-happy machine-gunners, thinking they were German paratroops, kept up their deadly fire while General George Patton and General Matthew Ridgeway, the 82nd Airborne commander, awaiting to greet the paratroopers, could only look on with shocked disbelief as the tragedy unfolded before their eyes. Altogether, twenty three of the original 144 troop carrying planes were shot down and thirty-seven others badly damaged. Ninety-seven men were killed and around 400 were wounded in this, the greatest tragedy to befall the US invasion forces. A total of 2,440 US soldiers died in the battle for Sicily and are now buried in the American Cemetery on the Gulf of Salerno. The battle for Sicily (Operation Husky) involved a total of 467,000 men. The Allied forces lost 5,532 men killed and 2,869 missing. German dead amounted to 4,325 and the Italian dead, 4,278.

FRIENDLY FIRE (Aleutian Islands)

On August 15-16, 1943, a force of 35,000 American troops invaded the island of Kiska in the Aleutians. Most of these troops had not seen combat before but expected fanatical enemy resistance. Heavy fog had descended on the island and by nightfall 28 soldiers were dead and around 50 wounded, shot by their own comrades who were shooting at anything that moved in the fog. (Only four Canadians were killed and four wounded) The irony was that not a single Japanese soldier was on the island, all having been evacuated before the invasion began. Four of the American dead were killed by stepping on land mines left behind by the Japanese.

FRIENDLY FIRE (Solomon Islands)

When out on a pre-dawn patrol on April 29, 1944, off the island of New Britain in the Solomon Islands, the Patrol Boat P-347 commanded by Lt. Robert J. Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas, runs up onto a reef in Lassul Bay. Patrol Boat P-350 attempts to tow the P-347 off the reef but while doing so both boats were strafed by US Corsairs whose pilots mistook them for enemy gun boats. Soon, another Patrol Boat, P-346 appeared on the scene to assist in the tow but more planes made their appearance and began their strafing run in spite of the crew of the P-346 waving the Stars and Stripes. The Patrol Boats opened fire and shot down two of the planes. One bomb made a direct hit on the P-347 just after the crew had abandoned ship. The planes continued strafing the men in the water before heading back to base. On the boats involved in this tragic incident, fourteen men were killed, another fourteen wounded and two pilots lost.

FRIENDLY FIRE (Anzio)

On May 26, 1944, the beachhead at Anzio/Nettuno ceased to exist. It had now become a bridgehead. British and American troops had broken out and were pushing forward to cut the retreat of Kesselring's forces on Route 6, the main highway leading to Rome. A few minutes after noon on the 26th on the outskirts of Cori, a squadron of five American P-40 fighter-bombers of the 99th Fighter Group, US 12th Air Force, flew over the Anzio/Nettuno area, turned back and prepared for a strafing run. Soldiers of the US 15th Infantry froze in terror as bombs started falling in their midst. Within seconds, 120 men were either dead or wounded. The 2nd Battalion of the 15th Infantry, US 3rd Division, suffered seventy-two casualties. A number of bombs hit their jeeps which were loaded with ammunition and the exploding 37mm anti-tank shells caused additional casualties; some of the bodies were never found. This held up the advance to Giuglianello for five to six hours. A week later, headlines in the 'Stars and Stripes' proclaimed "American troops at Anzio bombed by Germans flying American planes". This incident has been covered up for over fifty years, the 12th Air Force never having admitted its error. One of the many witnesses to this tragedy was ex-Corporal Robert Steele, of Cannon Company, 15th Infantry Regiment, who now lives in Columbus, Georgia.

FRIENDLY FIRE (Italy)

On April 29, 1944, a group of American P-47 Thunderbolt fighters mistakenly strafed the airstrip at Cutella on Italy's Adriatic coast, the pilots thinking that it was a Luftwaffe airfield. The airstrip was a base for the Royal Australian Air Force 239 Wing which included 3 and 450 Squadrons. One 3 Squadron Kittyhawk fighter was destroyed and three more damaged. Human casualties were one pilot of an Air Sea Rescue Walrus float plane killed and a few other ground personnel wounded. Tragedy was to strike again next day when a pilot of one of the attacking Thunderbolts, realizing a mistake had been made, flew to the airstrip to apologize. Unfortunately he was killed when his plane crashed when taking off to return home.

FRIENDLY FIRE (Normandy)

On July 24, 1944, 300 US planes dropped a total of 550 tons of bombs on the St. Lo front. It was during 'Operation Cobra' (The breakthrough from St Lo) that the most devastating incident of Friendly Fire occurred. Some of the bombs fell short upon the 30th Infantry Division (Old Hickory) killing 25 men and wounding 131. Next day, the Americans flung in 140,000 shells while 2,730 planes dropped 3,300 tons of bombs and napalm canisters into an area 7,000 long by 2,500 yards wide. The bomb loads of 35 heavy bombers and 42 medium bombers again fell upon the 30th Infantry Division. In this second disaster in two days, the bombing killed a further 111 men and wounded 490. The 30th Division alone suffered 662 casualties from friendly bombing on 25 July: 64 killed, 374 wounded, 60 missing. There was also 164 cases of combat fatigue induced by the stunning effects of the heavy bombardment. Among the casualties in this second disaster was General Lesley J. McNair, Commanding General of US Army Ground Forces. He had flown over from England as an observer to the raid taking place. He was the most senior American General to be killed in the Second World War. His grave can be found in the US Military Cemetery above Omaha Beach in Normandy. This is one of the fourteen permanent WWII military cemeteries that the USA built on foreign soil. In the 172 acre site lie the remains of four women and buried side by side are a father and son as well as thirty-three pairs of brothers. The cemetery contains a total of 9,386 graves. (It is estimated that about 15,480 Americans, fell victim to Friendly Fire in World War II).

FRIENDLY FIRE (Germany)

In July, 1944, prisoners from the concentration camps in Poland were being transported to labour camps in the Reich. German munitions factories were crying out for slave labour. To fill this need around 2,000 Jewish women from the women's camp at Birkenau were being sent by train to camps near Essen. As fate would have it, the train was caught up in an Allied bombing raid as it crossed central Germany. Of the two thousand women passengers on the train, 266 were killed.

FRIENDLY FIRE (Germany)

On August 24, 1944, the RAF bombed the industrial complex at the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar. A total of 384 prisoners were killed and around six hundred were injured. Among the casualties were the wife and daughter of the Camp Commandant, SS Colonel Herman Pister. Again, on February 9, 1945, the complex was bombed for the second time, the target being the Gustloff Works, an SS run munitions factory. In this raid 316 prisoners lost their lives out of about two thousand employed in the works. Prisoners were forbidden to leave their workbenches during raids. Over 80 SS guards were killed and 238 wounded. Hospitals in nearby Weimar refused to receive the wounded Buchenwald prisoners so they had to be transported back to the camp where many died through lack of first aid. Colonel Pister was later arrested and tried at the Camp Guards Trial and was sentenced to death. While awaiting execution in Landsberg Prison he died of a heart attack on September 28, 1948.

FRIENDLY FIRE (Pacific)

On September 29, 1944, the American submarine USS Seawolf (SS-197) set sail from Manus with 62 crew, some stores and 17 military personnel on board. On October 3, an attack was made by the Japanese submarine RO-41 on the US destroyer USS Shelton in the area through which the Seawolf was passing. The Shelton was sunk. An American aircraft on patrol, spotted a submarine in the vicinity of the sinking and notified the destroyer USS Rowell which immediately attacked what was thought to be the RO-41. As the RO-41 made it safely back to Japan and no attack was listed in Japanese reports of the day, it is now assumed that the Rowell mistakenly sank the Seawolf. In all, 79 men were lost.

FRIENDLY FIRE (Pacific)

On October 25, 1944, the American submarine USS Tang, commanded by Commander Richard O'Kane, was chasing a damaged Japanese warship that had fallen behind the convoy it had been escorting. During an engagement the day before, the Tang had fired all her torpedoes except one, at the convoy. Now its commander was determined to finish off the damaged warship using the last torpedo. Catching up with the limping ship, the Tang surfaced and fired its torpedo. From the bridge, Commander O'Kane and eight of his officers, looked on in amazement as the wake of the torpedo made a complete circle around their ship. The circle got smaller and smaller until a terrific explosion blew them all from the bridge and into the water. The Tang sank fast as tons of water poured into her hull. Seventy-eight officers and men of the Tang lost their lives. When Japanese destroyers arrived on the scene only nine men had survived to be picked up and taken prisoner. They all survived the war.

FRIENDLY FIRE (Germany)

In the first week of April, 1945, a column of American POWs from the Hammelburg camp were being evacuated through the city of Nuremberg. Stopping for a rest near some rail yards on the south-west of the city, they were caught up in a bombing raid by their own fighter-bombers. Around forty men were killed and nearly one hundred wounded leaving some 110 survivors to continue the march towards their destination, Austria.

FRIENDLY FIRE (Germany)

During April, 1945, a column of 2,000 Allied airmen were being evacuated from their prisoner-of-war camp at Fallingbostal in face of the advancing Russian army. Near the village of Gresse they stopped for a rest in a country lane. Six RAF Typhoons appeared and began strafing the helpless prisoners. Eight of their German guards were killed as were thirty of the airmen. There were over sixty injured. The injured were taken to the town of Boizemburg where they were operated on by German doctors and then transported to an airfield near Luneburg to await air-lifting to the UK. It is not known why the RAF pilots mistook the prisoners for Germans.





All text researched and compiled by George Duncan. Website by Columbus.

MASSACRES AND ATROCITIES WORLD WAR ll WESTERN EUROPE

* Dedicated to all those who took part in World War II *
Massacres and Atrocities of World War II - page 1 of 4 - within the countries of Belgium, France, Greece, and Holland.

Dedicated to all those who lost their lives through Man's inhumanity to Man, which knows no bounds of race, creed, or time. Any war must be categorized as an "atrocity" but the war that Hitler started brought a scale of atrocity never previously known. The statistics of World War II clearly qualify it, by far, as the most heinous atrocity in all recorded history. Within this period the world has enjoyed real peace for only 268 years.

The events described here occurred more than sixty years ago and yet they are discussed to this day and have made indelible impressions on present-day society. The compilation here and the facts presented are as complete as possible consistent with what has already been researched and published. My sincere thanks go to all those ex-servicemen and history buffs who have contacted me with corrections and updates.

This 4 page series reports on some occurrences within:

"Western" Europe - Belgium, France, Greece, Holland
"Eastern" Europe - Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia
the "Axis" Countires - Germany and Italy, and
the vast Pacific Region.

BELGIUM

BANDE (Christmas Eve, 1944)

On September 5, 1944, a unit of Belgian marquis attacked a German unit, killing three soldiers. Two days later the American troops arrived in the area and the Germans retreated. Three months later, during the Ardennes Offensive, the village of Bande was retaken. On Christmas Eve, a unit of the German SD (Sicherheitsdienst) set about arresting all men in the village. They were questioned about the events of September 5, then lined up in front of the local cafe. One by one, they were led to an open door and as they entered a shot rang out. An SD man, positioned just inside the door, fired point blank into the victims neck and with a kick sent the body hurtling into the open cellar. After twenty had been killed this way, it was the turn of 21 year old Leon Praile who decided to make a run for it. With bullets flying around him, he escaped into the woods. Meantime the executions continued until all 34 men had been killed. On January 10, 1945, the village of Bande was liberated by British troops and the massacre was discovered. A Belgian War Crimes Court was set up in December 1944. One man, a German speaking Swiss national by the name of Ernst Haldiman, was identified as being a member of the execution squad. He had joined the SS in France on November 15, 1942 and in 1944 his unit was integrated with other SD units, into No. 8 SS Commando for Special Duties. Haldiman was picked up in Switzerland after the war and brought to trial before a Swiss Army Court. On April 28, 1948, he was sentenced to twenty years in prison. He was released on parole on June 27, 1960, the only member of the SS Commando unit that has been brought to trial.

THE MALMÉDY MASSACRE (December 17, 1944)

During the Ardennes Offensive (Battle of the Bulge) the Combat Group of the 1st SS Panzer Division, led by SS Major Joachim Peiper, was approaching the crossroads at Baugnes near the town of Malmédy. There they encountered a company of US troops (Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion) from the US 7th Armoured Division. Realizing that the odds were hopeless, the company's commander, Lieutenant Virgil Lary, decided to surrender. After being searched by the SS, the prisoners were marched into a field adjacent to the Cafe Bodarwé. The SS troops moved on except for two Mark IV tanks Nos. 731 and 732, left behind to guard the GIs. A couple of GIs tried to flee to the nearest woods and an order was given to fire. SS Private Georg Fleps of tank 731 drew his pistol and fired at Lary's driver who fell dead in the snow. The machine guns of both tanks then opened fire on the prisoners. Many of the GIs took to their heels and headed for the woods. Incredibly, 43 GIs survived, but 84 of their comrades lay dead in the field, being slowly covered with a blanket of snow. No attempt was made to recover the bodies until the area was retaken by the 30th Infantry Division on January 14, 1945, when men from the 291st Engineers used metal detectors to locate the bodies buried in the snow. (The US troops in the area were issued with an order that for the next week no SS prisoners were to be taken) At the end of the war, Peiper, and 73 other suspects (arrested for other atrocities committed during the offensive) were brought to trial. When the trial ended on July 16, 1946, forty three of the defendants were sentenced to death, twenty two to life imprisonment, two to twenty years, one for fifteen years and five to ten years.

Peiper and Fleps were among those sentenced to death, but after a series of reviews the sentences were reduced to terms in prison. On December 22, 1956, SS Sturmbannführer Peiper was released. He settled in the small village of Traves (population 63) in northern France in 1972 and earned a living by translating military books from English into German. Four years later, on the eve of Bastille Day, July 14, 1976, he was murdered and his wooden house burned down by a French communist group. known as the 'Avengers'. His charred body was recovered from the ruins and transferred to the family grave in Schondorf, near Landsberg in Bavaria. Most of the remains of the murdered GIs were eventually shipped back to the US for private burial but twenty-one still lie buried in the American Military Cemetery at Henri-Chappelle, about forty kilometres north of Malmédy.


Today, the American flag flies over the Malmédy Memorial, built at the Baugnes crossroads, about 60 metres from where the actual killings took place


The Malmédy Memorial Wall - 84 names of the victims are engraved on individual plaques on the wall behind the flagpole

ATROCITY AT STAVELOT

On December 18, the day after the massacre at Malmédy, the same SS unit of Kampfgruppe Peiper, systematically executed 130 Belgian civilians in the village of Stavelot. Charged with sheltering American soldiers, 67 men, 47 women and 23 children were brutally executed.

CHENOGNE (January 1, 1945)

In the village of Chenogne, a unit of the US 11th Armoured Division had captured around sixty German soldiers. Marched to behind a small hill, out of sight of enemy troops still holding the woods beyond the village, the prisoners were subjected to a volley of machine-gun fire. On this cold and frosty first day of 1945, the GIs were showing no mercy for their unfortunate prisoners as they crumpled to the ground, shot dead in cold blood. With memories of the Malmédy massacre still fresh in their minds, killing had become impersonal, revenge was now uppermost in their minds.

THE WERETH KILLINGS (December 17, 1944)

Shortly after the Battle of the Bulge, eleven black American soldiers surrendered to the Nazi SS troops in the small hamlet of Wereth in Belgium. Some were wounded but this didn't stop the SS from shooting them in cold blood. All were members of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion and were from Alabama. The bodies were found covered in snow and it wasn't until two months later that the villagers directed the US Army to the site. In May, 2004, three local residents built a monument to the eleven slain black soldiers. In the USA another memorial was built especially to memorialize the eleven victims and also to pay tribute to the thousands of African-Americans who fought on European soil during WW11. The memorial is in the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Winchendon, Massachusetts.

FRANCE
THE NORMANDY MASSACRES (June, 1944)

A sensation was caused in Allied Headquarters when reports came through that a considerable number of Canadian soldiers were shot after being taken prisoner by the 12th. SS Panzer Division ‘Hitler Jugend’. On the morning of June 8, thirty seven Canadians were taken prisoner by the 2nd Battalion of the 26th Panzer Grenadier Regiment. The prisoners were marched across country to the H/Q of the 2nd Battalion. In the village of Le Mesnil-Patty they were then ordered to sit down in a field with their wounded in the center. In a short while a half track arrived with eight or nine SS soldiers brandishing their machine pistols. Advancing in line towards the prisoners they opened fire killing thirty five men. Two of the Canadians ran for their lives and escaped the slaughter but were rounded up by a different German unit to spend the rest of the war in a POW camp. First to make contact with the Canadians was a combat group led by Obersturmbannfuhrer Karl-Heinz Milius and supported by the Prinz Battalion. Near the villages of Authie and Buron, a number of Canadians of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders, were taken prisoner. Numbering around forty, they were individually killed on the march back to the rear. Eight were ordered to remove their helmets and then shot with automatic rifles. Their bodies were dragged out on to the road and left to be run over by trucks and tanks. French civilians pulled the bodies back on to the pavement but were ordered to stop and to drag the bodies back onto the road again.

On June 7 and 8, in the grounds of the Abbaye Ardenne, the headquarters of SS Brigadefuhrer Kurt Meyer’s 25th Panzer Grenadiers, twenty of the Canadians were shot. After being taken prisoner they were locked up in a stable and being called out by name they emerged from the doorway only to be shot in the back of the head. During the afternoon of June 8, twenty six Canadians were shot at the Chateau d’Audrie after being taken prisoner by a Reconnaissance Battalion of the SS Hitler Jugend. Other units of the German forces in France called the Hitler Jugend Division the ‘Murder Division’. After the war, investigations established that separate atrocities were committed in 31 different incidents involving 134 Canadians, 3 British and 1 American. Brought to trial before a Canadian military court at Aurich in Germany on December 28, 1945, Kurt Meyer was sentenced to death but later reprieved and spent six years in a Canadian jail at New Brunswick before being transferred to the prison at Werl in Germany where he was released on parole on September 7, 1954. He died of a heart attack on December 23, 1961, at age 51.

LE PARADIS (Pas-de-Calais, May 26, 1940)

A company of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, trapped in a cowshed, surrendered to the 2nd Infantry Regiment, SS 'Totenkopf' (Death's Head) Division under the command of 28 year old SS Obersturmfuhrer Fritz Knoechlein. Marched to a group of farm buildings, they were lined up in the meadow along side the barn wall. When the 99 prisoners were in position, two machine guns opened fire killing 97 of them. Knoechlein then ordered a group of his mem to fix bayonets and stab or shoot to death any who showed signs of life. The bodies were then buried in a shallow pit in front of the barn. Two managed to escape, Privates Albert Pooley and William O'Callaghan of the Royal Norfolk Regiment emerged from the slaughter wounded but alive. When the SS troops moved on, the two wounded soldiers were discovered, after having hid in a pig-sty for three days and night