15 Random Facts About World War II
Published in Education at March 31st, 2017 at 11:21 AM
The Mannerheim Tapes
There is only one recording of Adolf Hitler talking casually to another person currently known. Referred to as “The Mannerheim Tapes”, secretly recorded in 1942 by the Finnish army, these tapes remained secret until the 1950’s. Some Historians refuse to accept the existence of the tapes, saying it paints a different picture of the war and Hitler.
The Conversation begins with Hitler conferring with Baron Mannerheim (Finnish military leader and statesman) how astonishing it was that the USSR had 35 thousand tanks. Mannerheim explains that, because Russia had been at peace for 20-25 years, they had all that time to manufacture Tanks. Hitler explains about the failure of Operation Barbarossa, The defeat of Italy in North Africa, Yugoslavia and Albania and arguments with the Soviet Union. The conversation was secretly recorded by Thor Damen, an engineer from the Finnish Broadcasting Company “Yle”, before being found out and commanded to stop. He captured the first 11 minutes on tape.
Chemical Warfare
There was only 1 incident of chemical warfare being used during World War II. The US Military had brought several canisters of Mustard Gas to the Italian Port of Bari “Just in case” they wanted to use chemical warfare against Germany. Mustard Gas, or Sulfur Mustard, was predominantly used in World War I, which is absorbed through the skin, inhalation, ingestion, or coming into contact with the eyes, causing severe burning of the skin, eyes and respiratory tract.
The German Luftwaffe bombed the container ships, releasing the gas. Approximately 27 cargo ships were lost and over 2000 military and civilian casualties resulted. It is still unknown just how many were killed by the release of the gas and how many were killed by the explosions.
Bio-Weapons
While there was only 1 incident of chemical warfare being used, there were multiple cases of Biological weapons being used. The recorded instances were primarily from Japan using them on Chine. In 1940, the Japanese Army Air Force bombed Ningbo with ceramic bombs full of fleas carrying the bubonic plague.
To this day, people are still dying from their usage, as the viruses were so efficiently weaponized that fully vaccinating against them is nearly impossible. During the final months of World War II, Japan planned to use plague as a biological weapons against US civilians in San Diego and California, during “Operation Cherry Blossoms”. The plan was set to launch on 22nd September 1945, but it was not put into action due to Japan's Surrender on 15th August 1945
Amelia Earhart
One of the most popular and interesting myths about Amelia Earhart involves her potential capture by Japanese Forces prior to World War II. Amelia Earhart was a famous pilot, the first woman to fly a plane solo across the Atlantic Ocean and Famously disappeared while crossing the Pacific Ocean in 1937.
Just prior to the surrender of The Empire of Japan, The US government requested a list of POWs (Prisoners of War) be handed over. An “Amelia Earhart” was listed as a Prisoner of War in a prison camp transfer from the Philippines. The US Government tried to track down this person’s records at the end of the war, without any success.
The Graf Zeppelin
The Aircraft carrier “Graf Zeppelin” was to be Germany’s lead ship in an attempt to create a well-balanced, oceangoing fleet, capable of protecting Germany’s naval power far beyond the confines of the Baltic and North Seas. However, the carrier was never finished, since construction on the carrier was constantly in flux, because of the demands of the war.
After Germany surrendered, the USSR acquired the ship and used it to train their troops how to sink Western Carriers. The sunken remains of a ship fitting the Graf Zeppelin’s description was discovered on 12th July 2006 by the Polish oil company “Petrobaltic”. Historians are “99% certain” that this sunken ship is the “Graf Zeppelin”.
Loose Lips Sink Ships
“Loose Lips Sink Ship”, a popular phrase created as part of America’s war time propaganda campaign, was created as a result of a loss of thousands of American servicemen to German submarines, operating off the coast of the United States.
The phrase wasn’t created to avoid leaking information to German spies, though that certainly helped, It was created to prevent American morale to dropping. If it was public knowledge that the Germans were a few 100 yards off the coast, sinking ships and killing unprepared soldiers, people would have started to panic.
The HMS Nelson
A German submarine torpedoed the HMS Nelson with a total of 4 torpedoes. Out of the 4, not a single one detonated. After this incident, in his rage, The Sub-Commander went all the way up his chain of command telling officials about the failures of the German equipment. As a result of his information, he was promptly fired, rather than fixing the potential underlying problem.
Henry Ford's Involvement
Up until 1940, there was a well established nazi party operating in the United States. Among the supporters, Henry Ford was one of the most notable members. Henry Ford is most famous for creating the first commercially available car, The Ford Model T.
He financially backed the US Nazi party and Hitler himself with several million dollars. Hitler “revered” Ford, proclaiming that “I shall do my best to put his theories into practice in Germany,” leading to the creation of the Volkswagen Beetle (“The people’s car”). This transaction ended when the US became more involved in the War, with the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Tiger Tanks
The First Tiger tanks could actually act as submarines. Each tank was fitted with a snorkel that would allow the tank to operate underwater as long as it could reach fresh air. This was intended to allow tanks to drive through deep rivers in Russia. Eventually the parts were dropped in favor of making the tanks easier to produce.
Operation Barbarossa was the codename for Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, which was outlined in his manifesto “Mein Kampf”. Originally, Hitler planned to invade Russia on 15th May 1941, however it began on 22nd June 1941, after taking an extra 7 weeks to prepare his forces.
Germany had several victories during the operation, but ultimately were pushed back before they reached Moscow, due to their offensive strikeforce stalling, giving the USSR the chance to attack with a computer offensive. This was the last time Germany tried to mount a simultaneous offensive along the Soviet-Axis front.
The English Longbow
World War II was the last war to register official use of the English Longbow as a weapon of War. A weapon used in many of england’s wars, The Longbow was not a standard weapon for your average World War II soldier. Jack Churchill (no relation to Winston Churchill) is claimed to have been the one to kill an enemy soldier with said Longbow in 1940, in a French Village during The Battle of France. The Kill was Churchill’s way of giving his troops the signal to ambush a German patrol.
Jack Churchill (no relation to Winston Churchill) is claimed to have been the one to kill an enemy soldier with said Longbow in 1940, in a French Village during The Battle of France. The Kill was Churchill’s way of giving his troops the signal to ambush a German patrol.
Tracers
It was common practice on fighter planes to load every 5th round with a tracer to aid in aiming. That was a mistake. The tracers had different ballistics so (At long range)) if your tracers were hitting the target, 80% of your rounds were missing. Worse yet, the tracers instantly told the enemy he was under fire and from which direction.
Worst of all was the practice of loading a string of tracers at the end of the belt to tell you that you were out of ammo. That was definitely not something you wanted to tell the enemy. Units that stopped using tracers saw their success rate nearly double and their loss rate go down.
Horrific Experiments
Many Jews were subjected to gruesome medical experiments. For Example. Doctors would bombard the testicles of men and the ovaries of women with X-rays to see the impact of different doses on sterility. Nazi Doctors would break bones repeatedly to see how many times it could be done before a bone could heal.
They hit people’s heads with hammers to see what their skulls could withstand. Experiments were conducted to determine the effects of atmospheric pressure on the body. Prisoner were injected with different drugs and diseases, and limbs were amputated and muscles cut for transplantation experiments. Today reference to or use of the Nazi research is considered unethical.
Book Burnings
At the behest of the Nazi regime, book-burning campaigns took place in Berlin and other German cities between March and June 1933, with senior academics and university students incinerating books deemed to contain “un-German” ideas. Authors targeted by the book-burning campaign included Jack London, H.G. Wells, Thomas Mann, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein. A century before Hitler, the German poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) predicted: “Where one burns books, one will, in the end, burn people.”
The Original James Bond
Author Ian Fleming based his character of “James Bond” on the Yugoslavian-born spy Dusko Popov (1912-1980). Popov spoke at least 5 languages and came up with his own formula for invisible ink. He was the first spy to use microdots, or photos shrunk down to the size of dots.
He obtained information that the Japanese were planning an air strike on pearl Harbor, but the FBI did not act on his warning. Popov later lived in the US in a penthouse and created a reputation as a playboy. He wrote an account of his wartime activities in his novel “Spy, Counterspy” (1974).
