Lesser known facts...a history

No wonder in the end why he lost if these were Churchill´s political views on health and education...

"Although the importance of Churchill's role in World War II was undeniable, he produced many enemies in his own country. His expressed contempt for ideas such as public health care and for better education for the majority of the population ( Did he really...it´d be nice to see one politician say that today..)in particular produced much dissatisfaction amongst the population, particularly those who had fought in the war. Immediately following the close of the war in Europe Churchill was heavily defeated at election by Clement Attlee.

And yet...

again elected as Prime Minister in 1951. He retired because of his health in 1955.

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Churchill is believed by several writers to have suffered from bipolar disorder; certainly he suffered from fits of depression that he called his "black dogs".

http://www.malaspina.com/site/person_321.asp

 

The Saga of Murder, Inc.

A German Propaganda Victory
by Kenneth Daniel Williams - 351st Bomb Group





During World War II, I was a bombardier with the 8th Air Force flying out of England. I was shot down over Germany wearing a flight jacket with “Murder, Inc.” written on the back. The Germans made much propaganda out of this.

In October, 1943, we flew to England and were assigned to the 351st Bomb Group, 508th Squadron. We were assigned the B-17 “Murder Inc.” It was an old plane that had been on many missions and I have no idea who named it or why it was given this name. As it turned out, we never flew a mission in this plane. It was the custom to have the name of your plane painted on the back of your flight jacket. One of the enlisted men came by my room and asked if I would like to have the name of the plane painted on my jacket. I told him “yes” and gave him the jacket. He came back the next day with this jacket painted. As it turned out, I was the only member of the crew whose jacket was painted before we were shot down in, ironically, another plane.

http://www.merkki.com/murderinc.htm

 

The Cuckoo

http://www.ean.co.uk/Bygones/History/Article/Aussie_Arthur/html/the_cuckoo.htm

Another item that is worth a mention during this period, was the appearance of what were termed Tip & Run raiders. These were low flying German aircraft, which came in below the radar screen usually when the sun was just coming up over the Eastern Horizon, making it very difficult to observe and give adequate warning to both civilian and military personnel, before they had carried out their attack. The authorities overcame this in the only way possible. They created an audible warning system, or siren, which consisted of the sound of the European Cuckoo!

This was also known locally as The Crash Warning. On hearing this, if you were out on the streets at the time, the advice was to dive for the nearest possible means of cover, as this warning meant .The enemy is overhead!



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Leopold Steinbatz
Leutnant

The first non-officer to receive oak-leaves.

Leopold “Bazi” Steinbatz was born on 25 October 1918 at Wien in Austria. In 1937, he joined the Austrian army. In 1939 he began his pilot training. In November 1940, Steinbatz was assigned to 9./JG 52. Initially he flew as Rottenflieger to Hermann Graf (212 victories, RK-Br), participating in the invasions of the Balkans and Crete flying, mainly, ground attack missions. He gained his first victory over the Eastern Front on 4 August 1941. On 29 November, he recorded his 25th victory. On 14 February 1942, Feldwebel Steinbatz was awarded the Ritterkreuz after 42 victories. At the end of April he shot down six Russian aircraft to record his 44th through 49 victories. On 5 May 1942 he shot down his 50th and 51st enemy aircraft. He shot down seven Russian aircraft on 8 May (52-58). He claimed his 75th success on 20 May. He claimed four victories on consecutive days on 1 and 2 June 1942. As a result Oberfeldwebel Steinbatz was awarded the Eichenlaub (Nr 96) on 2 June. By 11 June 1942, he had 95 victories to his credit. On 15 June 1942, Steinbatz recorded his 99th victory but, during the return from a combat sortie on this day, his Bf 109 F-4 (W.Nr. 133 57) “Yellow 2” was hit by Russian flak and crashed into forest near Voltschansk. Steinbatz was posthumously promoted to the rank of Leutnant and awarded the Schwertern (Nr 14) on 23 June 1942.
“Bazi”Steinbatz flew about 300 combat missions and shot down 99 enemy aircraft on the Eastern Front.


http://www.luftwaffe.cz/steinbatz.html




http://www.luftwaffe-experten.com/pilots_day/H_Philipp.html

Hans Philipp
Knights Cross with Swords and Oak Leaves
206 victories
(176 East, 30 West)

He flew with JG76 during the invasion of Poland and the Low Countries. When the Battle of Britain began, he was transferred to JG54 and would stay with this unit almost his entire career, through missions in Russia in the East until April 1st, 1943. He was then transferred to JG1 as Kommodore for Defense of the Reich operations in the West. He was 24 years old. One of the most dynamic leaders in the Luftwaffe, at the age of 23 he was a Stafflekapitan with I/JG54 ( August 1940) during the BoB. At 25, he was Kommandeur of I/JG54 ( February 1942). For a pilot this young to be accorded this responsibility says a lot about his leadership both on the ground and in the air.

I think he was second to gain 200 kills!

 

The first names of the 6 Goebbels Children:

Helga, Hilde, Helmut, Holde, Hedda and Heidi.

All first names beginning with an "H," to honor the place in the alphabet marked by Der Fuhrers name.

_________________________________________________

On April 9/ 1945, wellknown opponnents of the Nazi Regieme, were executed by the SS at different Concentration Camps.

At Dachau: Johann Georg Elser (the communist who tried to assassinate Hitler in the Burger Brau on November 8/ 1939).

At Flossenburg: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Admiral Canaris and General Oster.

At Sachsenhausen: Hans von Dohnanyi.

 

Apologies if this is in the wrong place. I'm sure there was a similar more recent thread, but I'm damned if I can find it?
"Operation Banquet was a British plan to use every available aircraft in a last-ditch effort to repel an expected German invasion in 1940 or 1941. During the Second World War, in May 1940, the Air Ministry realised that beyond the normal reserves of the Royal Air Force (RAF), it may be necessary to throw everything into a last-ditch battle for British liberty. To this end, the Air Ministry planned to use just about anything that could fly. On 17 May 1940, an Air Ministry meeting outlined a series of ambitious plans to make use of various aircraft in the event of an invasion.[SUP][1][/SUP][SUP][2][/SUP][SUP][3][/SUP]
With the Fall of France in July 1940, the Germans threatened to invade Britain. The British Government made frantic efforts to prepare to meet the threatened invasion and the RAF engaged the German Luftwaffe in a struggle for air superiority over Britain in what became known as the Battle of Britain."
Operation Banquet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

" We gladly listened to Radio Bremen to hear martial music, or the songs of Marika Rökk, such as "On a night in May", which respresented Germany for us."

Eine Nacht in Mai - YouTube

From Hendrik C. Verton " In the fire of the eastern front" Experiences of a Dutch Waffen-SS volunteer

 

Old but good!

 

Not sure if anyone mentioned this, although there was some night-fighter exploit talk early on.

Here's one:

On February 21, 1945, Heinz Wolfgang Schnaufer destroyed nine RAF heavy bombers in one day, two in the early hours of the morning and seven in a nineteen minute frenzy of courage and destruction that evening. According to Peter Hinchcliffe, author of The Other Battle, post-war research suggests there may even have been a tenth victim that day.

 

Somewhere (I moved and still have lots of books in boxes, years later) I have a book that looks at WW2 posters as Art/Propaganda. All sides tried to demean enemies in all sorts of manner....enough said on that. The one point that I do recall clearly was that Allied (esp. Br.-US) posters were seen as far more effective than German ones. The Allies tended to use 'real' models in there work and people could relate to it. The Germans tended to 'draw' idealized aryan types that left many people distant.

 

At a particular conference Hitler was annoyed by a fly. He turned to an army officer and told him to get rid of it. The officer replied that it was really a job for the Luftwaffe and was promptly sent to the Eastern Front. No sense of humor?

 

No, he was sent for no respects to the Führer.

 

Very true VN was different; in fact, I think you can even try to argue that we did (and continue to) restrict the troops. The concept is to win the "hearts and minds of the people" , who aren't really the enemy. Is this a first timer in the history of warfare? The US is either very confident in the fortitude of it's troops or very foolish, or just doesn't care about them. Have we entered an age where war has become more political than combat (except for the men that do the real fighting and dying) ?

 

OK, I can accept that. But what would FDR or Churchill have done? Stalin we know no one would have dared joke. Last night I saw "Good Morning Viet Nam" again. Corhauer was transfered for his attitude also, but away from the front and only by lower command. Are these just personalities at play or can we say that on some level it reflects the regime?

 

I think that such a reaction was typically for Hitler. He set his own person high on a podium and made it untouchable. So any form of disrespect wasn´t accepted. And yes it can be seen as a mirror of the regime. It was a " Follow and serve me, or you´re in my way" Regime.
Winston Churchill´s or Roosevelt´s reaction would have been a direct laugh or a internal one but nothing bad i suspect.

 

Air Commodore William Helmore

As senior scientific adviser to the Chief of Air Staff from 1939, Helmore was chiefly concerned with defeating the night bomber. Helmore worked on the development of the Helmore/GEC Turbinlite was a 2,700 million candela (2.7 Gcd) searchlight fitted in the nose of a number of experimental radar equipped Douglas Havoc night fighters by the British during the early part of World War II and around the time of The Blitz. The light was intended to be used to illuminate attacking enemy bombers for defending fighters accompanying the Havoc to then shoot down. Unfortunately certain practical difficulties brought the idea to nothing, but much of his work was subsequently incorporated in the Leigh light, an antisubmarine aircraft searchlight, which with the aid of radar was particularly deadly to Admiral Doenitz’s U-Boats.

William Helmore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

"At the beginning of the war inventors were a decided nuisance.In the first few weeks, the Admiralty was getting more than 1,000 letters a day suggesting war-winning inventions. Some 25,000 were received on the magnetic mine alone."

From " Britain´s war machine" by David Edgerton

 

" In early 1941 it was envisaged that British jet fighters would be operational in the winter of 1942-43. A jet engine factory at Barnoldswick in Lancashire costing £1.5m and employing 1,600 workers was ready before the engine, resulting in a serious waste of resources in 1942."

From " Britain´s war machine" by David Edgerton

 

Never thought it this way:

Mannerheim = Answer to the question "Who is the only RKT whose face appears on a United States postage stamp?"

 

Second World War Books Review

The Replacement Army in the spring of 1944 delayed the formation of new divisions that Hitler certainly would have promptly sent to the front. Instead, it concealed about 600,000 men in a variety of noncombat units, including Schatten (shadow) divisions formed to rebuild battle-worn divisions in the future.

In the five months from February to June 1944 the Replacement Army created only four Schatten divisions and five occupation divisions.

After the coup failed to kill Hitler and the plotters were eliminated from their command positions, a massive number of new divisions were created in a few short months from the ample supply of manpower previously held back. In late July and August, with Hitler back in control, the Replacement Army created forty-eight infantry divisions and nine Schatten divisions in six weeks. The culmination of this rebuilding effort was the assembly of two panzer armies in the Ardennes that dealt the Americans a stunning blow in December 1944.

In view of the rapid rebuilding of the German army in August of 1944 after the conspirators had been removed, there is little question that replacements had been available and that additional divisions could have been formed earlier. These omissions culminated in an earlier end of the war in Europe, to the benefit of all countries involved.